An independent news website has launched a funding drive in a bid to compete with “corporate owned regional media” – adding it will “struggle to continue” without more financial support.
Dorset Eye was launched in June 2012 with content provided by “citizen journalists” – members of the public who register on its website.
Now Eye says the costs of hosting the site have “escalated significantly” due to its “amazing success”, with £1,800 required each year.
In an appeal to readers, Eye announced plans to expand and become a “full-time independent alternative media.”
The appeal states: “Our hope has always been that the Dorset Eye model would be adopted by others and that eventually a serious alternative to the mostly corporate owned regional media would exist across the country. At this time though we remain the only Eye with this format.
“As a media we made it our premise that we would be completely free of on site advertisements and have no interest in any corporate funding. We have seen for ourselves the effect it has upon media sites and for some serves to directly contradict their content.
“However, as a consequence we have had to depend upon a wholly voluntaristic approach. There is only so far any model can go with this philosophy and therefore we are now having to adopt a different perspective.
“Since May 2018 Dorset Eye has taken on a new site format and a much more ambitious strategy. We now aim to expand and become a full-time independent alternative media. Our focus is to become a direct alternative to the corporate driven model of local and national media in which the principles of traditional journalism are freed up from editorial and owner control.
“For us to do this though we will need the support of our readers and contributors. If everyone committed to as little as £10 per annum we would be able to make Dorset Eye a long term sustainable media that could grow exponentially and significantly shape the future of the media.”
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Like it or not, no publishing operation can survive without paid for advertising or a generous benefactor, expecting local people to ‘invest’ money into a site is naive.
If the content is strong, local and of interests and if as they say it’s “ been an amazing success” there would be enough local businesses out there to be attracted to it and to fund it. All very well wanting to keep the integrity of the site and keep it free of adverts but without consistent and sufficient funding the future of The Eye looks precarious.
However all said and done, as independent news providers, I do wish them well
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If this is citizen journalism I’m going back to MSM. Perhaps I should put this into verse.
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I think this proves, sadly, that it is far too late to ask people to pay for local news online when they already get the lot for nothing. Best of luck with this, though.
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Good luck in trying to monetise The Eye by reader subscriptions alone,unless you’ve thousands signing up and paying the £10 fee and without paid for long term advertising the venture will collapse. Sorry to be so blunt but in today’s world of cutbacks and belt tightening the audience prepared to pay for reader generated news content just isn’t there. For the future of the site,seriously consider seeking commercial investors ( advertisers) before it’s too late.
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“ Our hope has always been that the Dorset Eye model would be adopted by others…….At this time though we remain the only Eye with this format”
After six years, this tells you all you need to know about it’s viability,it’s a business plan that can’t work and there just aren’t enough people out there willing to pay for hyper local news when they can get all they need elsewhere on social media for free.
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