On Monday, we say goodbye tothe red 'for subscribers' flags that marked our top journalism since weintroduced a subscription model at News24 in August 2020.
The little scarlet bannerserved its time. It sharply showed News24's firm intention to up our game withquality investigative, political and business journalism. Three years later, wehave the goods to show.
Over the past three years,our journalists like Kyle Cowan, Sipho Masondo, Carol Paton, Jeff Wicks andKaryn Maughan have unearthed scandal after scandal. Bosasagate,the EskomFiles, SSA declassified,Jacob Zuma's continuing dismantling of the justicesystem, the construction mafia, the Tembisa hospital tender scandal thatclaimed the life of Babita Deokaran, and the unravelling of Deputy PresidentPaul Mashatile - all of these stories were made possible by your subscriptionto News24.
From Monday, we will nolonger indicate which of our journalism stands out above the rest. All of itwill comply with our high standards of what constitutes quality journalism.Some breaking news pieces will remain free, while the bulk of our reportageremains exclusively available to subscribers.
The job of any journalistworth their salt is to answer these basic questions: Who? What? Where? When?And why? Without understanding the latter, a story can feel empty. It's the"why" that gives our stories meaning.
There comes a time when wemust all reevaluate our why and reassess the driving force behind our thoughts,attitudes and actions.
At News24, we are remindingourselves why we keep going in these often-grueling jobs as we prepare tocelebrate our 25-year milestone.
Of course, we couldnot have reached this significant anniversary without all 85 000 of you, whohave trusted us to take you beyond the basic reporting and bring you closer tothe truth.
And for that, ournewsroom is truly grateful.
Your subscription hasenabled our team to grow, to dig deeper and be bolder in our quest fortransparency and accountability. It has also empowered us to invest in projectsand events that shine the spotlight on the country's fixers, builders, andsolutions-seekers.
Over the past 25 years, we'vemade you laugh and cry, scream and shout.
We covered politicalbombshells, global disasters, pandemics, world records, diplomatic dramas andsporting triumphs.
We did this because we carrya deep love and passion for South Africa.
We truly believe in thiscountry, her people and its endless potential to be better.
Like you, we love SouthAfrica too much to be defeated by despair.
As we take stock ofwhat we've achieved in the past quarter-century, finetuning our offering tobring you even more meaningful reportage and investigations, we hope you findeven more value in your News24 subscription as we enter our exciting nextchapter.
Join us as we makesome small but salient upgrades to your News24 experience, celebrating how farwe've come and building on our plans for a better future.
We promise never tostop asking why. We promise to keep questioning everything.
Let's dig for theanswers and discover new meaning together.
Regards,
Adriaan
