Let’ s Build A Reader Supported Print Publication In 2013!

In #rabble5, Politics, Print Edition, rabble Updates!by rabble2 Comments

In September rabble turned one. We’re just about getting the hang of things as our team of reprobates grows. The late night work sessions are still there, but they contain less of the nicotine and coffee fueled last minute content generation than before.

The standard of our content, both word and image gets better and better. We’re confident that rabble is growing into one of the freshest print publications Ireland has seen in years.

We weren’t sure if the gamble would work, if the city would want us, if anyone would care. The response since has been been nothing short of immense. Dublin didn’t just get rabble, Galway, Limerick, Cork and Belfast did too. You’ve told us what you like and what you want more of; more culture, more investigative pieces and more razor-sharp satire.

We’re getting bigger and bolder in our old age, increasing our page count and leaping up to 10,000 copies for this issue. That’s a direct response to rabble#4 which disappeared from our clutches in a week. With your feedback suggesting that each issue is read by more than one person, our reach is growing too. If you want a bundle in your town, let us know and we’ll figure out the best way to smuggle some in.

We thought distribution would be the hardest thing to crack – but an impromptu, organic network took care of that. rabble is grateful to those worker-bees that ferry away our rag to all parts of the city, bog and globe.

How we’ve shuffled through cash-wise is miraculous. We’re putting that question straight on the table. Flick through to the back for a complete breakdown of how we finance this rag. We’re not going to be able to continue at this level without your support. It cost the guts of €1,700 to print this issue, and another few hundred to distribute. If you like what we’re doing, if you want us to continue, then stick your hand in your pocket and help us. Every cent goes to printing and distribution, because rabble is strictly not-for-profit and we are keeping it that way.

We keep prattling on about cash. But if you want proper investigative journalism, then we need some time off begging for ads to sniff out the slum landlords and dodgy zoning decisions.

There’s talk of regular blogging, of transferring our linkage and daily updates from Facebook and Twitter to our website to escape the Facebook loop and pool the conversation there. We want our online presence to be more than cat pikshurs and status updates about what we had for dinner. Our Xmas wish-list includes an office and a fundraising drive that will see us ad-free for 12 months. Nothing wrong with lofty notions.

You’ve shown you appreciate a voice that cuts through the nation’s lethargic gobshitery. We’ve a harebrained idea that Ireland is ready to support a reader-sustained, free, print-publication dedicated to doing so.

Let’s make that happen in 2013.

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  1. Pingback: Yikes, we just launched our fundit.ie : rabble

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