What is The Canary?
Kerry-anne Mendoza, aka Scriptonite of the Scriptonite Daily blog teamed up with a group of extraordinary people to form The Canary in October 2015. With absolutely no financial backing or outside investment, we have rapidly built a brand new media outlet from scratch through determination in our goals, a vibrant team and engaging content.
This has been made possible through a unique business model and some of the best news, politics, science, technology and health writers from around the world.
We remain completely independent of any advertisers, funders, companies, political organisations or political parties.
Our Editor-in-Chief, Kerry-anne Mendoza says:
My audience at Scriptonite Daily have been amazing – they even funded me to report from Gaza in 2014 – and I want to be able to bring them more content that speaks to their hunger for better and more truthful reporting.
Today, a handful of individuals control our mainstream media. Mass media coverage is largely conservative. We want to create a counterpoint. An online media outlet that has a global outlook and reach. One that isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo, to ask the hard questions and to have an opinion.
The team at The Canary believe a free, fair and fearless media is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, because for democracy to work, it requires informed consent from its citizens. We intend to help generate that informed consent by providing our readers with high-quality, well-researched and incisive journalism that holds power to account.
Our content focuses on news, ideas, and key developments that impact democracy, equality and fairness.
Around twenty freelance writers are contributing daily articles to the site. Meet our team by clicking here.
The Future
We will be expanding our media output in 2017 by producing regular video interviews, news reports and podcasts.
Democratising media creation is a central aim of The Canary. We will be developing a membership platform that allows our readers to decide on the areas we investigate. You will have a say in the media you see.
We will also channel revenue into an Investigative Journalism Fund. This will enable the kind of long-form, original, investigative journalism that has become a rarity in the cash-strapped mainstream.
Our Business Model
The Canary has an innovative business model. As an organisation we generate revenue through advertising and readers who feel that our journalism is valuable enough to support through monthly donations. So far so normal, where we are disruptive however is how we spend our revenue.
Here at The Canary we believe in democracy and in rewarding the work of content creators who are ultimately the reason you, the reader, are able to enjoy fresh and fearless journalism for free. As such this is what we do with the money we generate:
- First, we pay tax. We are based in the UK and are happy to contribute our share to develop a wonderful country, not without its problems of course.
- Then we pay costs which we keep below 5% of our gross revenue.
- What is left is our net profit. We split this simply:
- 50% to our writers
- 10% to our section editors
- 20% to our leadership team
- 20% goes back into the company for marketing and new projects
Each writer and editor is paid in two ways. Firstly, each article receives a flat rate equal payment from our monthly income from supporters. So with each new supporter the pay per article goes up every month. Secondly, each article receives a top-up payment based directly on the percentage of web traffic, and therefore advertising income, that articles generate during a given calendar month. It’s as simple as that.
This was the result of a unanimous vote we gave our writers on their pay model. We actively encourage all of our writers to join and be active in the National Union of Journalists.
How To Support Us?
- Much of our growth comes from word of mouth and social sharing. By spreading the word about The Canary, by liking, commenting and engaging in the community you help make us sustainable.
- The ultimate support you can give is to become a supporter. By providing us a small contribution each month you reduce our reliance of traditional advertising and directly help support disruptive journalism.