Edit/Op-Ed

A Little Beyond Its Birth! BeyondHeadlines is 8 Today…

BeyondHeadlines (BH) is 8 years old today. TEAM BH expresses its gratitude towards all its readers, appreciators and critics who have shown their confidence in BH and its intention of bringing a positive change in the society for a constructive future ahead. It wouldn’t have been possible without your immense support, love and faith in BH. 

It has provided us with a very different approach of perceiving things which is a journey in itself. BH was our baby in 2011 but more than how we have nurtured it in this span, let’s say it has done that to us. When Afroz Alam Sahil and Mohammad Reyaz started it in 2011, it was not easy to talk about a change but we believed that it was not that difficult either. 

We knew that we through BH were choosing a challenging way ahead to re-bring the concept of unbiased journalism by providing information and analysis which the mainstream media have chosen to ignore. Although it didn’t look easy then but we made a space for us in no time.

BH is an attempt to report a cause aright. We thrive to remain unaffiliated, non-leaning and out of the number line – reporting non-biased, straightforward stories from where all the games happen. 

Our philosophy is to remain independent and unhindered by choosing our non-influencing advertisers, by taking contributions from the public whose matter we report and by making sure what we deliver is ground breaking. 

Our approach has never been about creating the ‘hit news’. But the whole idea was to generate the ‘sensitized news’, to raise the voice of the ‘unheard’.

Our stories have created a much-needed social change in terms of waqf properties, education, scholarships etc– the untouched areas that really matter and affect thousands of lives.

BH’s focus on local events, alternative analysis and RTI exposes have proved it a great source for national and international stories, it has reported a number of around seven thousand posts. 

BH has been cited by almost all leading publications and media houses in India. In most of the gatherings we have catered till date, people often came up with questions of concern that how were we doing it? Wasn’t it becoming a threat by every passing day that our unbiased approach of reporting the facts and presenting them was leading us to stand against many of the powerful people of the nation? 

Well, we replied with smiles that the shine of trust for BH in their eyes is the biggest strength which kept us going. BH has always stood for inclusive growth, social & financial inclusion, capacity building, human rights, communal harmony, democracy in belief and practice, freedom of press, transparency & accountability in government and sustainable development.

This process of the last 8 years has been two-way. More than we thought that we will connect with you by our reports and updates on the issues happening around, your critical and positive replies have connected us to you and that is the reason, our section ‘Mango Man’ on the website was noticed and appreciated at first sight. This section gave an opportunity to our readers to write their own quality articles and experiences. 

Your reverts and letters of appreciation have empowered us to move ahead without any fear or doubt in mind.

Vision of BH:

BH was started with a vision to report things in the best unbiased way possible which the mainstream media avoids for many political and financial reasons, willingly or unwillingly. Through BH we tried to raise the voice of the oppressed section of the society.

An initiative, which in no time, connected our readers as one of the biggest virtual family online. We did not serve any particular individual, religious group, political party or business interest. 

We have remained non-partisan and have not received any funding from any corporate organization. Our aim is to be the voice of the mango people. 

Our ‘objectives’ and ‘expectations’ from BH:

Establishing BH had many objectives, which are being achieved every passing day. BH team always believed that it is a never ending process. We tried to pursue the issues with a different perspective. Our prime objectives have always revolved around the idea of ‘inclusive growth’, ‘social & financial inclusion’, ‘capacity building’, ‘human rights’, ‘communal harmony’, ‘democracy in belief and practice’, ‘freedom of press’, and ‘transparency & accountability in government’ which leads towards the sustainable development of  our society.

Nowadays, when most of the mainstream media houses including print and TV publish only the paid-news to influence people. This approach sidelines their crucial responsibility towards society. Hence these media houses end up cultivating the ideology which is quite virtual in terms of its existence since it’s a created one and not something which really exists. For example, we could see the image of Muslims, portrayed mostly as ‘terrorists’, worldwide.

How our approach for reporting differs:

Everyone is busy in his/her day to day lifestyle yet they want to know about the proceedings performed so we tried to connect people through our reports, informing them, what happened after what… Through filing RTI petitions for many cases and through the received answers, this model of spreading information has turned out to be a great success.

We reported a range of stories from terrorism to poverty, from communalism to corruption, from universities like JNU, JMI, AMU, BHU to different schools from across the country, from human rights to the issues related to the environment and from health issues to youth empowerment practices in the nation.

We emphasize more onto the follow-ups rather than just reporting anything.

Despite being a small media house entirely run by voluntary donations, BH has achieved incredible popularity and has reached to more than 25,000 unique readers with every passing day, who spend a considerably long time browsing through our stories and revert with sensible suggestions and feedbacks.

Becoming more than a platform of ‘public media’:

Yes, we did! We have been able to mobilize some support in the form of money and other attention from our policymakers, academics, and activists. Raising funds for the operation of a child patient suffering from a disease called Aplastic Anaemia or helping a deprived girl to attend the United Nations Conference.  Our readers have come ahead from time to time and helped with their donations for these people in need. This journey has also made us realize the power of community which could be created and connected easily with some right directions involved.

We understand that the news market is more crowded than ever, but we strive not to become a click-driven media. The mainstream media have often picked up our stories from the ground. We are happy as long as we are doing ethnic and objective journalism, and are able to contribute to improving our society. We have a diverse readership that ranges across the spectrum of age, gender, belief, geography, class, and religion.

We would like to share with our readers that we are running BH with a lot of financial difficulties, therefore, we appeal you to kindly donate some amount for BH so that we keep up our reporting and bring more in-depth information to you. No amount is small, you can donate here.

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