TheCable @ one: A love note from the editor

Dear readers,

It is exactly one year that some of you converged on City Hall, Lagos, to witness the unveiling of TheCable. Filled as the hall was on the day, to describe those in attendance as “some” is our first acknowledgement – and gratitude – of the ease with which you, our darling readers, have accepted us.

While we will today be taking stock of how the first year of TheCable has unfolded and how quickly and efficiently we can deliver on our promises to you, we will not forget the love you have shown us from the first day. It has been far beyond our pre-launch expectations. We recall that the visitors who thronged our website on April 29, 2014, after the first few hours of the launch alone were so many that our site crashed momentarily. You did not abandon us thereafter; and if there is one challenge we will never overcome, it is how best to thank you.

We promised you knowledge-driven journalism in pursuit of Nigeria’s progress. We  told you that we were determined to be a top-class online newspaper rather than an aggregator or a blog, that our niche would be authoritative, in-depth reports and rigorous analyses that we would present in elegant style. We promised to help citizens and leaders in government and the private sector make informed decisions, to be creative and innovative, and to give excellent coverage to politics, business, entertainment, lifestyle and sport.

While a lot of indices prove that we are well on the path to realising these targets, we are under no illusion that we have arrived. We have not arrived and we doubt if a day will ever come when we say that we have. For every new day and every story we publish, we will put all our might and willpower into standing by our promises.

More than ever before, we are determined to continue making TheCable a voice for all; we will continue our tradition of impartiality and fairness to everyone, staying true to the tenets of our calling and guidance of our conscience.

Again, we thank all our friends and readers, particularly the many out there who tell us they start their day by reading TheCable and end it in similar manner; those who say their days are incomplete if they haven’t visited www.thecable.ng. But we are also grateful to our critics. We continue to welcome both constructive and destructive critics of our work because they, too, are an important component of the modest success we have so far recorded.

We take on the next year seeing that we have, by far, surpassed the first-year targets we set for TheCable. And anytime we remember the huge followership driving advertisers to us, our impressive standing on Alexa Ranking of websites, the calibre of people and media organisations quoting our stories, we are reminded that we would be nowhere without you, our darling readers.

Knowing it does not exist, we won’t be fantasising about the perfect ‘thank you’ gift to you; instead, we will be immersing ourselves in increasing our delivery of the values that brought you here in the first place. That way, maybe our love story will go on and on…

One more time, we say thank you!

‘Fisayo Soyombo

Editor