THE Lesotho Times will officially mark its first anniversary at a local hotel in Maseru tomorrow night.
The belated ceremony, which will also serve as our official launch, is meant to celebrate our achievements over the past 13 months.
We will be the first to admit that it has not been an easy journey. The road has been a bumpy and treacherous one.
But in spite of the immense challenges associated with newspaper publishing we have soldiered on without let-up.
The Lesotho Times opened its doors on 1 April last year with 30 employees. Out of the original team only three were expatriates.
Setting up newspapers has always been a tricky business worldwide. This has been true of us at the Lesotho Times.
We are happy to say 13 months after we opened our doors we are now firmly on the road to consolidation.
Our readership has steadily grown. Our circulation has also increased.
For a newspaper that has been on the market for slightly over a year we have not done badly.
We owe such success to our loyal readers and advertisers. They have supported us in a hostile environment that has seen some newspapers teeter on the brink of collapse.
It is for this reason that we say: Thank you.
We acknowledge the diversity and plurality of voices on the Lesotho media scene.
Our humble role as a new baby is to complement what is already on the market.
We believe in fair competition. We want to see a multiplicity of voices competing on the marketplace of ideas.
These are certainly exciting times for the media in Lesotho.
We acknowledge that there are still immense challenges for us as a new entrant on the market.
Key among these is improving our national coverage as well as the general quality of journalism.
We want to assure our readers and advertisers that we are working flat out to address these challenges.
Soon we will unveil a revamped Lesotho Times that will address these challenges.
The Lesotho Times is a privately-run business with no links to any political party in the country.
We are neither pro-government nor anti-government.
We therefore want to assure our readers that we will continue to provide a no-holds barred platform for fierce debate on pertinent issues affecting Basotho.
We want to assure you that we can only improve and will improve.
