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Seven years ago we began our very own adventure of journalism: Our editorial proposal has since been the creation of a free and independent media that gives our readers in-depth knowledge, makes issues of social movement visible and provides room for the debate of our society’s ideas. The horizon we aim at is that of diversity and plurality. Years have passed and we have been able to survive, although the predominant medial model in Chile does anything but favour the circulation of ideas and discourse.

Notwithstanding, today’s is a harsh economic moment that endangers the continuity of our proposal. We desire to cover more incidents, investigate with more depth and give room to more sources that enhance the comprehension of our reality – But the resources that we count on today are not only scarce, this scarcity genuinely threatens our existence.

We have a minimum team of journalists and insufficient resources to cover all the demands that others approach us with and the ideas that we have. Edition to edition we count each and every peso so that you can read our print or web edition. You know us well enough by now.

We are living through times of profound changes: In Chile and the whole world: The neoliberal model that is in control of the majority of mass media is disintegrating and social movements are awaking after years of lethargy. This process is complex and mass media is adamant in maintaining TINA, that There Is No Alternative. This monopoly on thought has permeated all debate, politics and particularly mass media.

Once one analyses the entire advance of the model of inequality, it becomes evident that is relies on collaborating mass media. Therefore, now more than ever, a free and authentic press independent of major economic groups is vital.

Publication costs makes the loyalties of some editors lie closer to their advertisers than to their readers. We all know that he who pays chooses the music – In order to compete, publishers have sold their principles and thwarted those investigations threatening to affect advertising corporations or the powerful in general. This is the press that have survived the competitive model.

We opt for new press economics. We do not wish to reproduce the current functioning of the press that sells its readers to its advertisers. We do not want you to see Ripley’s or Telefónica’s banner on our first page, our you to open your newspapers to an ad for Hidroaysén. This obliges us to ask you to finance the quality journalism we want to offer you.

We do not want to raise the prices for our paper or make you pay to see our web-edition, because the journalism that we espouse should be divulged to its maximum and we disagree with an income-determined access to information.

Our editorial proposal is to provide quality information and a broad horizon for free. This is why our publications are licensed as creative commons. We want them to circulate as much as possible, divulging problems, ideas and experiences that, as we all well know, the powerful wish to silence.

This campaign invites you to share with us a dream, an experiment in press history: A direct relation to our readers, you being the ones that finance our publication. If you should cooperate, it would allow us to maintain our media on paper and digitally without losing the editorial independence that we pride ourselves with so far.

We do not depend on any government, we do not have a financier or businesses in our backs to decide whether or not we shall survive this week.

We are proud of ourselves. We want to continue.

If every one of the almost 90 thousand friends that we have in Facebook donated 5 USD this would enable us to survive at least a year! We are a small independent media and and we work hard every day in order to provide you with quality contents. Afterwards, in a subsequent campaign, you would give us feedback on how we met your expectations.

We commit to maintain our independence, elaborate high-quality contents and investigative journalism and continue focussing on what mass media silence or ignore. We wish to make even more voices heard, fish in even deeper waters and give you the quality journalism that Chile needs so very dearly.

Thanks,

El Ciudadano.

Do not let more time pass and solidarity right now:

Name:  Sociedad Periodística El Ciudadano

Account Number: 166-07761-05

Rut: 76.080231-K

Bank: de Chile

Corriente

E-mail.e: [email protected]

+56 (2) 6982442