The launch of News7Tamil gives hope to the thousands of professional journalists and editors who do not want news media to be regulated by the government and used as tools of influence.

News7Tamil, a "global" Tamil news channel will be launched on October 19. It adds to the babble of 135-odd news channels (the largest such number in the world) that India has. In the normal course, this column would have ignored it. But News7Tamil claims to be "India's first editorial board driven news channel."

A seven-member editorial board will act as a "Firewall between editors and owners," says R Bhagwan Singh, executive editor, Deccan Chronicle. "There have been serious breaches in edit policy (generally)," says Nick Walshe, a former Al Jazeera and BBC man and launch consultant to news broadcasters. Walshe and Singh are part of the board that includes editor Rajesh Sundaram and activist and poetess Meena Kandaswamy among others.

The Chennai-based, family-owned V V Minerals group, estimated at Rs 1,000 crore, is behind News7Tamil. Why did it choose the unprofitable news television business instead of the booming entertainment one? "It was a joint family decision to get into news. The thinking is that the group would get recognition and respectability through two areas - media and education," says V Subramanian, director and member of the promoter family. The group has already set up an engineering college. "There is a lot of news on TV, but 90 per cent of it is politically affiliated, there is space for a neutral channel," says Subramanian.

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