'A magazine like this was always a bit of a long shot': After nearly nine years, Fountain Ink shuts down

Fountain Ink, the Chennai-based longform monthly magazine, has shut down after nearly nine years. The magazine's final issue, its 101st edition, is dated March 2020.

In his editor's note, editor Saurav Kumar wrote: "A magazine like this was always a bit of a long shot in terms of commercial viability. The distribution systems and broken and a drain on resources, getting advertisements is a mug's game, and year on year, even on the leanest of setups, costs can go only one way -- up."

Fountain Ink started in November 2011. Its stories have won 18 awards. Kumar's editor's note also mentioned the magazine's former reporter, Arpit Parashar, who died in December 2017.

In 2015, the magazine broke the story of Harjit Masih, one of 40 Indian workers kidnapped by ISIS. Masih escaped while the other 39 survived, and the story quoted a representative from the Ministry of External Affairs as saying there was no "proof of life". Sushma Swaraj, then the external affairs minister, insisted to the media and families of those kidnapped that the 39 Indians were alive. Swaraj only confirmed their deaths in 2018.

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