Dear Crikey readers,
By now you will know that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, will stop paying publishers for news and shut down its news tab in Australia next month. Facebook (and Google) signed multimillion-dollar deals with publishers in 2021 to dodge negotiating for content under Australia’s news media bargaining code.
Now, as expected, the tech giant is backing out. The code was fundamentally and functionally clumsy, but this change is another blow for publishers big (like Nine and Guardian Australia) and small (like Crikey) that funded journalism with Meta’s cash.
There’s a fair bit of self-interest and conflict of interest being served up by the media over the role of tech giants in funding journalism. Ditto Meta’s justification for getting out: it has said that the number of people using its Facebook News feature has collapsed by 80% in the past year. But if Facebook users are consuming less news, it’s because Facebook is showing them less of it. At Crikey we’ve seen the impact of this as the engagement rate from our own audience has weakened over the past few years despite increased traffic to the actual articles. We don’t want to have to rely on big tech companies to reach you, our readers.
Why should you care about any of this? The bottom line is that the Meta news presents yet another challenge for anyone committed to producing genuine public interest journalism. We might have recently survived a legal battle with a billionaire, but we’re still facing the same challenges as everyone else. A sluggish advertising market, the threat of artificial intelligence, and an audience facing a cost of living crisis and exhausted by a relentlessly confronting news cycle.
Just late last year Private Media went through a restructure that involved several redundancies, including on Crikey’s team.
And unlike the mainstream media, we don’t have a safety net. We can’t rely on profits from a streaming platform or a real estate advertising arm to subsidise our journalism. We’re not prepared to compromise our integrity with clickbait and of course, we don’t have (and frankly don’t want) access to the wallets of mining magnates. Our independence comes at a cost — we rely on subscribers to fund our journalism. We’re not a breaking news outlet racing to compete with the news wires or rolling broadcasts to get you live updates. We’re here to add more context — to inform, challenge and surprise readers with a curated mix of news, analysis and opinion that maps out how power works and pushes the conversation forward.
But the thing that truly sets us apart, and always has over two decades? Our readers.
Here’s what we know about you. We know that you value our independence and our refusal to compromise it for cash. We will never be funded by media moguls, fossil fuels or gambling ads.
We know you’re unique — a community of heavily invested subscribers who believe passionately in supporting independent media. You’re often very vocal, and will always tell us when you’re pissed off (equally you quite like to be irritated by us, at least some of the time). We know you trust us to challenge you, you can’t stand spin, and won’t tolerate excuses.
We know you support independent media for different reasons — some of you respect that we aren’t funded by corporate interests, some of you are sick of the spin from News Corp and Nine, and some of you enjoy being part of an active community of readers.
Here’s what we don’t know: why are you paying for us? What keeps you committed? What can we do more of? Tell us in the comments and letters@crikey.com.au about why you put your money where your mouth is and support independent media.
And for those of you who aren’t subscribers, we have a special discount: save $110 on a yearly subscription, available for a limited time.
Yours,
Sophie Black (editor-in-chief), Gina Rushton (editor) and Jack Callil (deputy editor)
Where’s Maeve these days? That’s what I want to know. She became my favourite contributor.
And Patrick Marlborough – sharp & very funny.
I live remote and don’t do social media. Crikey mostly echoes my own views and I’m generally interested in the comments which often get me to question them. Now you have fewer contributors the remainder work overtime to fill space it seems, sometimes. The curse of the newsroom.
What you want to know is, would I pay more? Yes, for Maeve and Julia B. M for taking no prisoners, with style; J for her window on our important unknown corners – our country is not all city.
I like the ability to have a say, however feeble. Without moderation it would be a free-for-all of abuse, more or less, eventually, which doesn’t interest me.
I’m an old, white, lefty who is glued-on to the ABC – not because it’s good but because the alternative is so bad.
Your crummy rag helps me imagine the world. Thank you.
I’m 100% with you Drastic
I agree with most of what you said, drastic, but I like the ABC because it is good – Radio National, that is, I don’t do television or any other radio stations. RN’s not just good, it’s bloody awesome!
What I most love and appreciate about Crikey: Guy Rundle, Bernard Keane, Rebekah Holt, Cam Wilson, Julia Bergin. Ferocious commitment to public interest journalism. The lunchtime newsletter which provides a curated selection of news and perspectives in a finite, compact format that doesn’t allow doomscrolling. I also appreciate content from other sources like the Conversation, even though I could find it elsewhere, because I don’t have all day and probably wouldn’t have found it elsewhere.
I certainly don’t agree with every word written by every Crikey contributor, but I always learn something and have a chuckle, and will continue to subscribe as long as that’s the case.
You’ve said what I’d like to say, only better. I would add Inside Story and Pearls and Irritations to the list with the Conversation
And add Schwarz Media to my list awaiting moderation.
Adam Schwab mutated during the COVID lockdowns into something abominable, and any piece of work from him during that time was practically faecal. I often commented on his posts, bringing science and non-cherrypicked data to the fore (which he naturally ignored). Even afterwards, he never returned to exposing corporate self-interest anywhere near as well as other Crikey authors did. His tenure proved to be a vast disappointment, and I hope Crikey learned something and doesn’t let the Board get infected like that again.
I remember the days of Derryn Hinch. What a time that was. Tell the young people of today that, they won’t believe you
I have been a subscriber for more than a decade and have enjoyed much of the opinion and analysis that is not easy to find elsewhere. There are some journalists whose articles I read avidly, including Bernard Keane, Cam Wilson and I miss articles by Maeve – a powerful writer who made me cringe on behalf of some of her targets, but always elicited a chuckle at her scathingly poetic descriptions.
I also subscribe to Schwartz Media and read Pearls and Irritations for its expertise and
Yes, bring back Maeve! We could even pay a surcharge on our subscription for the Black Label edition of Crikey with added Maeve.
I too miss Maeve, nearly always enjoy Bernard and Guy. Don’t always agree with them, but, I suppose that is the point of reading, to make you think.