He has covered scandals, wars and corporate intrigue in South Africa, France, England, the US etc and won a Gemini (Canada's equivalent for the TV Oscars) for Best Documentary in 1997. If sharing contact numbers is unconventional in the world of journalism, Mr Sher goes a step further: JNet offers an interesting tool to spy on people, though at the risk of letting them spy on you too!. In an exclusive e-mailed interview to The Financial Express, Julian Sher said, "JNet was not designed as a revenue-making operation but has turned out to be one! It was created and is still maintained by a single full time working journalist on one laptop." So while Mr Sher says that there are little costs except a tremendous amount of work to keep the site up to date and on the cutting edge, he adds that profits come from advertising income. JNet, which currently provides on-site training for clients such as BBC, CNN, NBC, Sky,CBC, and the public broadcasters in Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Amsterdam, is however,looking at other revenue options. "In the future, there are plans for online training for a fee to allow my many training clients around the world to take courses without leaving the newsrooms, " he said. The site also has numerous affiliate programmes with search companies like Google.

All links to media sites, though, are non-commercial to ensure that the selection is unbiased. "It is important a journalism site remain credible and independent," he added. On whether Mr Sher has ever faced action for his innovative "private eye", "spy on people" tools on the JNet site, he said ,"None whatsoever because everything on the JNet site and everything I show journalists when I train in newsrooms around the world - is perfectly legal and above board.In fact, that is the point of these sites: that you have to watch what you do on the web, because people can spy on you easily". While JNet is not backed by a venture capital (it is completely privately funded), Mr Sher adds that the demands for JNet's services are expanding. "There is a strong demand for JNet in Spanish and other languages (it is already in French). Any proposals from investors will be seriously considered". JNet currently garners about 100,000 page views a month, a rather high number for a private site. "Most are from North Americaand the UK, but a growing number are from Asia and Australia, " he added.