all its
forerunners. It has got no competitors in its class in
Goa. The Ponda Plus has raised the ante. It has got
class, it has got good readership and it is still free.
Hard work pays, hard sell pays better. Roque is doing
both: hard work and hard sell. The results are visible
in black and white -- and in colour! The challenge now
is to do better than that and still be free.

What makes a free-sheeter tick: Ask any good physician
and he (or, as per the recent trend in MBBS graduation,
she) will tell you that one's circulation must be good.
Whether it is blood, air or free-sheeter, your health
depends on its 'circulation'. There is no other way. A
well produced free-sheeter is easier to circulate
because it is free. Once it has attracted the attention
and reached the hands of a potential reader, it will be
glanced through even if it is not read in detail.

That is a wonderful way to deliver a well-designed
advertisement to a potential buyer of any goods or
services. It makes more sense for a local shopkeeper or
institution to advertise in a 'local' free-sheeter than
a state-wide newspaper with ten times bigger
circulation (and, subsequently, far higher advertising
rates). Most free-sheeters have a circulation of 3,000
to 5,000 copies, a figure which ranks better than some
mainstream newspapers in Goa. A free-sheeter is a
better vehicle, less expensive and less bothersome to
handle than a 'flier' inserted in a newspaper for local
distribution. A flier is often discarded unread. Not so
with a free-sheeter. It pays to advertise in a
free-sheeter. The advertisements pay to keep the
free-sheeter alive and free.

Miguel Braganza Consultant Editor & Horticulturist,
Mapusa Goa.

Chapter 15:
Journalism in Goa: An outsider looks in

Shiv KumarShiv Kumar is a Mumbai-based journalist who
occasionally para-drops into Goa for some sun, sea and
opportunities to tilt at a few windmills there. A
journalist, a freelance and subsequently as a
full-timer since 1992, Shiv Kumar was the Goa
correspondent of The Indian Express from 1998 to 2000.
After moving back to Mumbai, he is with the Indo-Asian
News Service (IANS).

Today, happily there is a vast talent pool of
journalists among the Goan Diaspora that is making its
mark in news media across the world. The movement of
journalists from Goa to newsrooms across the globe is
perennial. The Middle East and the West are popular
destinations but then so is Mumbai: a popular