Tag: Media

Our friend Akshar Patel, JUMP: Going Full-Time on The Emissary:

It’s been a long time coming. When I finished university in 2014, I didn’t know what I really wanted to do. From the beginning, I never really enjoyed the usual office 9 to 5 life. Eventually, though, I became domesticated. It was a steadily growing income. It brought stability. Life was chill. But I always wanted more, especially in terms of mental stimulation and passion (I was essentially an Excel monkey for most of my career).

…

I seek to be a barbarian at the gates. Before, I wanted a sprawling organization like Vox or Vice. An alternative mega-media brand. But now, I think the best approach is putting in the work solo and soon constructing a small team to really shake up the landscape, especially considering the blooming leverage of AI. This doesn’t mean a band of barbarians sacking existing media houses. I don’t view the media space as necessarily zero-sum. More Indians, and indeed all humans, are getting online than ever. A massive opportunity opens up as a New India emerges in the world. I want to tell and explore its stories. Indeed, unlike the Great Firewall of China, the Indian internet is relatively free and takes advantage of the tremendous cyber-sea of commerce and content.

He truly does have a unique voice, I’m excited for him.

I am not a media person, so I do not understand the deal with AJPlus and its “woke” journalists.

AJPlus is owned by the Al Jazeera Media Group, which is a catspaw of the government of Qatar. Qatar is a Salafi petrostate run for the benefit of the Thani family and is run like a capitalist caste state. I’ve been to Qatar. It’s a fine place if you have money, but perhaps less fine if you one of the laboring classes.

I don’t begrudge Sana Saeed for making a living, but I doubt she would begrudge herself that opportunity if she was on the outside looking in.

The world is complicated. I dislike engaging in guilt-by-association but woke journalists at AJPlus do it constantly. It’s like they don’t see the glasshouses that they live in.