NWZ - News Site

Hey y’all! Kiran here.

After launching NWZ’s PledgeMe campaign, we’ve had a lot of pressing questions. I’ve done my best to try and answer the tough ones. Hopefully if you’re feeling skeptical about NWZ, this changes your mind:

NWZ looks like a cheap rip-off of Stuff.co.nz, what’s different about it?

I’ve spoken to friends working at Fairfax, who’ve told me point blank that articles have been censored or never made it to print because of an advertiser’s objections. Typically, these articles will cover so-called “contentious issues” such as reproductive rights, rape, drugs and sexuality.

The difference is that NWZ is a news website that doesn’t censor at the whim of advertisers.

Additionally, we want to avoid pandering to the lowest common denominator; to that end, we will never engage in victim-blaming, xenophobia, sexism or any incitement of prejudice and hate.

Hold on, you said you’re going to fund the sight through advertising! Is NWZ just a a profit-generating exercise?

The idea is that 'costs are covered' by advertising, and we never compromise or censor the content to cover advertiser demands. We're registered as an llc, so we're technically a ‘for profit’ entity in the eyes of the taxman - but I see NWZ as more of a 'social enterprise', where profits go toward building the site into something bigger, paying writers, developing new apps/experiences etc.

Because we will not be censoring our writers, our advertising revenue will be lower – but hopefully the news product that we deliver will be stronger, and more authentic.

$4000 is a ridiculously small amount to develop (let alone run) a large site, won’t you just run out of money straight away?

As stated on the page, this is thebare minimumwe're aiming to raise to partially cover set-up costs. Are you familiar withLoomio? It's a piece of online decision-making software that my friend Jon Lemmon is working on. Their software is exceedingly more complex than ours and they funded it with $5000 in PledgeMe donations…

Should funding be successful, as well as buying gear, we'll be using the money to compensate developers that are already working with us, who are willing to work at a ‘start-up’ rate in exchange for later compensation. I want to pay them so that they don't starve - This may be why the figure of $4000 might seem unrealistic at face value.

In your video you talk about NWZ being free, what’s wrong with paid news?

I feel as though paywalls significantly limit the reach of content, especially in a small market like New Zealand. What if your only access to a computer is at your local library, or your high school? What if you're a single-parent on a low income, and can't justify subscribing to a paywalled site? Perhaps you aren't old enough to have a credit/debit card... it's just not something I see as viable, in a market this small, with the audience we're speaking to.

You were really vague in your video about whose content you are going to be reprinting, why won’t you tell us all your sources?

In our video, Kenji mentions "international organisations", this refers to offshore entities such as The Raw Story (who do syndicate content for free, to other publishers), Aljazeera (who share certain stories and videos under a creative commons license) and numerous other sites that have granted consent to their content being shared (with attribution). We’ve been scouring the net for 5 months building a highly curated list of sources. Anyone with this list of sources could effectively contact them, get their permission to syndicate, and build a 50% complete version of NWZ.

Well, if couldn’t anyone set this site up, why should I help you do it?

Because we pledge (ha!) to never compromise the quality and integrity of our content in order to satisfy an advertiser.

Okay, that’s rad, I want to pledge now!

The video doesn’t make it that clear (our bad), but you don’t get charged on your credit or debit card until the end of our PledgeMe campaign, and only if we reach our $4000 target. What this means is you can pledge now, even if  there’s no funds in your account, as long as that money is in your account on May 5^th.

Thanks for reading!

In response to a demand for more detailed information about what NWZ will actually be reporting on, here's a few quick summaries of the different sections we plan to curate. Pledgeme has a limit of images you can upload, so the rest will be posted on our facebook page at facebook.com/nwz.