Scoop is seeking 1000 Kiwis who care about the future of NZ news media

By Scoop Independent News

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Scoop Is Seeking 1000 Kiwis Who Care About The Future Of NZ News Media

Project 2015-10-02 17:01:57 +1300

Scoop is Crowd-funding for the establishment of the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. We are looking for a further 600 Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the 400 generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

Let us be clear. This is a call to arms. A rally cry.

The support of just 600 more members will give Scoop a fighting chance of surviving the “news crisis” which is affecting all media.

Scoop needs your help, and what is at stake is much more than simply the future of the Scoop.co.nz website.

Information is power and the people are being disconnected from both. Digital disruption to the news business models has the media on a path towards providing a click-bait dystopia dominated by spin doctors.

A new model needs to be found to finance the production and provision of quality public interest news and information services.

Scoop is the only New Zealand publication that has a developed funding model which is capable of sustaining non-advertising-funded quality and timely news and information services.

Scoop needs your help. Join us.

As November begins the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism now has over 400 financial members (individuals who have contributed towards supporting Scoop), and over 70 organisations accredited to use Scoop commercially.

But we lack sufficient financial resource to complete the transition to our new model -  which is why we’re crowdfunding to establish the Scoop Foundation Trust and enable Scoop’s new funding model to get established.

If we can raise the number of members to 1000 by the time this campaign closes on November 17th, we will have a fighting chance of completing our transition to become a news organisation funded by accredited organisations and annual individual and corporate memberships.

We’ve created something both successful and valued - now it is up to you to support the continuation of a professional quality news service which keeps Kiwis informed and facilitates participation in NZ’s national debate.

If you agree that we’re on the right track, here’s how you can help:

1.    Pledge here and become a member for $16 or more.

2.    Tell your friends [link: http://pldge.me/scoop], especially on Facebook (Check out our Facebook Page for material to share)

3.    Encourage your employer (if you use Scoop at work and value it) to subscribe to a licence which will support us to both continue to publish your message to the world - and save journalism - which they can also pay for by way of a pledge (pricing starts at $420)

4.    Volunteer to join the Scoop Team and participate directly in the future of Scoop (including a crew of social media amplifiers) at TakeBackTheNews.nz

Please give generously, share widely and help us ensure that NZ’s democracy remains an informed on and helps deliver NZ the resilience it will need to face the challenges the future holds for us all.

What We Are At Risk Of Losing If Scoop Has To Close

For the past 16 years Scoop has given every voice in New Zealand an opportunity to be heard, to speak truth to power, to use words persuasively to bring justice to where it is needed and to illuminate dark places.

For 16 years we have provided a platform for New Zealand to talk to itself about the things that need to be talked about.  Daily 20,000 people access this discussion, 75,000 every week. We send hundreds of thousands of emails each month to newsmakers and those who have a professional interest in news, including the MPs and Parliamentary staff who sit at the heart of the Government.

This is clearly a useful and much used service. And we would like to continue to provide it. But to do so we need your help.

Scoop’s Working Solution To The “News Crisis”

As the impact of digital disruption bit hard at the end of 2014, Scoop’s advertising orders simply fell off a cliff. The core Scoop team met and decided that Scoop was a  piece of public infrastructure valuable enough to NZ Society to be worth preserving.

Then over the past 11 months of "Operation Chrysalis" we’ve achieved a series of remarkable breakthroughs which make the possibility of creating a sustainable independent, fiercely independent professional news outlet feasible.

We took a couple of ideas we’ve been developing for the past three years (charitable status - “The Scoop Foundation Project” - and a new interpretation of creative commons copyright licensing  - our “Ethical Paywall”) and  turned them into two new significant revenue streams.

Our efforts reached an important milestone when Scoop formally became a charity six weeks ago on September 16th. So we’ve already done the hard parts - creating a new business model which is capable of supporting Scoop and building a new legal entity capable of becoming the news community that Scoop needs to become.

Why Have A Scoop Foundation?

 

 Scoop Foundation Trustee's Alastair and Margaret Thompson introduce this PledgeMe campaign.

So far the global #futureofnews effort has failed to deliver any reliable solutions to a news funding crisis caused by digital disruption of advertising markets. Those solutions which are being trialed are almost certainly not viable in a local news market the size of New Zealand's. Making thousands of journalists redundant, chasing reader eyeballs through click-bait, 30-second video news formats, and adding cats the news stream — are not improving the situation. The solutions being proposed — paywalls and micro-payments — are unlikely to work at NZ scale. 

Saving the news will need many solutions. All we know for certain, is that only innovation can get us there.

Scoop has been playing the role of news innovator since it started in 1999. We’ve built a remarkably strong network of New Zealand communicators and communications. We’ve networked blogs and built a platform which supports partnership publications including Werewolf.co.nz, Pacific.scoop Wellington.scoop and the Scoop Review of Books.

Our +500,000 monthly readers, millions of incoming links, and influential audience has made Scoop the ideal platform for developing a new business model for online news. We want to continue our collaborative role within the NZ news ecosystem, this role has been central to our efforts to transform Scoop into a not-for-profit over the past three years.

The Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism Infographic

The Scoop Foundation Project  - The Story So Far

Scoop launched the initial Scoop Foundation Project —- to create a charitable Trust to fund investigative news projects — in April 2013. 21 months later, in December 2014 “Operation Chrysalis”, a three-step plan to transform the privately owned Scoop publishing company into a not-for-profit foundation began. In 2015, 321 generous pledgers provided $36,874 to "facilitate the gift of Scoop.co.nz from its current owners to a new structure".

Over the past six months these funds were used to:

·                     Incorporate Scoop's Publishing business into the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism (in the first two weeks of September).

·                     Develop and launch the sales effort behind an innovative new business model for news publishing — "Commercial Content Licensing".

·                     Launch "Scoop Foundation Membership", a means of enabling readers and supporters to financially contribute towards making Scoop sustainable.

·                     Enspiralise Scoop to make it more resilient and better able to scale by adopting organisational management and practices, and with the assistance of the Enspiral community.

Income from licence sales and memberships is growing rapidly and we're tracking towards becoming fully sustainable from licence and subscription revenue alone by May 2016.

In five months we've sold commercial use licenses to over 60 organisations including Government Departments, law firms, universities, corporates and PR firms, and recruited over 300 members. In September we launched a campaign to recruit members and contributors (people who actively help the Foundation) on an ongoing basis at takebackthenews.nz.

 

The Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism was established on 2 September 2015

 

Introducing The Scoop Team

The Scoop Foundation's trustees, Margaret Thompson (formerly owner of Scoop.co.nz) and Alastair Thompson (director and editor of the Scoop Publishing Company) are in our video above.

Our core editorial team consists of:

 

  • News Editor - Lyndon Hood
  • Deputy Editor -  Ian Llewellyn
  • Duty Editor - Jackie Little
  • Political Editor - Gordon Campbell
  • Political Reporter - Robert Kelly
  • Arts and Culture Editor - Howard Davis
  • Wellington Scoop Editor - Lindsay Shelton

 

Heading the Business Development Team is Steven Wood, assisted by sales assistant Olexander Barnes and accounts administrator Kristen Dowsett. Scoop's sales development and campaign work is supported by Enspiral network collaborators Damian Sligo-Green and Noshi Creative. On the technical side, our systems are kept running by Andrew Thompson and Wiremu Demchick.

The inner circle of the wider Scoop network also includes:  

 

  • Alison McCulloch and Jeremy Rose - Scoop Review of Books
  • Professor David Robie - Pacific Scoop
  • Julie Webb-Pullman - Gaza Scoop
  • Tom Frewen, Ian Llewellyn and Reesh Lyon - Parliament Today
  • Pattrick Smellie, Jonathan Underhill, Tina Morrison, Fiona Rotherham, Suze Metherall and Paul McBeth - Business Scoop
  • Russell Brown and Fiona Rae - Public Address
  • Lynne Prentice - The Standard
  • Tim Watkin and Eleanor Black -  Pundit.co.nz
  • John Smythe - Theatreview.co.nz
  • Jane Kelsey & Ors. - Itsourfuture.org.nz

 

What We Want To Do Now

 

The Scoop Foundation’s immediate work programme includes:Recruit additional trustees;

  • Establish systems to ensure compliance with statutory obligations;
  • Establish a fund-raising team to solicit larger donations and grants from philanthropic institutions;
  • Create an independent, high trust learning community of news professionals (the “Fellowship of Scoop” Project);
  • Build systems to organise and engage with volunteer contributors and members;
  • Launch our first public interest investigative journalism project funding round.

Meanwhile the Scoop Publishing Company needs The Foundation’s assistance to invest in:

  • Recruit new social entrepreneurs to work in the core Scoop Team;
  • Develop the sales processes around the Commercial Licensing model;
  • Expand the editorial team;
  • Establish institutional partnerships to help Scoop grow.

 

 

Comments

Updates 10

Important update: $4,500 still needed to save Scoop

01/12/2018 at 9:21 AM

Dear Scoop Supporter,

Important update: $3,500 still needed to save Scoop

Raised: $31,497 (90% of the $35K target). 
Remaining: Just $3.5K over the last 2 days. (Around $1,750 per day)
Deadline: 3 December (Midnight on Sunday) 
Please show us some love now at: Pldg.me/scoop

If you haven't already, please Support Scoop in this vital campaign before Midnight tomorrow!

We have seen a huge wave of support from our readers, collectively donating around $15,000. 
23 new Professional organisations have also joined ScoopPro - matching this amount step-for-step to get us agonisingly close to the $35K target. 

But, these ScoopPro sales are now over for the week and we are not out of the woods yet, so once again it is over to you - our valued readers - to get us through the final stretch.

We truly would prefer not to ask for your money again, and we sincerely hope this is the last time (excluding the planned Crowd-equity investment opportunity in 2019).

However, until enough organisations get the message, you and our 220+ ScoopPro organisations are the only thing keeping this shared ‘public good’ independent Media ecosystem alive.

PLEASE SUPPORT THE “SCOOP 3.0” CAMPAIGN HERE

Thankyou again for your support for a better future for Independent Media in Aotearoa

Alastair Thompson
Co-founder
Scoop Publishing

P.S.
In case you did not see them, this week we published two important pieces on why Scoop needs this funding right now:

1. By Scoop Co-editor Joseph Cederwall: “Why We Care about Scoop, and Why We Think You Should”

2. Part 2 of an Open Letter from Scoop Co-founder Alastair Thompson: “Who are Scoop’s Biggest Freeriders?”

Important update - $12K left to save Scoop (2 important new stories published about Scoop)

28/11/2018 at 4:04 PM

Important update - $12,000 left to save Scoop

The “Scoop 3.0” PledgeMe campaign has now raised $22,917 (65% of the $35K target).

We now need to raise just over $12K in the last 4 days. (Around $3,000 per day)

Please show us some love now at: Pldg.me/scoop

Over the past week we have seen a huge wave of support, mostly from you - our loyal supporters - and a few (mostly small) organisations using Scoop professionally.

We have also just published two important pieces explaining why Scoop needs this funding right now:

1. The first is Part 2 of an Open Letter from Scoop Co-founder Alastair Thompson: “Who are Scoop’s Biggest Freeriders?”

This details how the reason we still need to ask you for money is that so many large organisations including Government, Universities and major Media orgs are still refusing to acknowledge Scoop’s ScoopPro “Ethical Paywall” copyright terms and Freeriding on this Public Good. This is threatening the viability of the Scoop ecosystem.

“This is the first time we have publicly called on larger organisations to consider their position, or non-position, in relation to our ask. As for the most part, from our perspective, the opposition to our "ethical paywall" simply takes the form of being completely ignored. Talk to the hand. And So Today We Highlight 11 Example Organisations, Media Companies, Banks & Our Biggest Govt. Unlicensed Freeriding Organisations.”

2. Second is a piece by Scoop Co-editor Joseph Cederwall: Why We Care about Scoop, and Why We Think You Should”

This piece sets out why exactly the Scoop team, and the many readers and organisations that have supported us so far, think Scoop, and the “Scoop 3.0 plan” matter for New Zealand. It uses a number of comments from supporters to illustrate 5 key reasons Scoop matters, including this beauty:

We truly would prefer not to ask for your support us again, and we hope sincerely this is the last time (excluding the planned Crowd equity raise in 2019). However, until enough organisations get this message, you are the only thing keeping this shared ‘public good’ independent Media ecosystem from fading into obscurity.

IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO, PLEASE SUPPORT THE “SCOOP 3.0” CAMPAIGN HERE

Thankyou again for your support for a better future for Independent Media in Aotearoa

 

Joseph Cederwall

Co-editor

Scoop Publishing

"Scoop 3.0" - An Open letter from Alastair Thompson, Scoop Co-founder

23/11/2018 at 4:20 PM

We are loath to ask you to help Scoop out yet again, however it really is crunch time for Scoop and our current "Scoop 3.0" Crowd Sale and Crowd Funding campaign

Please read my open letter to all Scoop readers published today. In this letter I appeal primarily to Scoop’s professional audience. In it I outline why Scoop's services are not currently sustainable, and why, unless they become so in a relatively short space of time - we will be unable to continue to provide them. However, if we can succeed, we have exciting plans for 2019 involving community ownership and more participatory journalism on Scoop.

With just over a week to go, Scoop needs around $17,000 in ScoopPro license sales and donations to reach it’s PledgeMe Crowd-funding and ScoopPro product 'Crowd-Selling' target. We would much rather that income comes from professional license sales than private reader donations, however we appreciate any support we can get at this late stage.

If you have not already done so, please support the campaign here

To be crystal clear, I am not saying that we will definitely close if we do not reach this PledgeMe target, but staying open will not be easy if it fails.

Over the next week, I will be explaining in greater detail, the background to Scoop’s precarious financial situation. Its causes and what we have done to address it and the numerous challenges we have faced.

In short, it is time for Scoop’s professional users, to ask themselves, if Scoop.co.nz were to close this summer would it be in convenient to their organisation?Scoop’s terms of use are clearly advertised and have been clearly notified to all our professional users now on multiple occasion via email and via the website. Those organisations that continue to use Scoop, ignoring our conditions of use, are not just freeriding on the 200+ organisations who are now paying to provide our service to you - our readers – but are also denying the staff who work at Scoop – a Charitably owned organisation – both security and a living wage. 

And in that respect Scoop is far from alone – if you haven’t noticed yet the entire NZ news industry is in a state of financial crisis. From what I can see – and those of you who know me will know that I watch these things closely - there are no profitable growing news businesses in NZa fact that even the industry is even publicly acknowledging now – perhaps prompted by Scoop’s attempts to raise the subject in a high profile manner

I apologise for speaking so plainly about this.

But this really is the moment for people who care about the provision of public interest news publishing to stand up for what they say they are committed to.

Yours Sincerely

Alastair Thompson, Scoop Co-Founder

Thursday, 23 November 2018

>>Click here to Donate to Support Scoop 3.0<<

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Funded! Stretch Goal : $10k To Fund A Demonstration Of What Crowd Funded Investigative Journalism Can Do

17/11/2015 at 10:29 AM

 

Bullseye Hit, The Scoop Foundation PledgeMe Launch Project Reaches It's Goal!

Stretch Goal : $10k To Fund A Demonstration Of What Crowd Funded Investigative Journalism Can Do

Dear Wonderful Supporters of the Scoop Foundation,

You made this happen. 714 Pledges . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

You have saved Scoop.co.nz, and given us a fighting chance of completing the epic project we set out on last December to create a new kind of news organisation for the people of New Zealand. Your news organisation.

Many of you have given twice and some of you three times. We are blown away by the support we have received. But now we have succeeded there is a whole new set of challenges ahead.

There’s something special about the crystallisation of a crowd funding campaign hitting its goal - a sense of opportunity and anticipation. We’re now up to 714 Pledges and still going strong. $52,496 raised and counting.  

Now we have a cunning plan to keep up the momentum until this campaign closes at 11pm tonight.

We would love you to help (if you like the plan of course). As always you should do this by pledging or by letting people know what we are doing via email or social media channels.

$10k To Fund An Investigative Journalism Look Inside The NZ Police’s Rawshark Investigation

Yesterday we published an announcement on Scoop, celebrating our success and announcing a stretch goal to raise $10k  today towards the Scoop Foundation’s first investigative journalism grant. Making grants like this has always been the original plan to for the Scoop Foundation. Grants which enable important pieces of journalistic work to be undertaken.

Today we plan to put all our efforts into hitting this goal and making this happen.

At midday today we plan to announce that this $10k will be used to assemble a team to look more deeply inside the full evidence bundle from the Nicky Hager Police Raid file which Scoop published on Friday. We plan to look back at how the police operation to catch Rawshark unfolded inside the New Zealand Police, and how it led to a raid on NZ’s pre-eminent investigative journalist just weeks after the general election. (NOTE:  We hope to find a mainstream news publisher to work with on this project in the same way that Pro-publica does in the US. So far the NZ Herald has published two stories based on the court papers that Scoop obtained by way of request to presiding Judge Clifford J.)

Watch out for a public announcement of this plan on the Scoop.co.nz front page around midday when we will be going public with details of the final 11 hours of the Pldg.me/Scoop “1000 Kiwis” campaign.

Yes this plan will be a little controversial. But that is what journalism is supposed to be. Challenging the powerful and providing help to the afflicted.

So far we are at $52,500 already and therefore have already raised $2500 or 25% of the $10k we intend to invest in this story.

Inside The Hunt for Rawshark - The Story So Far

Hager Case File Part 2 - Scoop.co.nz - 14 November

Handling of Slater gripe stunned cop - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

 

Hager Case File Part 1 - Scoop.co.nz - 24 October

Hager intrusion details - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

Hager seeks 'full and frank disclosure' - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

Cops got Hager data without court order - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

 

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Editor

 

Trustee The Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism

 

You have helped us reach 80%! - “Dissenters & Agitators Butterfly Ball Tomorrow Night - Scoop Hui Postponed

12/11/2015 at 10:41 PM

 

Scoop Foundation @PledgeMe Campaign Update #4

Thanks to all of you - our generous supporters -  we are now past 80% of our crowdfunding target! We have reached tomorrow’s target today. Thank you so much for all your support, encouragement and kind messages of support over the past few days.  

As 10pm we have had 518 incredible pledges and a total of $40,405 in donations pledged. It’s been a wild ride this week, and lots of fun for the Social Media team. On Wednesday PledgeMe  asked Scoop’s editor Alastair Thompson some questions about the campaign and featured the answers in their crowd-funding blog!

You can follow what we are up to on our twitter accounts @ScoopTrust and @ScoopNZ (with support from @althecat and @newzealand ) and on the Scoop Independent News Facebook Page

 

Scoop Hui Postponed Till 22nd November

Some of you will have received emails from us with details of a “Public Meeting and Scoop Members and Contributors Hui” on Sunday 15th November. We have postponed this meeting for a week till 22nd November. It will be at the same time 2pm and same venue St Andrew’s on the Terrace Parish Hall.

 

The Dissenters and Agitators Butterfly Ball

The proprietor of Dransfield House in Upper Willis Street has very kindly donated a venue for tomorrow’s Friday the 13th’s “Luck for Some” launch function for the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. In honour of this week’s Parliamentary fireworks and as a nod towards Russel Norman’s great Valedictory (which Scoop Editor Alastair Thompson featured in an Open Letter to all MPs)  we are now calling the event, “The Dissenters and Agitators Butterfly Ball”.

We have dropped the price of attendance to just $26 - which we hope will cover the basic costs. Proceedings will begin at 5.30pm with a small formal speeches event at around 7pm followed by a costume ball with dancing and a cash bar for partying into the early hours.

You can book Tickets cia our Pldg.me/Scoop page or pay by Koha on the door. It would be helpful if you could register your attendance on this Facebook Event page or email us at [email protected].

 

What Does Good Journalism Mean To The Scoop Crowd?

As you have been pledging we have been  thanking you all via the @ScoopTrust twitter . We have also been turning your messages into Facebook Images.

Yesterday we also published the answers of 20 Scoop Foundation contributors  to the question: What does good journalism mean to you? The answers are a fascinating insight into what you, our readers, value in your news diet.


ENDS

We’re Now Approaching 64% Of Target - Reward Details, Spooky Party & Scoop Hui Announced

10/11/2015 at 6:30 PM

Scoop Foundation @PledgeMe Campaign Update #3

Thanks to you our wonderful supporters on Pledgeme we are now approaching 64% of our crowdfunding target! Thank you so much for getting us this far. The sharing of facebook posts strategy appears to be working well

As of this afternoon we have had an amazing 407 pledges and a total of $31,658 Pledged. And we are well on our way to finding our first 1000 members with only 300 more required.  

Save The Date - 1st Ever Scoop Hui This Weekend

Putting together a community of support around the new Scoop Foundation is perhaps the biggest non-financial challenge that our collective effort faces.

This Sunday we are having a Scoop Hui in Wellington to get this underway. It will be the first formal gathering called together by what we are calling The Fellowship of Scoop, the name we are giving to the group of people who will work closely with and in the new Scoop Foundation and related ventures.

Our meeting this Sunday will be an opportunity for us to get together, like-minded Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media who are supporting efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy. We will answer your questions and try to workshop some answers to some of the challenges we face.

The details are:

Scoop Public Meeting

Date: Sunday November 15th

Time: 2pm-3pm

Scoop Members and Contributors Meeting

Date: Sunday November 15th

Time: 3pm-4pm

Venue: St Andrews on the Terrace, Church Hall, 30 The Terrace, Wellington.

N.B. The entrance to the hall is on the right hand side of the Church.

If you are in Wellington on the weekend and can make it along we very much look forward to meeting you there. Please bring interested friends, collleagues or family. There will be a Facebook event established for the event which you will find linked on the Scoop Independent News Facebook homepage shortly.

 

More Reward Details Revealed

Today we also released some new details about the rewards we are offering and commenced advertising them too.

Firstly there is our Friday the 13th “Lucky for Some” Batterfly Ball (CLICK for details)

RadioActiveFM has kindly agreed to help us promote the event and we are working on lining up a DJ and sound system. It will be an opportunity to meet some of the Scoop Team in a social environment and to toast the beginning of a new era in NZ news media.

Also today we have also posted an update on Scoop containing design details for our  Limited Edition Fine Art-Ts And Certificates.

We hope you like the wonderful designs which are our first shot at using fine art to fund fine news as much as we do.

And Finally, Please Help Us Spread The Word

We’re still looking for more Kiwis (300 more for this campaign) who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

Do you know someone who cares about the future of NZ news media and would like to be one of our first 1000 Kiwis? Please tell them how to get involved - http://pldg.me/scoop

Kind Regards

The Scoop PledgeMe Team

Scoop Foundation @PledgeMe Campaign Update #2

09/11/2015 at 12:55 PM

The Scoop Foundation Has Passed 50% Of It's PledgeMeTarget With 8 Days To Go

 

 

 

Thanks to you we have now passed 50% of our crowdfunding target! Thank you so much for getting us this far. As of this morning we have had 340 generous pledges with a total of $26,405.  

 

We’re now looking for just 400 more Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the 600 generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

 

Do you know someone who cares about the future of NZ news media and would like to be one of our 1000 Kiwi’s?

 

We have 8 days left and we need your help to find an extra wonderful person like yourself to join us. Please share this email widely to help us ensure that NZ’s democracy remains an informed one. You can help us in the following ways.

 

1.    Thanks for your pledge to become a member.

2.    Tell your friends [link: http://pldge.me/scoop], especially on Facebook (Check out our Facebook Page for material to share)

3.    Encourage your employer (if you use Scoop at work and value it) to subscribe to a licence which will support us to both continue to publish your message to the world - and save journalism - which they can also pay for by way of a pledge (pricing starts at $420)

4.    Volunteer to join the Scoop Team and participate directly in the future of Scoop (including a crew of social media amplifiers) at TakeBackTheNews.nz

 

Kind Regards

The Scoop PledgeMe Team

 

Scoop is seeking 1000 Kiwis who care about the future of NZ News media

05/11/2015 at 4:29 PM

Dear Scoop Foundation Pledgers,

Thankyou for your very generous support. With 12 days to go we have reached 37% of our target. However that means we have 63% of the target to go and we really need your help to get there.

As you can see below we have changed the focus of the campaign for the final week to a search for "1000 Kiwis who care about the future of news media."   

If you can please forward this email to friends, family, colleagues and or people who you think will be interested. We only need 600 more people to join us to get this show on the road!

New Campaign Related Editorials From Scoop's Editors

In other developments Scoop Political Editor Gordon Campbell and I have recently written editorials which support the change of emphasis in the campaign - i.e. the heightened sense of urgency. Sharing links to these on Facebook and in Social Media is another way you can support this campaign. 

"In the current climate, the news that matters – ie, the stuff that isn’t just thinly disguised advertorial or infotainment – needs your financial support. It shouldn’t be like that, but it is – if the kind of journalism that we care about is going to live to fight another day. It needs subscribers. Oh and besides, think how pleased some scumbags will be if Scoop isn’t around anymore. Let’s not give them that pleasure."

 - Gordon Campbell on being accountable, and holding the powerful to account

 "The success or failure of Scoop's current PledgeMe campaign is therefore about far more than just the continuation of Scoop's independent news, opinion, analysis and press release publishing venture. Scoop's "Ethical Paywall" is a new approach to looking at the copyright of news which provides a source of revenue for news creators that incentivises the publication of the kind of news and information which supports an informed public and society. None of the other solutions to the news crisis currently on the table do this - and none of them can work at NZ's scale."

-  Alastair Thompson on saving Your Scoop & Introducing The Fellowship Of Scoop

 

 

Sincerely

Alastair Thompson

(For The Scoop PledgeMe Campaign team - Olex, Audrey, Howard and Steven)

 

 

Scoop is Crowd-funding for the establishment of the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. We are looking for a further 600 Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the 400 generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

Let us be clear. This is a call to arms. A rally cry.

The support of just 600 more members will give Scoop a fighting chance of surviving the “news crisis” which is affecting all media.

Scoop needs your help, and what is at stake is much more than simply the future of the Scoop.co.nz website.

Information is power and the people are being disconnected from both. Digital disruption to the news business models has the media on a path towards providing a click-bait dystopia dominated by spin doctors.

A new model needs to be found to finance the production and provision of quality public interest news and information services.

Scoop is the only New Zealand publication that has a developed funding model which is capable of sustaining non-advertising-funded quality and timely news and information services.

 

Scoop needs your help. Join us.

As November begins the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism now has over 400 financial members (individuals who have contributed towards supporting Scoop), and over 70 organisations accredited to use Scoop commercially.

But we lack sufficient financial resource to complete the transition to our new model -  which is why we’re crowdfunding to establish the Scoop Foundation Trust and enable Scoop’s new funding model to get established.

If we can raise the number of members to 1000 by the time this campaign closes on November 17th, we will have a fighting chance of completing our transition to become a news organisation funded by accredited organisations and annual individual and corporate memberships.

We’ve created something both successful and valued - now it is up to you to support the continuation of a professional quality news service which keeps Kiwis informed and facilitates participation in NZ’s national debate.

If you agree that we’re on the right track, here’s how you can help:

1.    Pledge here and become a member for $16 or more.

2.    Tell your friends [link: http://pldge.me/scoop], especially on Facebook (Check out our Facebook Page for material to share)

3.    Encourage your employer (if you use Scoop at work and value it) to subscribe to a licence which will support us to both continue to publish your message to the world - and save journalism - which they can also pay for by way of a pledge (pricing starts at $420)

4.    Volunteer to join the Scoop Team and participate directly in the future of Scoop (including a crew of social media amplifiers) at TakeBackTheNews.nz

Please give generously, share widely and help us ensure that NZ’s democracy remains an informed on and helps deliver NZ the resilience it will need to face the challenges the future holds for us all.

What We Are At Risk Of Losing If Scoop Has To Close

For the past 16 years Scoop has given every voice in New Zealand an opportunity to be heard, to speak truth to power, to use words persuasively to bring justice to where it is needed and to illuminate dark places.

For 16 years we have provided a platform for New Zealand to talk to itself about the things that need to be talked about.  Daily 20,000 people access this discussion, 75,000 every week. We send hundreds of thousands of emails each month to newsmakers and those who have a professional interest in news, including the MPs and Parliamentary staff who sit at the heart of the Government.

This is clearly a useful and much used service. And we would like to continue to provide it. But to do so we need your help.

Scoop’s Working Solution To The “News Crisis”

As the impact of digital disruption bit hard at the end of 2014, Scoop’s advertising orders simply fell off a cliff. The core Scoop team met and decided that Scoop was a  piece of public infrastructure valuable enough to NZ Society to be worth preserving.

Then over the past 11 months of "Operation Chrysalis" we’ve achieved a series of remarkable breakthroughs which make the possibility of creating a sustainable independent, fiercely independent professional news outlet feasible.

We took a couple of ideas we’ve been developing for the past three years (charitable status - “The Scoop Foundation Project” - and a new interpretation of creative commons copyright licensing  - our “Ethical Paywall”) and  turned them into two new significant revenue streams.

Our efforts reached an important milestone when Scoop formally became a charity six weeks ago on September 16th. So we’ve already done the hard parts - creating a new business model which is capable of supporting Scoop and building a new legal entity capable of becoming the news community that Scoop needs to become.

    Pledgers 780

    Francesca Bolgar
    17/11/2015 at 10:56pm

    "Bravo Scoop!"

    Samantha Wilson
    17/11/2015 at 10:51pm
    Christian Carruthers
    17/11/2015 at 10:43pm
    Deborah
    17/11/2015 at 10:41pm
    Anonymous pledger
    17/11/2015 at 10:23pm
    Mary de Ruyter
    17/11/2015 at 10:13pm
    Anonymous pledger
    17/11/2015 at 10:06pm
    Pubudu Senanayake
    17/11/2015 at 10:06pm

    "Independent and trust worthy media is the corner stone of a true democracy and a society at liberty."

    Juiie Timmins
    17/11/2015 at 10:01pm
    Ruthe Grrl Kenderdine
    17/11/2015 at 9:56pm
    Claire Thornton
    17/11/2015 at 9:54pm
    Shirley Jukic
    17/11/2015 at 9:35pm
    Marija Jukic
    17/11/2015 at 9:30pm
    Sue Fleming
    17/11/2015 at 9:13pm

    "“A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad” (Albert Camus) "

    Jocelyn Pattison
    17/11/2015 at 8:54pm
    Anonymous pledger
    17/11/2015 at 8:50pm
    Amy
    17/11/2015 at 8:31pm
    C L GORDON
    17/11/2015 at 8:26pm

    "New Zealand and the world need a strong fourth estate dealing in facts and reflecting all points of view."

    Hamish Carnachan
    17/11/2015 at 7:48pm

    "Free media!"

    Susan Hawthorne
    17/11/2015 at 7:44pm
    Ellie
    17/11/2015 at 7:03pm
    lea
    17/11/2015 at 7:01pm
    Michael Hodder
    17/11/2015 at 6:29pm
    Helen Willberg
    17/11/2015 at 6:22pm

    "Onwards and upwards!"

    Dean Baigent-Mercer
    17/11/2015 at 6:17pm

    "KeeP oN rOCKiN InDEpENdAnT JoURnALiSM!"

    Drew Campbell
    17/11/2015 at 6:16pm

    "Free speech and truthful reporting is so important to democracy"

    Gavin Smith
    17/11/2015 at 6:10pm
    Jacqueline Graham
    17/11/2015 at 5:38pm
    Pam Hughes
    17/11/2015 at 5:38pm
    Anonymous pledger
    17/11/2015 at 5:34pm

    Followers 8

    Followers of Scoop is seeking 1000 Kiwis who care about the future of NZ news media

    Scoop Is Seeking 1000 Kiwis Who Care About The Future Of NZ News Media

    Project 2015-10-02 17:01:57 +1300

    Scoop is Crowd-funding for the establishment of the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. We are looking for a further 600 Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the 400 generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

    Let us be clear. This is a call to arms. A rally cry.

    The support of just 600 more members will give Scoop a fighting chance of surviving the “news crisis” which is affecting all media.

    Scoop needs your help, and what is at stake is much more than simply the future of the Scoop.co.nz website.

    Information is power and the people are being disconnected from both. Digital disruption to the news business models has the media on a path towards providing a click-bait dystopia dominated by spin doctors.

    A new model needs to be found to finance the production and provision of quality public interest news and information services.

    Scoop is the only New Zealand publication that has a developed funding model which is capable of sustaining non-advertising-funded quality and timely news and information services.

    Scoop needs your help. Join us.

    As November begins the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism now has over 400 financial members (individuals who have contributed towards supporting Scoop), and over 70 organisations accredited to use Scoop commercially.

    But we lack sufficient financial resource to complete the transition to our new model -  which is why we’re crowdfunding to establish the Scoop Foundation Trust and enable Scoop’s new funding model to get established.

    If we can raise the number of members to 1000 by the time this campaign closes on November 17th, we will have a fighting chance of completing our transition to become a news organisation funded by accredited organisations and annual individual and corporate memberships.

    We’ve created something both successful and valued - now it is up to you to support the continuation of a professional quality news service which keeps Kiwis informed and facilitates participation in NZ’s national debate.

    If you agree that we’re on the right track, here’s how you can help:

    1.    Pledge here and become a member for $16 or more.

    2.    Tell your friends [link: http://pldge.me/scoop], especially on Facebook (Check out our Facebook Page for material to share)

    3.    Encourage your employer (if you use Scoop at work and value it) to subscribe to a licence which will support us to both continue to publish your message to the world - and save journalism - which they can also pay for by way of a pledge (pricing starts at $420)

    4.    Volunteer to join the Scoop Team and participate directly in the future of Scoop (including a crew of social media amplifiers) at TakeBackTheNews.nz

    Please give generously, share widely and help us ensure that NZ’s democracy remains an informed on and helps deliver NZ the resilience it will need to face the challenges the future holds for us all.

    What We Are At Risk Of Losing If Scoop Has To Close

    For the past 16 years Scoop has given every voice in New Zealand an opportunity to be heard, to speak truth to power, to use words persuasively to bring justice to where it is needed and to illuminate dark places.

    For 16 years we have provided a platform for New Zealand to talk to itself about the things that need to be talked about.  Daily 20,000 people access this discussion, 75,000 every week. We send hundreds of thousands of emails each month to newsmakers and those who have a professional interest in news, including the MPs and Parliamentary staff who sit at the heart of the Government.

    This is clearly a useful and much used service. And we would like to continue to provide it. But to do so we need your help.

    Scoop’s Working Solution To The “News Crisis”

    As the impact of digital disruption bit hard at the end of 2014, Scoop’s advertising orders simply fell off a cliff. The core Scoop team met and decided that Scoop was a  piece of public infrastructure valuable enough to NZ Society to be worth preserving.

    Then over the past 11 months of "Operation Chrysalis" we’ve achieved a series of remarkable breakthroughs which make the possibility of creating a sustainable independent, fiercely independent professional news outlet feasible.

    We took a couple of ideas we’ve been developing for the past three years (charitable status - “The Scoop Foundation Project” - and a new interpretation of creative commons copyright licensing  - our “Ethical Paywall”) and  turned them into two new significant revenue streams.

    Our efforts reached an important milestone when Scoop formally became a charity six weeks ago on September 16th. So we’ve already done the hard parts - creating a new business model which is capable of supporting Scoop and building a new legal entity capable of becoming the news community that Scoop needs to become.

    Why Have A Scoop Foundation?

     

     Scoop Foundation Trustee's Alastair and Margaret Thompson introduce this PledgeMe campaign.

    So far the global #futureofnews effort has failed to deliver any reliable solutions to a news funding crisis caused by digital disruption of advertising markets. Those solutions which are being trialed are almost certainly not viable in a local news market the size of New Zealand's. Making thousands of journalists redundant, chasing reader eyeballs through click-bait, 30-second video news formats, and adding cats the news stream — are not improving the situation. The solutions being proposed — paywalls and micro-payments — are unlikely to work at NZ scale. 

    Saving the news will need many solutions. All we know for certain, is that only innovation can get us there.

    Scoop has been playing the role of news innovator since it started in 1999. We’ve built a remarkably strong network of New Zealand communicators and communications. We’ve networked blogs and built a platform which supports partnership publications including Werewolf.co.nz, Pacific.scoop Wellington.scoop and the Scoop Review of Books.

    Our +500,000 monthly readers, millions of incoming links, and influential audience has made Scoop the ideal platform for developing a new business model for online news. We want to continue our collaborative role within the NZ news ecosystem, this role has been central to our efforts to transform Scoop into a not-for-profit over the past three years.

    The Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism Infographic

    The Scoop Foundation Project  - The Story So Far

    Scoop launched the initial Scoop Foundation Project —- to create a charitable Trust to fund investigative news projects — in April 2013. 21 months later, in December 2014 “Operation Chrysalis”, a three-step plan to transform the privately owned Scoop publishing company into a not-for-profit foundation began. In 2015, 321 generous pledgers provided $36,874 to "facilitate the gift of Scoop.co.nz from its current owners to a new structure".

    Over the past six months these funds were used to:

    ·                     Incorporate Scoop's Publishing business into the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism (in the first two weeks of September).

    ·                     Develop and launch the sales effort behind an innovative new business model for news publishing — "Commercial Content Licensing".

    ·                     Launch "Scoop Foundation Membership", a means of enabling readers and supporters to financially contribute towards making Scoop sustainable.

    ·                     Enspiralise Scoop to make it more resilient and better able to scale by adopting organisational management and practices, and with the assistance of the Enspiral community.

    Income from licence sales and memberships is growing rapidly and we're tracking towards becoming fully sustainable from licence and subscription revenue alone by May 2016.

    In five months we've sold commercial use licenses to over 60 organisations including Government Departments, law firms, universities, corporates and PR firms, and recruited over 300 members. In September we launched a campaign to recruit members and contributors (people who actively help the Foundation) on an ongoing basis at takebackthenews.nz.

     

    The Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism was established on 2 September 2015

     

    Introducing The Scoop Team

    The Scoop Foundation's trustees, Margaret Thompson (formerly owner of Scoop.co.nz) and Alastair Thompson (director and editor of the Scoop Publishing Company) are in our video above.

    Our core editorial team consists of:

     

    • News Editor - Lyndon Hood
    • Deputy Editor -  Ian Llewellyn
    • Duty Editor - Jackie Little
    • Political Editor - Gordon Campbell
    • Political Reporter - Robert Kelly
    • Arts and Culture Editor - Howard Davis
    • Wellington Scoop Editor - Lindsay Shelton

     

    Heading the Business Development Team is Steven Wood, assisted by sales assistant Olexander Barnes and accounts administrator Kristen Dowsett. Scoop's sales development and campaign work is supported by Enspiral network collaborators Damian Sligo-Green and Noshi Creative. On the technical side, our systems are kept running by Andrew Thompson and Wiremu Demchick.

    The inner circle of the wider Scoop network also includes:  

     

    • Alison McCulloch and Jeremy Rose - Scoop Review of Books
    • Professor David Robie - Pacific Scoop
    • Julie Webb-Pullman - Gaza Scoop
    • Tom Frewen, Ian Llewellyn and Reesh Lyon - Parliament Today
    • Pattrick Smellie, Jonathan Underhill, Tina Morrison, Fiona Rotherham, Suze Metherall and Paul McBeth - Business Scoop
    • Russell Brown and Fiona Rae - Public Address
    • Lynne Prentice - The Standard
    • Tim Watkin and Eleanor Black -  Pundit.co.nz
    • John Smythe - Theatreview.co.nz
    • Jane Kelsey & Ors. - Itsourfuture.org.nz

     

    What We Want To Do Now

     

    The Scoop Foundation’s immediate work programme includes:Recruit additional trustees;

    • Establish systems to ensure compliance with statutory obligations;
    • Establish a fund-raising team to solicit larger donations and grants from philanthropic institutions;
    • Create an independent, high trust learning community of news professionals (the “Fellowship of Scoop” Project);
    • Build systems to organise and engage with volunteer contributors and members;
    • Launch our first public interest investigative journalism project funding round.

    Meanwhile the Scoop Publishing Company needs The Foundation’s assistance to invest in:

    • Recruit new social entrepreneurs to work in the core Scoop Team;
    • Develop the sales processes around the Commercial Licensing model;
    • Expand the editorial team;
    • Establish institutional partnerships to help Scoop grow.

     

     

    Comments

    Important update: $4,500 still needed to save Scoop

    01/12/2018 at 9:21 AM

    Dear Scoop Supporter,

    Important update: $3,500 still needed to save Scoop

    Raised: $31,497 (90% of the $35K target). 
    Remaining: Just $3.5K over the last 2 days. (Around $1,750 per day)
    Deadline: 3 December (Midnight on Sunday) 
    Please show us some love now at: Pldg.me/scoop

    If you haven't already, please Support Scoop in this vital campaign before Midnight tomorrow!

    We have seen a huge wave of support from our readers, collectively donating around $15,000. 
    23 new Professional organisations have also joined ScoopPro - matching this amount step-for-step to get us agonisingly close to the $35K target. 

    But, these ScoopPro sales are now over for the week and we are not out of the woods yet, so once again it is over to you - our valued readers - to get us through the final stretch.

    We truly would prefer not to ask for your money again, and we sincerely hope this is the last time (excluding the planned Crowd-equity investment opportunity in 2019).

    However, until enough organisations get the message, you and our 220+ ScoopPro organisations are the only thing keeping this shared ‘public good’ independent Media ecosystem alive.

    PLEASE SUPPORT THE “SCOOP 3.0” CAMPAIGN HERE

    Thankyou again for your support for a better future for Independent Media in Aotearoa

    Alastair Thompson
    Co-founder
    Scoop Publishing

    P.S.
    In case you did not see them, this week we published two important pieces on why Scoop needs this funding right now:

    1. By Scoop Co-editor Joseph Cederwall: “Why We Care about Scoop, and Why We Think You Should”

    2. Part 2 of an Open Letter from Scoop Co-founder Alastair Thompson: “Who are Scoop’s Biggest Freeriders?”

    Important update - $12K left to save Scoop (2 important new stories published about Scoop)

    28/11/2018 at 4:04 PM

    Important update - $12,000 left to save Scoop

    The “Scoop 3.0” PledgeMe campaign has now raised $22,917 (65% of the $35K target).

    We now need to raise just over $12K in the last 4 days. (Around $3,000 per day)

    Please show us some love now at: Pldg.me/scoop

    Over the past week we have seen a huge wave of support, mostly from you - our loyal supporters - and a few (mostly small) organisations using Scoop professionally.

    We have also just published two important pieces explaining why Scoop needs this funding right now:

    1. The first is Part 2 of an Open Letter from Scoop Co-founder Alastair Thompson: “Who are Scoop’s Biggest Freeriders?”

    This details how the reason we still need to ask you for money is that so many large organisations including Government, Universities and major Media orgs are still refusing to acknowledge Scoop’s ScoopPro “Ethical Paywall” copyright terms and Freeriding on this Public Good. This is threatening the viability of the Scoop ecosystem.

    “This is the first time we have publicly called on larger organisations to consider their position, or non-position, in relation to our ask. As for the most part, from our perspective, the opposition to our "ethical paywall" simply takes the form of being completely ignored. Talk to the hand. And So Today We Highlight 11 Example Organisations, Media Companies, Banks & Our Biggest Govt. Unlicensed Freeriding Organisations.”

    2. Second is a piece by Scoop Co-editor Joseph Cederwall: Why We Care about Scoop, and Why We Think You Should”

    This piece sets out why exactly the Scoop team, and the many readers and organisations that have supported us so far, think Scoop, and the “Scoop 3.0 plan” matter for New Zealand. It uses a number of comments from supporters to illustrate 5 key reasons Scoop matters, including this beauty:

    We truly would prefer not to ask for your support us again, and we hope sincerely this is the last time (excluding the planned Crowd equity raise in 2019). However, until enough organisations get this message, you are the only thing keeping this shared ‘public good’ independent Media ecosystem from fading into obscurity.

    IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO, PLEASE SUPPORT THE “SCOOP 3.0” CAMPAIGN HERE

    Thankyou again for your support for a better future for Independent Media in Aotearoa

     

    Joseph Cederwall

    Co-editor

    Scoop Publishing

    "Scoop 3.0" - An Open letter from Alastair Thompson, Scoop Co-founder

    23/11/2018 at 4:20 PM

    We are loath to ask you to help Scoop out yet again, however it really is crunch time for Scoop and our current "Scoop 3.0" Crowd Sale and Crowd Funding campaign

    Please read my open letter to all Scoop readers published today. In this letter I appeal primarily to Scoop’s professional audience. In it I outline why Scoop's services are not currently sustainable, and why, unless they become so in a relatively short space of time - we will be unable to continue to provide them. However, if we can succeed, we have exciting plans for 2019 involving community ownership and more participatory journalism on Scoop.

    With just over a week to go, Scoop needs around $17,000 in ScoopPro license sales and donations to reach it’s PledgeMe Crowd-funding and ScoopPro product 'Crowd-Selling' target. We would much rather that income comes from professional license sales than private reader donations, however we appreciate any support we can get at this late stage.

    If you have not already done so, please support the campaign here

    To be crystal clear, I am not saying that we will definitely close if we do not reach this PledgeMe target, but staying open will not be easy if it fails.

    Over the next week, I will be explaining in greater detail, the background to Scoop’s precarious financial situation. Its causes and what we have done to address it and the numerous challenges we have faced.

    In short, it is time for Scoop’s professional users, to ask themselves, if Scoop.co.nz were to close this summer would it be in convenient to their organisation?Scoop’s terms of use are clearly advertised and have been clearly notified to all our professional users now on multiple occasion via email and via the website. Those organisations that continue to use Scoop, ignoring our conditions of use, are not just freeriding on the 200+ organisations who are now paying to provide our service to you - our readers – but are also denying the staff who work at Scoop – a Charitably owned organisation – both security and a living wage. 

    And in that respect Scoop is far from alone – if you haven’t noticed yet the entire NZ news industry is in a state of financial crisis. From what I can see – and those of you who know me will know that I watch these things closely - there are no profitable growing news businesses in NZa fact that even the industry is even publicly acknowledging now – perhaps prompted by Scoop’s attempts to raise the subject in a high profile manner

    I apologise for speaking so plainly about this.

    But this really is the moment for people who care about the provision of public interest news publishing to stand up for what they say they are committed to.

    Yours Sincerely

    Alastair Thompson, Scoop Co-Founder

    Thursday, 23 November 2018

    >>Click here to Donate to Support Scoop 3.0<<

    You need to pledge to see this update.

    You need to pledge to see this update.

    Funded! Stretch Goal : $10k To Fund A Demonstration Of What Crowd Funded Investigative Journalism Can Do

    17/11/2015 at 10:29 AM

     

    Bullseye Hit, The Scoop Foundation PledgeMe Launch Project Reaches It's Goal!

    Stretch Goal : $10k To Fund A Demonstration Of What Crowd Funded Investigative Journalism Can Do

    Dear Wonderful Supporters of the Scoop Foundation,

    You made this happen. 714 Pledges . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

    You have saved Scoop.co.nz, and given us a fighting chance of completing the epic project we set out on last December to create a new kind of news organisation for the people of New Zealand. Your news organisation.

    Many of you have given twice and some of you three times. We are blown away by the support we have received. But now we have succeeded there is a whole new set of challenges ahead.

    There’s something special about the crystallisation of a crowd funding campaign hitting its goal - a sense of opportunity and anticipation. We’re now up to 714 Pledges and still going strong. $52,496 raised and counting.  

    Now we have a cunning plan to keep up the momentum until this campaign closes at 11pm tonight.

    We would love you to help (if you like the plan of course). As always you should do this by pledging or by letting people know what we are doing via email or social media channels.

    $10k To Fund An Investigative Journalism Look Inside The NZ Police’s Rawshark Investigation

    Yesterday we published an announcement on Scoop, celebrating our success and announcing a stretch goal to raise $10k  today towards the Scoop Foundation’s first investigative journalism grant. Making grants like this has always been the original plan to for the Scoop Foundation. Grants which enable important pieces of journalistic work to be undertaken.

    Today we plan to put all our efforts into hitting this goal and making this happen.

    At midday today we plan to announce that this $10k will be used to assemble a team to look more deeply inside the full evidence bundle from the Nicky Hager Police Raid file which Scoop published on Friday. We plan to look back at how the police operation to catch Rawshark unfolded inside the New Zealand Police, and how it led to a raid on NZ’s pre-eminent investigative journalist just weeks after the general election. (NOTE:  We hope to find a mainstream news publisher to work with on this project in the same way that Pro-publica does in the US. So far the NZ Herald has published two stories based on the court papers that Scoop obtained by way of request to presiding Judge Clifford J.)

    Watch out for a public announcement of this plan on the Scoop.co.nz front page around midday when we will be going public with details of the final 11 hours of the Pldg.me/Scoop “1000 Kiwis” campaign.

    Yes this plan will be a little controversial. But that is what journalism is supposed to be. Challenging the powerful and providing help to the afflicted.

    So far we are at $52,500 already and therefore have already raised $2500 or 25% of the $10k we intend to invest in this story.

    Inside The Hunt for Rawshark - The Story So Far

    Hager Case File Part 2 - Scoop.co.nz - 14 November

    Handling of Slater gripe stunned cop - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

     

    Hager Case File Part 1 - Scoop.co.nz - 24 October

    Hager intrusion details - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

    Hager seeks 'full and frank disclosure' - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

    Cops got Hager data without court order - NZ Herald (David Fisher)

     

    Alastair Thompson

    Scoop Editor

     

    Trustee The Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism

     

    You have helped us reach 80%! - “Dissenters & Agitators Butterfly Ball Tomorrow Night - Scoop Hui Postponed

    12/11/2015 at 10:41 PM

     

    Scoop Foundation @PledgeMe Campaign Update #4

    Thanks to all of you - our generous supporters -  we are now past 80% of our crowdfunding target! We have reached tomorrow’s target today. Thank you so much for all your support, encouragement and kind messages of support over the past few days.  

    As 10pm we have had 518 incredible pledges and a total of $40,405 in donations pledged. It’s been a wild ride this week, and lots of fun for the Social Media team. On Wednesday PledgeMe  asked Scoop’s editor Alastair Thompson some questions about the campaign and featured the answers in their crowd-funding blog!

    You can follow what we are up to on our twitter accounts @ScoopTrust and @ScoopNZ (with support from @althecat and @newzealand ) and on the Scoop Independent News Facebook Page

     

    Scoop Hui Postponed Till 22nd November

    Some of you will have received emails from us with details of a “Public Meeting and Scoop Members and Contributors Hui” on Sunday 15th November. We have postponed this meeting for a week till 22nd November. It will be at the same time 2pm and same venue St Andrew’s on the Terrace Parish Hall.

     

    The Dissenters and Agitators Butterfly Ball

    The proprietor of Dransfield House in Upper Willis Street has very kindly donated a venue for tomorrow’s Friday the 13th’s “Luck for Some” launch function for the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. In honour of this week’s Parliamentary fireworks and as a nod towards Russel Norman’s great Valedictory (which Scoop Editor Alastair Thompson featured in an Open Letter to all MPs)  we are now calling the event, “The Dissenters and Agitators Butterfly Ball”.

    We have dropped the price of attendance to just $26 - which we hope will cover the basic costs. Proceedings will begin at 5.30pm with a small formal speeches event at around 7pm followed by a costume ball with dancing and a cash bar for partying into the early hours.

    You can book Tickets cia our Pldg.me/Scoop page or pay by Koha on the door. It would be helpful if you could register your attendance on this Facebook Event page or email us at [email protected].

     

    What Does Good Journalism Mean To The Scoop Crowd?

    As you have been pledging we have been  thanking you all via the @ScoopTrust twitter . We have also been turning your messages into Facebook Images.

    Yesterday we also published the answers of 20 Scoop Foundation contributors  to the question: What does good journalism mean to you? The answers are a fascinating insight into what you, our readers, value in your news diet.


    ENDS

    We’re Now Approaching 64% Of Target - Reward Details, Spooky Party & Scoop Hui Announced

    10/11/2015 at 6:30 PM

    Scoop Foundation @PledgeMe Campaign Update #3

    Thanks to you our wonderful supporters on Pledgeme we are now approaching 64% of our crowdfunding target! Thank you so much for getting us this far. The sharing of facebook posts strategy appears to be working well

    As of this afternoon we have had an amazing 407 pledges and a total of $31,658 Pledged. And we are well on our way to finding our first 1000 members with only 300 more required.  

    Save The Date - 1st Ever Scoop Hui This Weekend

    Putting together a community of support around the new Scoop Foundation is perhaps the biggest non-financial challenge that our collective effort faces.

    This Sunday we are having a Scoop Hui in Wellington to get this underway. It will be the first formal gathering called together by what we are calling The Fellowship of Scoop, the name we are giving to the group of people who will work closely with and in the new Scoop Foundation and related ventures.

    Our meeting this Sunday will be an opportunity for us to get together, like-minded Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media who are supporting efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy. We will answer your questions and try to workshop some answers to some of the challenges we face.

    The details are:

    Scoop Public Meeting

    Date: Sunday November 15th

    Time: 2pm-3pm

    Scoop Members and Contributors Meeting

    Date: Sunday November 15th

    Time: 3pm-4pm

    Venue: St Andrews on the Terrace, Church Hall, 30 The Terrace, Wellington.

    N.B. The entrance to the hall is on the right hand side of the Church.

    If you are in Wellington on the weekend and can make it along we very much look forward to meeting you there. Please bring interested friends, collleagues or family. There will be a Facebook event established for the event which you will find linked on the Scoop Independent News Facebook homepage shortly.

     

    More Reward Details Revealed

    Today we also released some new details about the rewards we are offering and commenced advertising them too.

    Firstly there is our Friday the 13th “Lucky for Some” Batterfly Ball (CLICK for details)

    RadioActiveFM has kindly agreed to help us promote the event and we are working on lining up a DJ and sound system. It will be an opportunity to meet some of the Scoop Team in a social environment and to toast the beginning of a new era in NZ news media.

    Also today we have also posted an update on Scoop containing design details for our  Limited Edition Fine Art-Ts And Certificates.

    We hope you like the wonderful designs which are our first shot at using fine art to fund fine news as much as we do.

    And Finally, Please Help Us Spread The Word

    We’re still looking for more Kiwis (300 more for this campaign) who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

    Do you know someone who cares about the future of NZ news media and would like to be one of our first 1000 Kiwis? Please tell them how to get involved - http://pldg.me/scoop

    Kind Regards

    The Scoop PledgeMe Team

    Scoop Foundation @PledgeMe Campaign Update #2

    09/11/2015 at 12:55 PM

    The Scoop Foundation Has Passed 50% Of It's PledgeMeTarget With 8 Days To Go

     

     

     

    Thanks to you we have now passed 50% of our crowdfunding target! Thank you so much for getting us this far. As of this morning we have had 340 generous pledges with a total of $26,405.  

     

    We’re now looking for just 400 more Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the 600 generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

     

    Do you know someone who cares about the future of NZ news media and would like to be one of our 1000 Kiwi’s?

     

    We have 8 days left and we need your help to find an extra wonderful person like yourself to join us. Please share this email widely to help us ensure that NZ’s democracy remains an informed one. You can help us in the following ways.

     

    1.    Thanks for your pledge to become a member.

    2.    Tell your friends [link: http://pldge.me/scoop], especially on Facebook (Check out our Facebook Page for material to share)

    3.    Encourage your employer (if you use Scoop at work and value it) to subscribe to a licence which will support us to both continue to publish your message to the world - and save journalism - which they can also pay for by way of a pledge (pricing starts at $420)

    4.    Volunteer to join the Scoop Team and participate directly in the future of Scoop (including a crew of social media amplifiers) at TakeBackTheNews.nz

     

    Kind Regards

    The Scoop PledgeMe Team

     

    Scoop is seeking 1000 Kiwis who care about the future of NZ News media

    05/11/2015 at 4:29 PM

    Dear Scoop Foundation Pledgers,

    Thankyou for your very generous support. With 12 days to go we have reached 37% of our target. However that means we have 63% of the target to go and we really need your help to get there.

    As you can see below we have changed the focus of the campaign for the final week to a search for "1000 Kiwis who care about the future of news media."   

    If you can please forward this email to friends, family, colleagues and or people who you think will be interested. We only need 600 more people to join us to get this show on the road!

    New Campaign Related Editorials From Scoop's Editors

    In other developments Scoop Political Editor Gordon Campbell and I have recently written editorials which support the change of emphasis in the campaign - i.e. the heightened sense of urgency. Sharing links to these on Facebook and in Social Media is another way you can support this campaign. 

    "In the current climate, the news that matters – ie, the stuff that isn’t just thinly disguised advertorial or infotainment – needs your financial support. It shouldn’t be like that, but it is – if the kind of journalism that we care about is going to live to fight another day. It needs subscribers. Oh and besides, think how pleased some scumbags will be if Scoop isn’t around anymore. Let’s not give them that pleasure."

     - Gordon Campbell on being accountable, and holding the powerful to account

     "The success or failure of Scoop's current PledgeMe campaign is therefore about far more than just the continuation of Scoop's independent news, opinion, analysis and press release publishing venture. Scoop's "Ethical Paywall" is a new approach to looking at the copyright of news which provides a source of revenue for news creators that incentivises the publication of the kind of news and information which supports an informed public and society. None of the other solutions to the news crisis currently on the table do this - and none of them can work at NZ's scale."

    -  Alastair Thompson on saving Your Scoop & Introducing The Fellowship Of Scoop

     

     

    Sincerely

    Alastair Thompson

    (For The Scoop PledgeMe Campaign team - Olex, Audrey, Howard and Steven)

     

     

    Scoop is Crowd-funding for the establishment of the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism. We are looking for a further 600 Kiwis who believe in democracy, freedom and the importance of a free media to join the 400 generous individuals who have already become Members of the Scoop Foundation and who are supporting us in our efforts to ensure NZ remains an informed participatory democracy.

    Let us be clear. This is a call to arms. A rally cry.

    The support of just 600 more members will give Scoop a fighting chance of surviving the “news crisis” which is affecting all media.

    Scoop needs your help, and what is at stake is much more than simply the future of the Scoop.co.nz website.

    Information is power and the people are being disconnected from both. Digital disruption to the news business models has the media on a path towards providing a click-bait dystopia dominated by spin doctors.

    A new model needs to be found to finance the production and provision of quality public interest news and information services.

    Scoop is the only New Zealand publication that has a developed funding model which is capable of sustaining non-advertising-funded quality and timely news and information services.

     

    Scoop needs your help. Join us.

    As November begins the Scoop Foundation for Public Interest Journalism now has over 400 financial members (individuals who have contributed towards supporting Scoop), and over 70 organisations accredited to use Scoop commercially.

    But we lack sufficient financial resource to complete the transition to our new model -  which is why we’re crowdfunding to establish the Scoop Foundation Trust and enable Scoop’s new funding model to get established.

    If we can raise the number of members to 1000 by the time this campaign closes on November 17th, we will have a fighting chance of completing our transition to become a news organisation funded by accredited organisations and annual individual and corporate memberships.

    We’ve created something both successful and valued - now it is up to you to support the continuation of a professional quality news service which keeps Kiwis informed and facilitates participation in NZ’s national debate.

    If you agree that we’re on the right track, here’s how you can help:

    1.    Pledge here and become a member for $16 or more.

    2.    Tell your friends [link: http://pldge.me/scoop], especially on Facebook (Check out our Facebook Page for material to share)

    3.    Encourage your employer (if you use Scoop at work and value it) to subscribe to a licence which will support us to both continue to publish your message to the world - and save journalism - which they can also pay for by way of a pledge (pricing starts at $420)

    4.    Volunteer to join the Scoop Team and participate directly in the future of Scoop (including a crew of social media amplifiers) at TakeBackTheNews.nz

    Please give generously, share widely and help us ensure that NZ’s democracy remains an informed on and helps deliver NZ the resilience it will need to face the challenges the future holds for us all.

    What We Are At Risk Of Losing If Scoop Has To Close

    For the past 16 years Scoop has given every voice in New Zealand an opportunity to be heard, to speak truth to power, to use words persuasively to bring justice to where it is needed and to illuminate dark places.

    For 16 years we have provided a platform for New Zealand to talk to itself about the things that need to be talked about.  Daily 20,000 people access this discussion, 75,000 every week. We send hundreds of thousands of emails each month to newsmakers and those who have a professional interest in news, including the MPs and Parliamentary staff who sit at the heart of the Government.

    This is clearly a useful and much used service. And we would like to continue to provide it. But to do so we need your help.

    Scoop’s Working Solution To The “News Crisis”

    As the impact of digital disruption bit hard at the end of 2014, Scoop’s advertising orders simply fell off a cliff. The core Scoop team met and decided that Scoop was a  piece of public infrastructure valuable enough to NZ Society to be worth preserving.

    Then over the past 11 months of "Operation Chrysalis" we’ve achieved a series of remarkable breakthroughs which make the possibility of creating a sustainable independent, fiercely independent professional news outlet feasible.

    We took a couple of ideas we’ve been developing for the past three years (charitable status - “The Scoop Foundation Project” - and a new interpretation of creative commons copyright licensing  - our “Ethical Paywall”) and  turned them into two new significant revenue streams.

    Our efforts reached an important milestone when Scoop formally became a charity six weeks ago on September 16th. So we’ve already done the hard parts - creating a new business model which is capable of supporting Scoop and building a new legal entity capable of becoming the news community that Scoop needs to become.

      Francesca Bolgar
      17/11/2015 at 10:56pm

      "Bravo Scoop!"

      Samantha Wilson
      17/11/2015 at 10:51pm
      Christian Carruthers
      17/11/2015 at 10:43pm
      Deborah
      17/11/2015 at 10:41pm
      Anonymous pledger
      17/11/2015 at 10:23pm
      Mary de Ruyter
      17/11/2015 at 10:13pm
      Anonymous pledger
      17/11/2015 at 10:06pm
      Pubudu Senanayake
      17/11/2015 at 10:06pm

      "Independent and trust worthy media is the corner stone of a true democracy and a society at liberty."

      Juiie Timmins
      17/11/2015 at 10:01pm
      Ruthe Grrl Kenderdine
      17/11/2015 at 9:56pm
      Claire Thornton
      17/11/2015 at 9:54pm
      Shirley Jukic
      17/11/2015 at 9:35pm
      Marija Jukic
      17/11/2015 at 9:30pm
      Sue Fleming
      17/11/2015 at 9:13pm

      "“A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad” (Albert Camus) "

      Jocelyn Pattison
      17/11/2015 at 8:54pm
      Anonymous pledger
      17/11/2015 at 8:50pm
      Amy
      17/11/2015 at 8:31pm
      C L GORDON
      17/11/2015 at 8:26pm

      "New Zealand and the world need a strong fourth estate dealing in facts and reflecting all points of view."

      Hamish Carnachan
      17/11/2015 at 7:48pm

      "Free media!"

      Susan Hawthorne
      17/11/2015 at 7:44pm
      Ellie
      17/11/2015 at 7:03pm
      lea
      17/11/2015 at 7:01pm
      Michael Hodder
      17/11/2015 at 6:29pm
      Helen Willberg
      17/11/2015 at 6:22pm

      "Onwards and upwards!"

      Dean Baigent-Mercer
      17/11/2015 at 6:17pm

      "KeeP oN rOCKiN InDEpENdAnT JoURnALiSM!"

      Drew Campbell
      17/11/2015 at 6:16pm

      "Free speech and truthful reporting is so important to democracy"

      Gavin Smith
      17/11/2015 at 6:10pm
      Jacqueline Graham
      17/11/2015 at 5:38pm
      Pam Hughes
      17/11/2015 at 5:38pm
      Anonymous pledger
      17/11/2015 at 5:34pm

      Followers of Scoop is seeking 1000 Kiwis who care about the future of NZ news media

      This campaign was successful and got its funding on 17/11/2015 at 11:00 PM.