What is News Marina?
A media literacy project that documents The Chennai Emailer's progress. Also find interviews of journalists, creators and essays on media trends.
Yes, it's me again! I hope you are doing well. If you are wondering where the heck I have been, or if you even wonder how did I manage to get into your email, here’s a quick recap: buckle up!
I am Mohammed Rayaan and I am a journalist from Chennai, India. I started this newsletter The Chennai Emailer as part of the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program by Craig Newmark J-School at the City University of New York.
💌It is a local journalism project from Chennai that brings out original human interest features and news compilation. The idea is to keep residents of this exciting city stay updated with useful local information and also instill the joy of reading inspiring stories. If you remember all this, then a huge hug from me.. no seriously!
While I may have left this newsletter on the side, I never left journalism — I continue to write for The Hindu BusinessLine. Since my last post in November, I explored different mediums like podcasting which I am happy about (I still have loads to learn but I am glad I stepped out of my comfort zone). I got a chance to interview William Dalrymple about the Jaipur Lit Fest, speak to an expert on artificial intelligence about ChatGPT, and if Substack could be the next Twitter.
A few days ago, my friend from the CUNY program Ambreen Ali, who runs the newsletter Central Desi (news by and about South Asians in New Jersey), wrote how hard it is to manage a solo project. It felt as if she wrote this for me.
She said: “I have been dreading writing this post, but it's time to be real with you. 2023 has been off to a very draining start for me. I am over-committed and in desperate need of prioritizing the work that suits my needs at the moment.”
Ambreen also wrote a short essay on “3 lessons in community journalism”. Her newsletter made me sit down and write this post. (Thanks, Ambreen! 😊Psst! Do subscribe to her newsletter here)
I have decided to prioritise and start focusing on what I can truly offer for The Chennai Emailer community. During my survey, when I was building this newsletter, I found that many of you wanted to read about local businesses and entrepreneurs.
Thus, every Sunday, you will be reading quick Q&A-styled interviews. And to maintain consistency, I came up with a simple solution: In January, I spent my weekends interviewing interesting people from Chennai and I now have a bank of articles ready to be released from the next week. That’s it! I can now focus on weekly news curation and building an audience on Instagram.
What is News Marina?
The idea for this newsletter came up when I was listening to ‘Startup’ podcast by Gimlet Media; when Alex Blumberg decided to create a podcast company, he recorded his journey from day one. I got excited to build something similar and thus the idea for News Marina was born.
News Marina is a media literacy project that documents The Chennai Emailer's progress. You can also find interviews of journalists, creators and essays on digital media trends.
The idea is to bring you a ‘behind the scenes’ view of creating this platform. I hope to write once a week. I will also be interviewing journalists and digital creators who are making meaningful content that informs a community and sparks real-life positive action.
So that’s it for today. Soon, I will be sharing a quick note on my time at Splice Beta; the lessons I learned, and what’s next for me. Until then, see you!