Twelve months ago, to this day, MediaNama went live with an interview that many still consider the most important story we’ve done till date, bringing to light, some key issues related to the ads-for-equity deals. Just a few days before we went live, a senior industry executive had asked me how the “new site” is going to be different from the rest, and for a while, I was stumped. The truth of the news business is that breaking news attracts readers, and that for a journalist, the battle to break news is a drug: thrilling and addictive. Yet, once the news is out, it becomes a commodity and is replicated – often without due credit – across the web, TV and print.

Our mandate has been to bring more depth to the coverage of the telecom and digital media business – whether with analysis, by digging up more inputs, or crunching data. We will become increasingly granular in our appoach, and continue to focus on emerging domains of importance that many others tend to ignore. We want to be the publication you turn to for getting a deeper and sharper understanding of evolving content and carriage ecosystem and the issues that afflict it.

We are also walking a thin line – by reporting from within the ecosystem, rather than outside of it, we face certain unique challenges: many of you have gone out of your way to explain to us and share proof related to the situations that persist. At the same time, we’ve been warned by some of you that by writing about malpractices we just might alienate our core constituency. Each time, we have remained fiercely independent, and will continue to do so, but always – always – remain open to criticism. Your expectations of us are key, and we will be better tomorrow than we are today, because of you, our readers.

As we enter year two, we will focus on monetization and face many challenges that come with it. One issue that we will face is of expectations of editorial to be favorable to advertisers. That will never happen: for us, the editorial space is sacrosanct. Yes, there is a business plan, but at the core of it, we are journalists and our content defines us: we are and will remain inherently skeptical, and hopefully, our skepticism will help bring to light inputs and information that will help this ecosystem become sustainable: we hope to set the standard, and continue helping you make better business decisions.

Please do give us feedback – blog, leave a comment, tweet, send us an email (nikhil or preethi AT medianama DOT com). Above all, do tell us how we can improve, what you’d like us to cover and which sectors we should explore. If we’ve done something right, a little appreciation would make it all worth the effort.

On a personal note: It’s been a short year of long days, and I’d like to thank Preethi, Rakesh and Anmol for their efforts. Preethi brought a fresh perspective as well as a dose of infectious enthusiasm. Many thanks to my family and friends (both from within the industry and outside of it), who’ve helped me through this year, with advice, suggestions, criticism (often severe), code and truckloads of goodwill. You know who you are. And what a year it’s been…

Co-incidentally, our friends at WATblog have turned three today. Best wishes to Rajiv & co. My alma mater, that institution called “paidContent“, turned seven in June 12. Best wishes to Rafat, Staci & co.