This Newsletter Contains the Future
A special announcement about where Guelph Politico is going next.
First, I want to thank everyone who subscribes to this newsletter, contributes on Patreon, contributes through the PayPal links, or even just sends a regular cheque because you are the people who get it. You're the ones who know that news and news gathering needs community support to make it a reality, and that if communities want better news then they need to demanded it through their own “pocketbooks.” So, thank you very much.
Having said that, I am so very tired. This last year has been hard to say the least. I've struggled to find the energy at times to really do this work, and you get to the point where you just keep going because you don't know what you would do if you had to stop, and that's not fair. It's not fair to me, it's not fair to you, and it's not fair generally in the greater universal ideals of good journalism.
Now, some of you have probably scrolled down to try and find the lede, or the “too long; didn't read” version of this newsletter, which is to say: Is this the end of Guelph Politico?
It is not.
Is this the beginning of the end?
Maybe.
Here's what I am proposing: I am going to be dedicating the next four-and-a-half months – till the end of the year - to making the best possible Guelph Politico I can with the idea that if I do not get to the fundraising goal of $3,000, per month by December 31, 2020, then I will be shuttering Guelph Politico on January 1.
This isn't an ultimatum. This is a statement of economic fact.
For almost five years now, I have been trying to present a new way of covering the news and the political situation in Guelph. I was under the assumption that after the Guelph Mercury closed that there would be a kind of community wellspring and desire for new ideas and new institutions to come forward, and this has not been the case.
To say that this has been disappointing is perhaps the understatement of the decade. I really thought when I put out the shingle to say, “I am fundraising to create a new media entity in Guelph,” that people would flock to it, or at the very least that the 9,000-some odd people who were subscribing to Guelph Mercury at the at the bitter end would flock to it. Perhaps that was naïve; I don't know anymore.
What I do know is that I can't keep doing this for nearly free.
Again, there are so many of you who give of your own money to help support this endeavour, and I am forever appreciative, but this needs broader community support to survive. I don't know if I will reach that goal of $3,000 per month at the end of the year, but what I do know is that I am fully prepared to post that announcement on January 1 that Guelph Politico is over, and that hurts.
This site represents 12 years of my life to varying degrees of commitment and has almost been my life for the last five years. That's going to be hard to give up, but I will because I can't keep doing it this way. If there's going to be a Guelph Politico in the future, now is the time to help me save it.
How do you do that? Money. That's all. I need more people to sign up for the Patreon, for a PayPal subscription, or to send those regular good old cheques through the mail. To understand why, let me lay a few things out:
On government funding – I can't apply for government funds because that money is meant as bailout cash for legacy media. It is not meant for one person starting a new media outlet, and I’m am barred from being able to access that money because I don't have any employees. And that’s to say nothing of the questionable fact of taking money from the government to cover the government.
On grants - I am not going to get help from grants because I can't make Guelph Politico, a non-profit. I'm not allowed. You can't have a journalistic entity be a non-profit in Canada, so there's no grant money coming in.
On advertising - The thing you have to understand about advertising is that before you can even talk about how much money you can get, Facebook and Google take 80 per cent off the top. The other 20 per cent of available online advertising I would have to fight for with the Guelph Today, Guelph Mercury Tribune, Magic FM, CJOY, The Ontarion, and then there's money in Guelph that has to go out to bigger ad markets in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and the Greater Toronto Area. There's no advertising money for small outfits like me, at least not that I’ve found.
That brings us to having the community fund this operation, and I know there are a lot of different causes who are desperately struggling right now, and asking for your money, but what I am talking about is finding 1,500 people in Guelph, who are willing to give up their Tim Hortons coffee for one day a month. That's all I need. 1,500 people to give me $2 per month.
I know that there have been news stories this past year that have really made people question the power of local media, or even questioned its existence. I know everyone wants those Spotlight stories, the big investigative stories that change the game, and hold powerful institutions to account. The thing people never realize about that movie though is that while four people worked on that one story for months, there was a whole newspaper called the Boston Globe getting published everyday. You need a solid foundation from which to grow, and that’s the proposition I’m putting forward here.
So to answer the question above, the question about the power of the media, the fact of the matter is that media is given power by the people. The media is given power by you.
Now, what can you do?
If you are a Guelph Politico patron, thank you, please keep it up. If you’re not, please consider becoming one, and you can get details on how you to go about that here.
If money is an issue - and in the middle of global pandemic why wouldn’t it be? – then you can help out Guelph Politico in one of the following ways:
Share the link to the donation page for Guelph Politico.
Download, don’t stream, the Guelph Politicast on your favourite podcast app, and rate and review it on that app. Podcast success is determined by downloads alone, and more people find it with the more reviews it gets.
Share Guelph Politico stories and posts on social media. Share this newsletter. You have to build an audience, and the bigger guys have an advantage on me there.
I hope that seems straightforward, and I hope this special newsletter didn’t seem overly burdensome, or lengthy to read.
In the coming weeks, I will be “re-launching” (in a manner of speaking) the Patreon page, and I will be putting a meter on Politico to track the progress of the fundraising effort across all three fundraising platforms. After Labour Day, start looking for three editions of the Tip Sheet every week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings.
Other than that, we will be staying the course with weekly podcasts, and regular live coverage of council meetings, and other news coverage.
Thank you again for your continued support,
Adam