The Madras Courier is a 233-year-old news brand, launched on October 12, 1785, by Richard Johnston, who had earlier that year inspired The Daily Universal Register, the forerunner of The Times, London. A four-to-six-page weekly tabloid with the motto ‘Quicquid Agunt Homines’, which means ‘Whatever men do’, the Madras Courier was the first newspaper of the then Madras Presidency – today’s Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Orissa and Myanmar combined.
Selling for a princely sum of One Rupee, The Madras Courier ran for 36 years in its first avatar. Now revived after two centuries, its founding motto remains intact, but with a difference: ‘Whatever men do’ means a lot more in scope and depth, its proponents far more diverse in our objective narrative of an aspirational South India where tradition rules as much as transformation.
We are a team of passionate journalists and filmmakers, readers like you who want more from our news feeds. We offer a niche where subjects from on and off the mainstream news grid come alive as sensationalism is replaced by the truth that is stranger than fiction.
We are not here for the spin of the digital age. We don’t chase clicks before stories. You don’t need us to tell you that something needs to change. We just tell stories that can grow legs and run where they will.