By Ginni Spencer
The Bedford Citizen has completed three years of publication, and is about to wind up its first fundraising campaign on August 1st. We are $4k short of our goal of $18k. Would you consider making a donation to help get us the rest of the way?
Dan Kennedy, journalism professor at Northeastern spoke at the Bedford Library recently on the topic of alternative digital newspapers. In his book The Wired City Kennedy chose to focus on the impact of the Internet and social media on local journalism in particular because he sees local journalism as “an essential force in building strong cities, towns, and neighborhoods, and in empowering people to take charge of their lives and their communities.”
The Bedford Citizen couldn’t agree more.
The mission of The Citizen is to provide accurate, timely, free, online news about Bedford to its residents to encourage informed citizen participation. Robust participation in the political and cultural life of our community is the best way we know to ensure the vibrancy and diversity that will keep Bedford an inviting and interesting place to live.
But in the digital age, what is the financial model that will sustain us? For now at least, we are pursuing the “someone else” model as Kennedy describes it in his book – not advertisers, not traditional paid subscriptions, but community supporters who “care about journalism and its role in a democratic society and are willing to subsidize it for the benefit of themselves and others”.
Might that be you?
If you’d like to make a donation you can write a check to The Citizen, PO Box 212, Bedford or you can click on the donate button on our home page. We are a 501(c)3 corporation which means donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
And thanks again to those who have already donated. We deeply appreciate your ongoing support. Your feedback is also important: what are we getting right? What can we do better? You can contact us through our web site bedfordcitizen.wpengine.com.
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