Free Press (magazine)

Free Press was a short-lived but well-attempted and widely circulated, monthly magazine in Malayalam language published from Dehli between 2003 and 2006. At 23, Vinod K. Jose became one of the youngest editor-in-chiefs of any current affairs registered magazine in India when he started Free Press.[1] Free Press was the first publication to have initiated the concept of citizen journalism in Kerala.

Free Press was founded by Vinod Jose, while working as a foreign correspondent in South Asia for the United States based Pacifica Radio. Funding itself on readers' contribution, Free Press exhibited the idealism of a group of twenty young journalists, who came together to publish an investigative, non-partisan monthly in Malayalam published from Delhi, targeting the Malayalis in Kerala and the Malayali diaspora in other Indian states and abroad. Free Press was a registered magazine with the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) and sold 55,000 copies every month. Without spending any money on advertisement, Free Press gained the circulation through word-of-mouth campaign and conducting smaller events in Kerala.

Free Press investigations included: Reliance corporation and its contribution to India's black economy,[2] fake-encounter epidemic by Delhi Police, Intel meddling with the school curriculum in Kerala, industrialists "buying" rivers in Kerala, sex scandal of a Muslim League minister in Kerala. And the result was quick. Its office was raided.[3] The editor was interrogated.[4] Reporters were harassed and the distribution system was destroyed.[2] Printing presses in Delhi were forced to back off.[5] Free Press in 2005 was forced out of newsstands.[2]

In May 2006, Vinod K. Jose, editor-in-chief; V.H. Nishad, literary editor; V.M. Shaijith, principal correspondent declared in a public announcement that the magazine could not sustain itself anymore and declared its closure.

References

  1. ↑ "Scholarship Winners 2008". Foreign Press Association of New York. 2008. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
  2. 1 2 3 National Confederation of Human Rights Organizations (NCHRO) (February 21, 2006). "Sarai Report on Media Censorship (2006)". Retrieved 2013-05-23.
  3. ↑ "For a Free Press". The Mean Time. July 20, 2005. Archived from the original on 2005-07-20. Retrieved 2013-06-01.
  4. ↑ "Attack on Geelani: editor questioned", The Hindu, April 3, 2005, retrieved 2013-05-20
  5. ↑ http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-nuiman200705.htm

External links

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