Free Press (Malayalam magazine)

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Free Press was a short-lived but well-attempted and widely circulated, monthly magazine in Malayalam language published from Delhi between 2003 and 2006. At 23, Vinod K. Jose became one of the youngest editors-in-chief 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, the political editor declared in a public announcement that the magazine could not sustain itself anymore and declared its closure.

References

^ "Scholarship Winners 2008". Foreign Press Association of New York. 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Sarai Report on Media Censorship (2006)". National Confederation of Human Rights Organizations (NCHRO). 21 February 2006. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
^ "For a Free Press". The Mean Time. 20 July 2005. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
^ "Attack on Geelani: editor questioned", The Hindu, 3 April 2005, archived from the original on 6 April 2005, retrieved 20 May 2013
^ For A Free Press

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