About us
Updated: July 25, 2026
Lok Sujag is a digital news media platform for Pakistanis living in Pakistan and abroad.
Lok Sujag does not cover daily events. It is the media of the unheard and the silenced. We proactively search for, listen to and amplify voices of the marginalized. We look for blank spots in the media and do what others prefer or dare not to.
The media generally locates itself close to centers of power. We instead wander on the margins of power close to common people.
Three things we do and three we don’t
We break no news
Lok Sujag is in no rush. Cricket aside, we don’t think it’s important to watch everything live. We don’t cover events as they unfold. We give more value to the context and how and why of what's happening around us. We are dedicated to in-depth investigative journalism.
We don’t referee cock-fights
Lok Sujag is no playground for cacophonic cock-fights among power players. Neither are we party to any overt or covert war of building narratives for power politics. Our work is not based on who said what last evening or who tweeted what this morning. We avoid views based content as much as possible.
We don't sell eyeballs
Lok Sujag does not consider its readers worth a whitening cream lie, a potato chips trick or any other corporate ploy. We are, therefore, not in the business of collecting eyeballs and then clandestinely selling them to the highest bidder. We cannot compromise on public interest journalism. That’s existential for us.
We report from the margins
Lok Sujag stands with those living at the margins of the state and the society. We report from the ignored areas, take up sidelined issues and tell untold stories. We amplify voices from the margins of power. We go to real places and talk to real people to tell their stories.
We take sides
Neutrality is a hoax. Journalism is always partial. We are partial too. We are partial to the marginalized, the unheard and the silenced. We are, however, fully cognizant that our truth may not be the ultimate or the only truth. We are open to debate and welcome constructive criticism. We have the audacity to acknowledge mistakes and make amends.
We are a community
We are not beholden to big money or power. We do not have a saith (tycoon) to please. We are driven by our commitment to our readers and viewers. We know that it is a challenging path but are confident that we can keep pursuing our goal with the active support of our friends and well-wishers aka Lok Sujag Members.
What is our north star?
What gives us strategic direction at each step that we take forward, or backward, is our vision statement:
To bring to the mainstream political and social discourse the issues that impact people living on the margins of power
Lok Sujag’s dream is an inclusive Pakistan where everyone counts and matters. We believe this can be realized by checking the process of marginalization and exclusion and replacing it with that of inclusion and mainstreaming.
The main yardstick we use to define marginality is a community’s or a group’s distance from the center of political power irrespective of where they reside. They might be people living in areas far away from metropolitans - where media is concentrated. They could also be women, or other groups, living in posh localities but are treated as chattel in their own homes. They could be people discriminated against because of their faith, ethnicity, color, caste or gender. They could be poets, writers, artists and performers whose work challenges the intellectual, creative and cultural boundaries set by a repressive state and a regressive society.
Many ideas also remain marginalized because they are not aligned with the interests of those at the center of power and are, thus, neither discussed nor promoted. They too constitute our focus area.
We believe that digital news media is the most efficient and effective tool for amplifying marginalized voices. It has the potential to directly influence both the political and the social discourses.
Where do we want to get to?
To realize our vision, we want to build a digital media house that is self-sustaining; both in terms of finances and long term organizational continuity. That’s our mission.
We have an active presence in digital space since a decade now. We have built a network of journalists that owns our mission and continually reports from all corners of the country. We also have an efficient editorial team that processes and publishes content on daily basis.
Lok Sujag has to go bigger. It must get to a size critical for having a real time impact. But sticking to your foothold in the highly competitive digital space and then wanting to expand requires more than just good intentions or, to be frank, it needs money – in a continued and sustainable way.
We have an evolving business model to walk all the talk. We have tried and tested many strategies over the past decade with varying degrees of success. Some of these have been instrumental in getting us to where we are today. We plan to continue to experiment and innovate till our model matures.
We reckon that many like us have lost their visions while ‘searching gold’ – some fell to the shenanigans of benevolent saiths, others were lured to obscurity by the state’s ‘largesse’ and still others were blinded by the lightning glare of corporate sponsorships. We have to tread really carefully. We cannot swap business success with our vision.
We also strive to ensure that commitment to the vision does not remain a personalized characteristic of the founding team members; it shall be kneaded into the organization’s ethos. So that every team builds on what the previous leaves behind. We see our mission as a relay race where a player has to hand the baton to the next at the finish line of his/her sprint.
How we navigate the rough waters of gig media?
There could be no more challenging time for a young media house than today. They say ‘when the old is dying and the new is not born yet, it’s time for the monsters’. It really is.
The media is on a slippery slope. It has lost its most precious asset - access to audiences - to social media. Its business model has been destroyed. Mobile phones and 4G, 5G technologies now shape the formats and algorithms dictate the subjects of content.
Everyone is a ‘prosumer’ of information now - the consumer as well as the publisher of information - which has changed the nature of competition in the sector. Then the advent of artificial intelligence has thrown a plume of uncertainty over everything. The anxiety caused by unpredictability of the future is blurring our ability to see things clearly.
But dark clouds do have a silver lining. All the advances mean that reaching out to the remotest margins and producing good effective content is easier than ever before. Technologically speaking, accessing and engaging with a large number of audiences have never been easier than it is today. Though the path is infested by tech giants but we think we can jostle our way. No harm in trying. That’s a good fight anyways. Our main approach is to learn and adapt quickly and turn challenges into opportunities.
Optimism aside, this journey is certainly no cake walk. But we believe that there are many things that favor us.
The content cooked by prosumers and served by platform algorithms suffers from a grave credibility crisis and it is getting worse by each passing day. The generative AI has worsened it further. The growing fatigue among audiences is a boon for us.
Lok Sujag does not repackage the available stuff. We travel to where the news takes birth. We meet real people face to face. The role of technology in the news cycle comes after this first stage. We are therefore not afraid that technology will replace us. Technologies can only facilitate us and not replace us. So no paranoia but more hard work is our policy.
What is Sujag community and what’s its role?
Sujag Community is the group of our friends. They are the people who endorse Lok Sujag’s vision and are willing to help us in accomplishing our mission. They are our biggest strength and our lifeline.
Do you have to pay a fee to join Sujag community?
No, money is not a condition for joining the community. That’s not to say that money is not important, rather it is to assert that help in accomplishing our mission can come in many forms and that we value each and all of them.
Our members can be keen readers and viewers of our content. They can help us by engaging with our content, rating it, participating in polls and by offering their views and advice. This will help us continually improve our work. That’s no small thing. Members can also share their ideas and tips to develop and produce more content. A lot more is in the pipeline.
We are still working out details of the system that would enable Lok Sujag financially sustainable. We will update you when it is ready.
For now, please, keep engaging with our content.
Lok Sujag’s organizational model places its relationship with its audiences at the center. We consider this relationship too dear to be left to the whims of social media algorithms. We strive to connect with our community through many engagement windows some of which are active on our website while others are in the works.