Can you imagine a New Zealand in which independent media is gone and all that remains is a small group of large media organisations muzzled by funding from the government?
It’s not some faraway dystopia. It is already happening. With the rapid corporate consolidation of traditional news outlets and the internet moving increasingly under the censoring thumb of Big Tech, this is the world we’re quickly heading toward.
Recently Buzzfeed News announced that it was cutting jobs in a move described by its staff as “gutting” their newsroom. As a result of the staff cuts, three of their editors resigned.
A few weeks after Buzzfeed’s announcement, the parent company for The Intercept revealed that 20 of their staff members would lose their jobs.
According to the Common Dreams website, these layoffs are happening after two of the worst years in the history of journalism in which more than 6,100 news industry workers were laid off and at least 100 outlets were shut down.
This year The BFD was able to hire a Weekend Editor as a result of achieving excellent growth in our membership revenue over the past two years.
While other digital media is shrinking we are slowly but steadily expanding.
Two major forces are currently squeezing independent digital media.
Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook are increasingly steering traffic away from independent media like The BFD in order to make it as difficult as possible for new readers to find us. This is why we are counting on our readers to share our articles with friends and family.
If you are unable to support The BFD financially you can support us by extending our reach. Please share our content widely.
We are confident that once people read us they will become hooked but they can’t do that if we are shadowbanned by Google and Facebook.
As with every business, our costs have increased as our service providers pass on their increased costs to us. We need to increase our memberships in order to ensure that we keep pace with our rising expenses.
If a membership is not an option for you would you consider a one-off donation or a small monthly donation every month?
We are funded almost entirely by our members. We have not received a single cent from any Government media funds, and nor will we apply. We are not prepared to compromise our standards.
But we are up against it. We face constant bans from social media giants, well-funded competitors supping from Government troughs and of course the ubiquitous cancel culture.
We can make a big difference. We are in reality the ONLY conservative media outlet in New Zealand. Almost every other media outlet skews left wing.
We have the best moderation of any news organisation in New Zealand and we need your financial support to ensure that we can keep doing what we do so well.