Global tech giants blocking Canadian news on their platforms. Political candidates purposely eroding trust in journalists. AI slop enabling a flourishing of misinformation online, with no accountability. Billionaire newspaper owners blatantly interfering with the editorial choices of their newsrooms.
To be a news publisher these days, committed to the slow, methodical work of talking to real people, verifying facts, is incredibly challenging. Not only are there bad actors that intentionally try to stymy good quality reporting, the business environment for journalism has been fundamentally disrupted, meaning that many of the institutions we used to rely on for high-quality journalism are struggling.
Against many odds, though, The Tyee is making it work, with the help of our readers. We've chosen a path that seems improbable -- we don't have a paywall, and we're very selective with our advertising partners that we work with. And we've been growing our team of professional journalists and increased our freelance budget. The only reason we can do this is because a small percentage of our readers chip in to our editorial budget through our Tyee Builders program.
This amazing group of readers means that The Tyee has persisted and published essential public-interest journalism for the past 21 years, and we have a good shot at being around for a long time in the future. But we can only maintain and grow our operations if readers continue to show up.
In this time of uncertainty, and with a federal election coming up, we need good journalism now more than ever. If you appreciate what you read on The Tyee and would like to help our independent, non-profit do more, please consider joining Tyee Builders today. You choose the amount, the frequency, and you can cancel at any time.
— Jeanette Ageson, publisher
Join Tyee Builders