The Morning Context's stories is journalism in the truest sense of the word
Given the importance of India on the global stage, The Morning Context's critical, unbiased coverage of businesses is important and valuable.
Ashish K. Mishra16 September, 2024
Why start anything from scratch?
Simply because what exists is broken and can be done better. That's why we started The Morning Context as a subscription-based financial publication in the autumn of 2019. Our belief back then which continues to guide everything we do till this day is that our journalism must exist to add value to readers for which they must be willing to pay. We don't write for advertisers, sponsors, sources, none of that. We write for our readers. This simple, true principle is the foundation of our newsroom and enterprise.
It has served us well. Every morning, The Morning Context publishes an eclectic mix of stories from the world of startups, stock markets and economic current affairs. These timely stories, few in number, are rich in research, depth and context. Our unique proposition where we focus on quality instead of quantity has brought us success. Today, the Morning Context is read by thousands of paying subscribers across the world, from India, to the Middle East, The United Kingdom, Singapore and the rest of the world.
Our stories are regularly featured in several international notable publications, including Bloomberg, The Financial Times, the BBC, and sometimes even in the research of hedge funds like Hindenburg Research.
Our choice of concentrating most of our efforts in covering businesses is deliberate. Economic activity led by businesses is the fabric of society which touches the lives of everyone including the state of the world we live in. So it becomes essential that these businesses are covered by serious practitioners and not cheerleaders.
This is why our stories report, question and explain the inside workings of companies for our readers, investors in these enterprises and regulators. Several large institutional investors, venture funds and some of the top regulators are all subscribers.
Here, I want to spend a little more time explaining what drives us.
Our Mission
The media landscape has long been dominated by legacy publishing houses, where speaking truth to power to businesses and the government has been ditched in exchange for easy access to advertising dollars. To make matters worse, these media companies are now caught in the vicious cycle where their business model has come crashing down, and they are out of sync with reader expectations. An outcome that manifests itself in the public's deep distrust of media companies.
This has created a unique opportunity for digital media companies like The Morning Context. An opportunity to go back to the origins of how good, honest journalism is done by speaking truth to power.
The existing news model is intrinsically skewed towards what the advertiser would like and what the powerful businesses/ government would want hidden. Because of this there is an information overload and a concurrent information gap that exists. Information gap means a less informed populace and by extension a more skewed one-sided narrative. Society and audiences are nudged to think in binaries and accept incomplete and incorrect facts.
My team and I believe there is a real chance at building a challenger to the legacy companies and regaining the important role of the watchdog that media companies were born to be. In its absence, the world stands weaker, and broken. It is this shared belief that unites most of my incredible team members.
Our Team
The Morning Context is published by Slowform Holdings Ltd, headquartered in The United Kingdom. The company is majority owned by its co-founders who are all journalists, with the small exception of Priya Bubna. Priya is the company's co-founder and the rare non journalist in the team. A chartered accountant, with a life spent in EY and BMR & Associates, Priya is the CEO and leads the business side of things in the company. Allow me to introduce you to everyone on the team.
Ashish K. Mishra
Co-Founder & Editor-in-chief
Ashish is the editor-in-chief of The Morning Context. One of the best-known business feature writers in India, he was selected for Germany’s Robert Bosch Stiftung Fellowship in 2012 and received the Mumbai Press Club RedInk certificate of recognition in 2015 for his story “Inside the Network 18 takeover”. Before joining The Morning Context, Ashish co-founded The Ken, where he was managing editor. ...
Our journey so far
October 2019
TMC starts with 3 longform stories a week, a weekly internet newsletter 'Things Change' and Shorts.
December 2019
- Moved to publishing: longform stories a week.
- Added two more newsletters - 'Oversize' on Big Tech, & 'Friction' on Corporate Governance in India.
February 2020
- Moved to publishing 6 stories a week.
- Added a fourth newsletter - Thirty-Six/ The Crucial Years - the only dedicated newsletter in India on environment and climate change.
March 2020
Opened our exclusive Slack community for subscribers.
April 2020
- Closed seed funding.
- Recipient of funding from the Google News Initiative APA Innovation Challenge.
November 2020
Launched our Innovative Starter and Privilege credits approach, our novel pay only for what you read model.
Jan - Feb 2021
- Rolled our special subscription plans for Students and Corporates.
- Launched gifting privileges for subscribers.
Mar - Apr 2021
- Launched our native iOS/ Android apps.
- Secured grant from 'Rainmatter Foundation' for our environment reportage.
Sep - Nov 2021
- Launched editorial products: Our formal 'Newsletter' product - an array of columns on diverse topics.
- Daily News Explainer - Yesterday that bookmarks the most important news of everyday. Launched.
- Raised our pre-Series A round with MDIF, Whiteboard Capital and other investors.
Feb - Apr 2022
- Selected for ICFJ’s first Elevate cohort, an accelerator for news startups.
- Started publishing 'News Briefs' breaking news.
- Opened Monthly + Two-Year subscription Plans.
August 2022
Our Daily Edition took shape.
Our investors
Since we started, we've raised equity funding over three rounds. First in 2020 which was our seed round, then in 2022 when we did our pre series round and again in 2024 when we closed our Series A investment round. Across all these rounds we have raised equity funding from a clutch of individuals and institutions. Their investment, mostly a small shareholding, has no impact on our editorial coverage.
Subscriber Testimonial
I read The Morning Context as it publishes insightful reportage and analysis that is focused on technology, business and trending issues in India.
Prashant Kumar
MD and CEO Yes Bank
The Morning Context has brought nuanced and in-depth reporting to the Indian startup ecosystem. Slice has been a paying subscriber to the publication for some time now and we look forward to the stories everyday.
Rajan Bajaj
Founder, Slice & Executive Director: North East Small Finance Bank
With most traditional media biased in one direction or another, The Morning Context has the courage to state hard hitting facts, which openly stands out from the crowd. Their in-depth reporting often covers both sides of a story, which is rare today.
Nikhil Kamath
Co-founder Zerodha
The Morning Context is unapologetically opinionated and that's what I like. I read it for things that others don't write about.
Sumeet Mehta
Co-founder and CEO LEAD
I enjoy reading the Morning Context. Its matter-of-fact reporting is refreshing and the deep analysis is informative. I also enjoy reading the newsletters that touch upon several topics.
Harsh Mariwala
Chairman
High quality, independent journalism is rare to find. The Morning Context set really high standards that make me wait for each story.
Abhay Pandey
Managing director
The Morning Context is one of the best reads available in India. It gives a bird’s eye view of all the business news and beyond at a brisk pace. Longreads is an interesting column that I look forward to. Kudos to the entire team for publishing brilliant content with in-depth analysis and keeping its readers well-informed about overall developments.
Dilip Oommen
Chief Executive Officer
“In a world full of noise, The Morning Context is the calm that stimulates and energises your mind, with stories focused on fact, truth and dogged reportage.”
Sajjan Jindal
Chairman
The Morning Context is in touch with the ground reality. It often validates our hypotheses about the direction startups and conglomerates are or will be taking.
Ankur Bisen
Senior Partner
Journalism in India has a crisis—crisis of credibility and crisis of capability. It bothers me both as a citizen and as a former journalist. I read The Morning Context because it’s journalism as it should be—thoughtful, credible and provocative. It doesn’t pull its punches but its journalists work hard enough to say with authority and honesty what must be said in public interest.
Uday Shankar
Director
One of the biggest casualties in recent times is the dearth of sources that you can trust for insights and analyses. Regrettably neutrality, objectivity and trust are no longer attributes that you can associate with all news media. The Morning Context hence comes as a breath of fresh air and something that I can trust, as they say, with my eyes shut.
Harish Mehta
Founder & EC
Our Editorial Code of Conduct
To ensure accuracy, integrity and credibility across The Morning Context newsroom, we hold ourselves (and everyone we work with) accountable to certain standards and journalistic practices. We call it the TMC Editorial Code. The fundamental purpose of this code is to ensure that our writers and contributors follow the highest standards of ethical journalism.The Morning Context editorial code applies to all reporters, editors and external contributors. All of them are expected to be familiar with this code; a violation may lead to disciplinary action.
read the full code
Why readers subscribe to The Morning Context
Our paying subscribers tell us that they read The Morning Context because it helps them stand out amongst their peers. At work, doing research or putting together business strategy and identifying opportunities. Whether they are running their own business, consulting, or working with startups or large corporations, in finance or fin-tech, marketing, government policy, venture funds or retail investors, academia and even students, our stories add value to their work. Or outside work, in holding their own in conversations about corporations, startups, stock markets and the global economy.
Readers are well exposed to the “everything is great” narrative, which is the staple of most media outlets, also stuff that is easy to pick up in meetings and industry conferences. They look to The Morning Context to deliver the real picture, for which there are very few trusted outlets. They’ve articulated this as their approach to build a balanced view of businesses and the economy.
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