MDIF is pleased to announce that six new digital media outlets from South and Southeast Asia have joined Amplify Asia, our business capacity-building coaching program for media in the region that has been running since 2019. This will bring the number of participating outlets in this program to 19. The expansion comes at a time when media outlets are facing increasing challenges to remain independent and sustainable.
“We’re excited to be expanding our program so we can work intensively with additional independent media to build their audiences and increase their financial sustainability,” said MDIF’s Asia Program Director, Tessa Piper. “It’s as challenging a time as ever, but our media partners provide audiences with a rare source of reliable information and we want to help them go from strength to strength in doing so.”
The six new Amplify Asia program participants are:
Hazara Express news – a four-year-old independent digital news platform from the Hazara division of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The platform focuses on reporting on local news at a time when most independent broadcast and print media in this area have shut down because of falling revenues, while those that have survived are dependent on political or commercial entities for their survival.
Raftar is a digital platform from Karachi, Pakistan that produces explainers and podcasts in Urdu and focuses on in-depth and long-form journalism. A comparatively new entrant to Pakistan’s digital news scene, founded in 2022 Raftar has distinguished itself through the quality of its news and current affairs content at a time when mainstream media is seeing restrictions being imposed on their content.
Two-year-old Bollo.id is a small Indonesian-language digital news outlet that focuses primarily on environmental issues as well as women and marginalized groups in the province of South Sulawesi. It does so through in-depth reporting that often covers topics that otherwise go unreported. This makes them a rare local media in Indonesia, where small media outlets are seldom willing or able to address sensitive issues like gender and sexual diversity or freedom of religion and belief.
Ekuatorial has been in operation for the past decade, producing in-depth, well-researched, long-form reporting on environmental issues impacting Indonesia, among them forestry, marine affairs, climate crisis and biodiversity. There are few media outlets in Indonesia, or even in Asia, that exclusively produce high-quality environmental reporting that incorporates data journalism and investigative skills and that publish both in Indonesian and English.
Newsgraphy is an online data journalism news outlet from Malaysia founded a year ago that publishes data stories on politics, social affairs and environmental issues. It is published entirely in Mandarin, the third most commonly spoken language in Malaysia, and is the first independent news outlet in the country dedicated to producing simple to understand, data-rich content targeting young Mandarin speakers.
Kalam Media produces a newsletter in English that summarizes key political developments in Nepal and provides subscribers with an in-depth nuanced analysis of one topical issue each week. With 130 editions published to date, the newsletter has quickly grown in popularity both with urban Nepalis and the Nepali diaspora as well as English speaking foreigners living and working in the country.
These six new participants will join thirteen existing media partners in Amplify Asia: Bandung Bergerak, konde.co, NU Jabar Online, and Project Multatuli, all from Indonesia; Himal Southasian, a regional outlet; Luật Khoa Magazine from Vietnam; Pakistan Press International (PPI) and The Centrum Media (TCM) from Pakistan; Faqcheck from Malaysia; Davao Today and PumaPodcast from the Philippines; and The Opener and The 101.world from Thailand.
About Amplify Asia
Amplify Asia strengthens independent media in the region through an innovative coaching program to build their business capacity and financial sustainability. It provides support to independent media from selected countries in South and Southeast Asia. If you are an independent media that meets the criteria and would like to be considered to join the program, please complete an application form.