editorial A little over two years ago, two former Sun journalists with the help of a self-taught webmaster put together an online news website. For such a high-tech endeavour, the website was surprisingly low-tech.

Almost everything then was done manually not really a problem when there were only a few hundred items on the website, but it eventually got unwieldy with 20,000 or so news stories. And that is exactly how much content malaysiakini has produced since its launch.

Technological problems aside believe me, there were many simply doing our job as journalists was no drive in the park either.

"Who? Malaysia-kidney?" was one of the many responses we received from those we sought to interview.

How on earth could a handful of journalists even begin to cover the news that matters? The answer is: with great difficulty. And yes, access to policy-makers was near impossible. This was made worse after a government ban was slapped on malaysiakini.

Cowboy outfit

It is remarkable then that a 'cowboy outfit' like malaysiakini gets to where it is today. It now registers 100,000 visitors a day, putting it in the league of the major dailies in Malaysia.

All this, without spending a single sen on publicity and marketing, and with a team of overworked and underpaid journalists.

It goes without saying that the past two years have indeed been a constant struggle.

We scrapped through the first year on the back of strong advertising sales, thanks to the dotcom boom. This was followed just as quickly by the dotcom bust and we had to diversify our income by launching Strategic Analysis Malaysia, a political consultancy service for a selected group of clients. This is augmented by software sales developed by our technology arm, Kinitech.

This year, to further spread our sources of income, we have launched a subscription scheme. Over the past few weeks, we have signed up close to 1,000 subscribers. The target: 10,000 by year-end.

Our business model is simple. Never rely on one single source of income. Clearly, we would be left for dead when it dries up.

Foreign investment

Apparently, our relative success in keeping ourselves afloat on a shoestring budget when others have tried and failed drew the attention of a number of international venture funds.

After a year of painstaking negotiation, malaysiakini on Thursday inked a RM1.3 million deal with the Media Development Loan Fund a RM80-million international venture fund which has offices in New York, Prague and Hong Kong.

In return, MDLF has 29 percent stake in the company. On our part, we have access to additional capital to make malaysiakini a real global player in Internet media.

No, you're not going to see offshoots of malaysiakini in other countries. Not anytime soon. Indeed, our goals are far more modest. We hope to export some of our technology and solutions which we have developed over the past two years to the 30-odd countries which MDLF is active in.

Take, for example, our e-coupon idea. MDLF is particularly interested in this innovative payment system which offers peace of mind for Internet shoppers. You pay upfront at your local store and use it as a credit to sign up for online subscriptions without having to worry about, say, credit-card fraud.

Indeed, e-coupon is no rocket science we were driven to develop the idea to solve our own subscription payment problem.

The e-coupon solution can now be exported to other countries, especially Third World nations in Asia, Africa and Latin American where MDLF has partners and where credit cards are not widely available. E-coupon will also give purchasing power to those students and the underprivileged who do not normally have access to credit cards.

Editorial independence

But you may ask, will the foreign investment affect malaysiakini's editorial policy?

Zilch, yes, let me say it again, zilch.

Mindful of possible intervention from investors whether local or foreign malaysiakini has signed, as a condition of the investment, an agreement with MDLF which clearly stipulates that the website's editorial policy will remain in the hands of journalists.

Clearly, malaysiakini has no intention to abandon its mission which it embarked on since it went live in Nov 1999. It shall remain independent and non-partisan. This means we do not support any political party.

That, however, doesn't mean we are apolitical. Malaysiakini will remain deeply engaged on issues such as press freedom, human rights, good governance, anti-corruption, independence of the judiciary and democracy. We make no apologies for that.

Not everyone will agree with our decision to sell a stake to a foreign partner. It wasn't an easy decision for us, too. However, we have carefully examined all our options and we believe this is the right move.

The struggle for an independent press in Malaysia will go on. This can only succeed if we have the means to be financially independent. True, there will be minefields which we must negotiate as we continue our perilous journey. But doing nothing is not an option. Nor is giving up.