Online political journal New Matilda has closed for now, but editor Marni Cordell is still plotting its future course.
Almost six years after it first made its way into cyberspace, the independent news and analysis website, New Matilda (NM), has ceased publishing. A number of theories are doing the rounds about why we hit the skids – a big defamation suit? Pressure from the Israel lobby? – but I can confirm the reality is more mundane: we simply ran out of money.
It’s difficult to encapsulate those six years in one article because the site has had a number of incarnations since it was launched in 2004.
The original newmatilda.com was the brainchild of former Gough Whitlam-staffer and News Limited boss John Menadue, who was frustrated with a shrinking public sphere under the Howard government and set out to create an incubator of public debate and policy. The site was launched to quite a big fanfare but was seen in some circles as predictable and earnest.
“You’re preaching to the converted,” was the common criticism back then. In my opinion, the level of debate had sunk so low after eight years under Howard that the converted were in need of a preacher.
Within months, the site gathered a loyal band of subscribers and contributors, and Menadue was able to rally the financial support of dozens of like-minded individuals to keep the site afloat for two and a half years. During that time, most of the content was only accessible to paid-up subscribers, and the site itself was clunky and slow to load. Suffice to say our readership was loyal but modest.
That all began to change in 2007. In February of that year, facing its first potential closure, NM was bought for the princely sum of $10 by “mysterious Gold Coast mathematician and self-styled philanthropist” Duncan Turpie. We dropped subscriptions, launched a new website – and got a new government.
The site evolved from its public policy role into an independent media outlet of news, satire and analysis.
Politics moves on quickly but it is instructive to remember the environment that we, as journalists and editors, were operating in prior to Rudd’s victory. Issues that under Howard were deemed only to be the concern of the loony left – things that New Matilda had been addressing all along such as climate change, closing the gap, refugee rights – became mainstream. Debate flowed more freely, and our readership grew.
New Matilda’s last year has been her most successful, and it’s a sad irony that we are being forced to call it quits now.
However, we do have plans to rise again. On behalf of the current staff, I have negotiated to take control of the site and we will be working to raise enough money to relaunch. NM’s audience, archive and stable of writers are too valuable to shelve for good.
Since we announced our closure on May 27, we have been bombarded with support and advice on how to stay afloat. We’ve also been contacted by several business interests with proposals that ranged from content sharing to stripping the New Matilda brand and refitting it for new purposes.
However, none of these suggestions fitted our vision for the site and, importantly, there wasn’t any room in these offers for us to develop ideas about NM’s future directions.
So instead of taking them up, and provided we can rally the right kind of support, we intend to go it alone.
Looking to the experience of media start-ups in the US and the UK, we have realised that the days of the single-revenue media outlet are over. Nowadays, small outlets are finding new ways to fund their work through what Texas Tribune founder John Thornton calls “revenue promiscuity”: “you have to get it everywhere and often”.
They are trading on the quality of their journalism and their trusted brands to build relationships with other media outlets to which they provide niche content. And they rely on a broad and growing base of philanthropists, funding bodies, foundations and individuals who see that as the media industry cuts costs, the survival of public interest journalism requires them to put their money where their mouth is.
These outlets are doing important work to fill the gaps left by a shrinking media industry, often with little money and few staff. They are run by veteran journalists – very often former investigative journalists whose time-intensive jobs were the first to go when newsrooms tightened their belts – and they survive on contributions from the many generous individuals and organisations who support their work.
These start-ups provide inspiration for a new collaborative model that will see the New Matilda site transform into a provider of quality analysis and public interest journalism that has life beyond our little corner of the internet.
When we relaunch, our primary aim will not be to drive hits back to our own site – the model that advertisers dictate is king – but to inject new, quality journalism and analysis into the Australian media environment. In this way we hope to inspire enough of you out there to deem us worthy of your financial support.
Marni Cordell is the editor of newmatilda.com and has worked as a journalist and editor in independent media for the past decade.
Cartoon by Fiona Katauskas
