Hello subscription-khor Abhinandan (and rest of the team NL),

I am Rahul and I’m a subscriber. Earlier, I only used to follow Madhu madam’s shows but now I’ve realized that I have been listening in and writing a lot more since after becoming a subscriber.

I was going through the unheard podcasts from NL, when I chanced upon ‘Laughing matters’ done 3.5 years ago. I noted how you(Mr. Sekhri) and the classist, underachiever comedian friends of yours look down upon people like Raju Srivastava just because he doesn’t have an English language vocabulary that you guys have and he doesn’t speak in that fake accent from nowhere that Ms. Pal speaks in (btw, noticed her real voice when she said “kaun tha woh?” in the last Hafta at 27-28 minutes).
And it was coming from you, whose “Kachha chronicles” and “Tatte ke hair” jokes are, though funny, still a notch below what Raju does in his worst performance. This was nothing but elitism-from-a-communist at its best (AAP takers, anyone?).

That prompts me to come to my suggestion for your upcoming 100th Hafta. I think what NL does best is unabashed criticism of the contemporary media- so NL Hafta should go under the same knife  at its century. And as the most difficult form of criticism is self-criticism, you guys can compile a list of bloopers / LOL / WOW moments from your earlier podcasts and see if you’ve grown from what you were during your first episode. (I totally disagree with some of the opinions on Hafta 93 to disallow the comments on NL articles- you can’t be affected by the criticism, but one can’t improve by simply ignoring them).

Secondly, a message to all the armchair critics of demonetization drive by the present govt. I totally agree that it looks to be an not so well-planned action. 

But think of it, it is the first if its kind (‘most-disruptive action, in a positive sense’ in Ranga uncle’s words) against black money at this scale. Knowing the experience of Indian beaurocracy in handling even well-planned, but time-sensitive programs, it was doomed for failure in whatever way it was implemented. I am still glad that it was undertaken- the implementation of large-scale programs will only improve if we try undertaking them instead of just stalling them (like our numerous earlier govts did). 

If I may take some liberty of comparison here, its the same reason why I follow NL- it is still not the final product, but it is definitely evolving from a void of good quality independent news voice. Remember the “powder fiasco” in one of the earlier clothesline episodes? This is how all of us improve- by making mistakes. The govt is no different in that aspect.
(Also, it goes well with what Madhu ma’am says- “Never Do Nothing!”)

Thirdly, I want to place my 2 cents of a marketing suggestion (Disclaimer- I’m no marketing guru; just a poor doctor who knows only a little bit of medicine).
Many of my friends whom I tried to sell the idea of NL think that it is just some temporary online bitching forum in the ‘virtual’ world. People can’t seem to relate to virtual things as much as they can with the physical objects which for them, is a proof of something that exists. They look for something physical/material to be able to connect better to an idea. 

So, if I may suggest, you should start giving some small tokens of appreciation/mementos to the subscribers/people who follow you. For example, even a coffee mug with the brand insignia on it- inexpensive and practical, can lead to conversations about NL. And it is much easier for subscribers like us to sell your subscription to a person, if the interest has already been aroused in it by him/herself. 
Yeah, so that’s what I think about it. 

I hope you guys read and mull over the suggestions, even if you don’t read it on the podcast.

Good job, keep fighting.

Thanks,
Rahul Pandey.

Hey Newslaundry team, 

My name is Nidhi Anarkat; I am an education entrepreneur working with college students to help them improve their reasoning skills. I love your podcasts and work because: 

1. It provides me with news and its analyses without the drama and opaque biases and vested interests with which most other media houses report. 
2. I love the humour and collegiality that comes forth when listening to NL Hafta. When I am listening to Hafta I almost feel like I am having a conversation with all of you, rather than listen to you guys conversation which I think is a great feat from a content creation point of view. 
3. I believe that the meta discussions on NL Hafta can be super helpful to develop critical thinking skills of their listeners, which is completely missing from our curriculums, so I really appreciate your work even from an educator’s point of view.

All in all, thank you for improving the level of discourse in the country instead of adding a patch to the generally dumbing and non nuanced conversations that one finds on tv or even sometimes in print. 

I just subscribed (finally!) and want to make the following comments about the subscription experience: 

1. The information provided on “What’s included” for the different subscription packages is not too clear/ useful. I basically wanted to subscribe such that I can get access to the deep dive podcasts, but I was not clear which of the “What’s included” products means that. This had driven me away from the subscription page several times before as well (had also experienced the lack of payment options from US when I was there but now I am back so I no more face that issue).
2. I eventually chose the Rs 250 package and just subscribed but am still not sure if I have access to the deep dive podcasts because I can’t see that on the full list of podcasts (before signing in, the list of podcast was not even fully visible, which I think was a website design issue). Please help me get to those podcasts, looking forward to listening to them on my walks/ jogs (nl podcasts have become my standard listening material when walking jogging/ standing in lines :P) 
3. Payment through one of my cards just kept on processing – it would neither succeed nor fail which is not a good way to manage transactions by a payment gateway at all. It has to timeout at a certain point if it is not going through. 
4. Eventually made payment with another card – but even there, I experienced weird UI issues such as: payment screen switches when I changed tabs on my browser to go look for the OTP. It was confusing then find the button to go back to the screen where I could enter my OTP. 
5. There is no option for me to set up a recurring payment. It would be great to have that. 
6. It gave me an option to “proceed to payment” while my payment was being processed. Seems like a weird bug.  

All in all, the subscription experience, I believe, can be streamlined quite a bit. If this email is chosen to be read on Hafta, I don’t mind if the above feedback is not included in the reading as this is largely just for your feedback anyway because I believe the work nl team is doing is great and I would love to help increase subscriptions in any way that I can. Also happy to help nl hafta team to work with their engineers to streamline this (although I am sure that you guys have people looking into this already). 

Comments and requests on hafta content: 

1. So great to hear about the full disclosure statements that you make (from Abhinandan’s connection with AAP to Madhu’s connection to the ranbaxy case, etc.). It is amazing, the respect that you guys have for your listeners. 
2. A few Hafta’s earlier (probably Hafta 88), you guys talked about the importance of revisiting issues, in the context of the Dalit uprising in Gujarat. It was mentioned that an NL author had indeed revisited the issue after the Dalit protests to see how the protest ahas helped/ impacted their lives. Being from Gujarat I was so happy to hear that and went looking for the article desperately. However, I was saddened to see that the article only talked about the issue in a general sense – that is – how bad the situation for them is/ has been, etc. I would love to see an article that actually answers questions like “was their demand for land met? How does Anandiben’s removal imapact the protests? Have they resumed the work of cow’s skinning etc or are they still protesting? If they have resumed, why? Is it possible for them to stick to their pledge of not doing the traditionally Dalit marked jobs? ” etc.
3. I love the coverage that you guys have done on demonetisation. It has completely convinced me of Madhu’s if not everyone else’s non biases (although, I know, you guys don’t claim non-biases, you just claim transparency). But I am just commenting that I feel Madhu truly is non biased and I think that’s quite something. To appreciate when someone does something that looks good to you, despite the fact that you have in the past severely criticised a lot of what they have done takes a lot of guts. Especially when on air. I hope that more people in the country listen to your podcasts and wake up the idea of looking at all issues independently and not feel the pressure to either be “pro something or someone or be anti it” in a generic sense.
4.  It would be great if you could also cover following questions when talking about demonetisation next: “How was this kept a secret? Who all knew? Should more people have been kept in loop to have a better shot at implementation? Should the government/ Modi be blamed for the implementation issues or is it the bureaucracy and the banks who has/ had to rise to the challenge?”.
5. Last but not the least, I would love if education issues and policy updates are taken up once in a while on your podcasts (may be that is better suited for the deep dive podcasts). I have studied education from Harvard (yes, you can go ahead and make the same joke about educated people listening to the podcast, but I really hope that you won’t, its getting repetitive) and would love to contribute to what kinds of questions and issues I would like to hear being discussed, if needed. 

Abhinandan, I have to say this, your sense of humour and ownership of it while on air without being self conscious about it is extremely appreciable. Don’t think I would ever have the guts. I also really appreciate what you could say about “slitting throats for kids”. I don’t feel the same way or endorse the sentiment, but I appreciate the guts that it takes to own that up and explain that the way you did. 

The rest of the team, I deeply appreciated all your work as well, but I think I have written too much already, so will stop here. 

Looking forward to hear back from you and to continue to listen to your work. 

Regards,
Nidhi

Hello Team Newslaundy,

I’m an extremely grateful listener/subscriber of newslaundry. I am writing in to tell you how much I appreciate everything you do.

In an interview, Jimmy Whales the founder of wikepedia, was asked about why wikepedia does not have advertising. His answer was that no matter how hard you try, advertising would change the incentive of the organization. I’m conflicted about the crowdsourced model
Yes I do pay to keep news free, but I pay mostly because I agree with most of Newslaundy’s content. Pedaling the advertiser’s agenda is bad, but is pedaling the popular agenda any better? I do consider Newslaundy balanced and transparent, but I’d like to know what are the incentives that drive the organization. When you meet to decide if a certain story should be pursued, do you think about its impact on subscriptions?

Its been a joy watching Newslaundy grow and evolve in the last 4 years. When I discovered Newslaundy I used to live in Sweden, since then I’ve moved countries, changed professions and done some growing and evolving myself. I currently live and work in Bangalore, I love and sometimes hate this country. It breaks my heart to see elderly and handicapped people begging , and its my life’s mission to do something about it. I’m now trying to wrap my head around the crowdsource business model, and I’m learning from Newslaundy.

I wanted to keep this email short, but there is so much I want to tell you, mostly about how awesome you are as an organization and as individuals. I appreciate everything you do, Thank you.

If its possible, I request each of the hafta panelists to recommend one book each. Also, it would be great if you could have Akash Banerjee on the panel.

Thank You

Best Regards
Vinod Nicholas