Madhyamam Daily

"Madhyamam" is a Malayalam daily newspaper established in 1987 . The name "Madhyamam" comes from a Malayalam word "madhyamam" which is the translation of "media". Madhyamam has its core readership in the Malabar Muslim community. Madhyamam now has seven editions across the state of Kerala with am impressible readership. Apart from the daily edition, Madhyamam also publishes "Madhyamam Weekly". An expatriate edition called "Gulf Madhyamam" is published from Bahrain, Doha, Dubai, Dammam and Kuwait.Madhyamam is run by the Ideal Publications Trust, which aims at providing non-partisan and value-based journalistic service beyond considerations of profit and the demeaning compulsions of the market. The newspaper is backed by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Kerala Halqa. Its policy emphasises the need for the media to rise above sectarianism and market-driven profiteering pressures that have beset the post-Independence Indian journalism. It calls for lending voice to the voiceless majority in the society.

The opening of the paper was a landmark in Malayalam journalism. Madhyamam set new trends in news content, advertisements, visuals and social commitment.Madhyamam began its journey in 1987. At Silver Hills near Calicut, it was inaugurated by Kuldip Nayar, veteran Indian journalist. Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, the doyen of modern Malayalam literature, saw in it the birth of a silver star. A prophecy that lent substance to the evolution of the paper. The paper was led in its infancy by luminaries like K C Abdullah, P K Balakrishnan and K A Kodungallur.

The Ideal Publication Trust

Madhyamam is run by the Ideal Publications Trust, which aims at providing non-partisan and value-based journalistic service beyond considerations of profit and the demeaning compulsions of the market. Its policy emphasises the need for the media to rise above sectarianism and market-driven profiteering pressures that have beset the post-Independence Indian journalism. It calls for lending voice to the voiceless majority in the society.

The opening of the paper was a landmark in Malayalam journalism. Madhyamam set new trends in news content, advertisements, visuals and social commitment. Sixteen years down the line, it can boast of achievements that are not small. It was with a lot of hope and greater apprehension that Madhyamam set out on a course that appeared too ambitious to scale. Hope, because a need for value-based journalism was keenly felt in Kerala, and there were a great number of readers who wanted something more than the incomplete and prejudiced half-truths that normally get touted as news in much of the mainstream media. And apprehension, because the challenges and the competition were forbidding. Madhyamam has in its own small way moulded the reading habits of the discerning Malayali readers, setting the agenda for serious debates through its editorials, features and its Weekly.

Impacts – slow but steady

Madhyamam has already made its presence felt. It turned the scale against financial frauds like goat farms and mangium farms, exposed the powerful liquor lobby and manipulative trade practices like network ‘chains’ and usurious institutions. It brought into public attention the travails of marginalized sections like the Adivasis and the Dalits. It has also stood in the forefront of environmental causes, and exposed how the industrial giant Grasim in Mavoor near Kozhikode was squeezing the neighbouring villages dry, till the polluter finally had to close down. Madhyamam has also withstood the current trend of sensationalism. It has resisted the tendency to portray women in titillating photos. It has turned down advertisements worth crores because they went against financial honesty or women’s dignity. Madhyamam set a new trend of covering world affairs in greater detail. Its coverage of the Gulf War of early 1990s, the Afghan tragedies during the USSR invasion and later the US invasion, the September 11 attack and the consequent attacks, the US-British war efforts and a great many others, informing the readers about the issues involved and helping for a pacifist and humanitarian attitude – even when it meant alienating powerful establishments.

Values that inspire

Journalism in Kerala is beset with the vices it faces elsewhere too. The press is rapidly getting commercialised; the papers cater to vested interests, shameful tendencies and an all-out dependence on advertisements that become more vicious by the day. But Madhyamam has been able to prove that a paper can be financially viable, that it can flourish without sentimental sob stuff or the lure of profit cards or insurance schemes or encroachments on women’s honour. Marketing strategies like these presume that readers are an easy target and can be manipulated. What Madhyamam offered to the readers is none of these, but the sheer value of unbiased news, the credibility of its contents and the integrity of its stand. When the media pander to the aristocratic or ruling class, they forfeit their credibility. Their overindulgence in power politics makes them vulnerable to vicious influences. When they mix news with views the educated readers have reason to distrust the entire news industry. A profit-driven media culture vitiates both itself and the society.

Madhyamam may not have made a revolution in this field. But it has proved that ethics are not only possible in journalism, but are viable too. While growing into a number of editions in record time, it has also kept within the limits of journalistic discipline both in editorial content and advertisements. The society certainly needs a paper that will, as Madhyamam has endeavoured to do, stand up to the evils in the society even at the cost of crores of rupees in advertisement revenue. In a highly competitive environment Madhyamam has dared to reject every month advertisements worth lakhs of rupees, because they seek to promote fraudulent financial practices, or present women in undignified ways, or publicise evils like alcoholic drinks, cigarettes, money chains, gambling and speculation, usurious ‘blade’ companies, goat farm frauds and the like. This is possible on the one hand because Madhyamam is run by a Trust that need not make a profit, but also because of the support it has received from the reading public. People are ready to back a venture like Madhyamam because they feel it is necessary.

Madhyamam believes that journalism, like any other human endeavour, must distinguish between right and wrong. A newspaper must also give generous space to dissenting voices, and hold aloft the model of value-based journalism. God willing, it will continue to tread the same path. We would ask you to pray for Madhyamam, and to offer us your valuable suggestions. It has proved a turning point in Malayalam journalism. It has to survive as the voice of the voiceless.It has fought the divisive tendencies in the society, and exposed the superstitions that keep the doors open for exploitative forces.

A journey forward

The growth of Madhyamam in quantitative terms and in qualitative terms has been impressive. A mere decade and a half into publication, it has grown into six editions – at Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kannur, Malappuram and Bangalore besides Kozhikode, and two overseas editions for Gulf Madhyamam, at Bahrain and Dubai.

Madhyamam Weekly is one among the most influential periodicals in Kerala, providing in-depth reports of social issues. It has brought into focus many political, cultural and literary issues that concern the society. In an explosive scoop, Madhyamam Weekly exposed the truth behind the death of the Naxalite leader Varghese, a truth that had been misrepresented by the establishment in collaboration with the mainstream media. Through this exposé, and the consequent official probe, it was able to show how an unarmed leader of Adivasis was brutally done to death by the police and later alleged to have died in an encounter. Madhyamam Weekly has, since its launch in 1998, set the terms for informed debates within the society, firmly positioned on the side of the common and deprived people. It has reshaped the reading habits of the Malayali by focusing on real issues instead of the sensational sob-stuff and soft porn carried by the mainstream media.

Madhyamam Annual is a cultural event accepted by the discerning Malayali for its informed discussion of issues that matter, as well as for its variety.

Recently Started Editions

Gulf madhyamam statrted 3 new editions in Kingdome of Saudi Arabia ( Riyadh, Jedda and Dammam)in the year 2007. By this The number of editions that in gulf countries has become 7. Now Gulf Madhyamam is the most circulatd forign newspaper in Gulf countriesFact|date=January 2008.trichur edition is not seen anywhere which has been started recently it seems.

External links

* [http://www.madhyamamonline.in Madhyamam online edition]