Introducing Sponsored Articles. Our editorial responsibility stays intact

One of the things we pride ourselves in, and the reason we think those of reason trust our platform, is that at the end of the day, after all has been said and done, what you read on Techzim is what we observe and our genuine opinion on it. It is unfiltered by the interests of the brands we write about. We wouldn’t come to work otherwise. They’d be no point!

Very often we get attempts from tech companies and the people there to lean one way or the other in our coverage. We get pressure to pull articles or to change some words in articles. Big brands and startups alike. We’re human and do make mistakes in our effort to cover things factually and base our opinion of these facts. When we’re wrong we admit and apologise. When we believe we’re not erring, we stand our ground. When we’re not sure, our responsibility is to you our readers, and we tell you so.

Which brings me to our latest move in keeping this effort to give you unfiltered content sustainable.  You probably noticed that, since last week, on the left sidebar of this website is a new section called Sponsored Articles. This articles are clearly labelled “Sponsored” so that you’re very clear that this is not regular Techzim content.

To ensure there’s no confusion, such stories will not appear in our regular news feed which is reserved for our traditional content and tone. It will only appear in the sidebar in their own section and below an article where you would likely expect to find adverts. You will also not find newsy articles as sponsored. Articles will be highlighting pains that tech solves, tips etc… obviously with an angle that suggests you give the sponsor’s product a try and see if solves your problem. Think of it as making you ware that a solution to a pain already exists. Which we think is a wonderful thing! The article contents will come from our sponsors with Techzim only translating fleshing up with our prose.

We are trialing this so it’s far from perfect. Let us know your feedback and it will help us a lot. If we find that this is affecting our main business of giving you unfiltered opinion, we’re used to such man in the mirror tough conversations here and that’s one we will have as early as possible and we’ll stop digging. It’s one thing that we commit to: that our editorial stance does not change and we have no intention to change it.

More experiments to sustain this work while remaining independent will be introduced in the coming weeks, including a subscription option.