5 Million Thank Yous

It brings great satisfaction and happiness to see this blog touching Five Million in total readership so far. The journey will continue. At the beginning of the year it touched 1.6 million in January 2013, therefore 3.4 million were added during the current year.

I have been often asked if the articles here make any difference to the MSM discourse. It might have made some difference or nothing but I have no measure of it. My attitude with the MSM on this has been “You do what you do best; I do what I do best”. When it started, the tagline was “Crooks and Liars in the Indian media are the greatest danger to our democracy”. I still stand by that line considering the variety of propagandists, peddlers of untruths and even anti-nationals who float around as media persons. But there is something that is more important and that is reflected in the current tagline. We may not have the power to change others but we do have the power to change ourselves by what we consume. It is easier to change ourselves than to change others.

Thus, when the time was right I changed the tagline to what this site represents. It’s not them but we who should be careful how we consume the news they deliver. It’s used like the statutory warning on cigarette packs. Most of the time the MSM content is not even news; it’s just opinions packaged as news. Some of it quite poisonous! Parents care what goes into the body of children as food and beverages. People should also care what goes into their heads. 2014 is an important election year and the MSM will raise its pitch in bogus campaigning and political propaganda. The final phase of their hunting season is just around the corner.

Many journalists do follow and read this blog and acknowledge the contents in private for obvious reasons. Most of all, many readers have now started their own blogs or websites to write about current affairs or topics close to their heart. I consider this one of the best outcomes from this blog. Consequent to requests by some readers I also had the chance to publish a compilation this year titled “Social media as watchdog”. Many sponsors have distributed it free to students and citizens in general to help see the MSM through another lens. During the year this also gave me the chance to address and interact with small groups in various places.

Readers of this blog and bloggers and writers elsewhere on the SM and also on Twitter, FB and other forums made it absolutely clear that the MSM does not have a monopoly on national discourse anymore. Those who have access to the net now watch the news but double-check for accuracy on the SM. Together we have made facts more important in the public domain than opinions and propaganda.

So once again, Thank You for reading, commenting, celebrating, suggestions, inputs, for sharing and spreading the word about this site. We celebrate for a moment and move on.