The 500th New Internationalist - time for courage and change

The 500th New Internationalist – time for courage and change

Letter from this month’s Editors:(left to right): Vanessa Baird, Dinyar Godrej and Hazel Healy.

When New Internationalist started, in 1973, people said: ‘It won’t last.’ No-one believed that enough people would want to read it.

But 44 years later, New Internationalist is still here, still writing about global justice. We need this as much now as we did in 1973.

It hasn’t been easy. But what has kept the magazine alive is reporting on ‘the people, the ideas, the action for global justice’. And the basic belief that change is possible.

You need courage to start change. So, in this 500th issue we are writing about ‘the brave’: people who risk their life to make a difference. You probably don’t know them – they are people that are not in most newspapers and magazines.

New Internationalist is not part of corporate media. We often write about topics that other media does not. We have no owner who controls us. We only accept ethical advertising. Our books follow the same editorial principles as the magazine. And our Ethical Shop – sells ecological, fairly traded products.

We still exist because of you – our readers, supporters and contributors. This is why we are now asking if you can invest.

Many magazines and newspapers are in crisis. The internet has changed media completely. Many more people read New Internationalist now – two million people a year visit our website.

We cannot only rely on people buying the magazines. So we are going public in a special way. We have started a Community Share Offer. People like you can invest in New Internationalist, to own it. This is a new way of getting money for independent media.

The media is too important to be in the control of a few people, which is the situation now. Democracy needs a lot of different media and different models of media.

You can now be part of the change. We need media that brings people together – not separates them. We need journalism that creates a global community. We at New Internationalist, we have never had a rich owner. So we are asking our readers to buy shares.

On 1 March, we started our Community Share Offer. We are offering shares in New Internationalist to ordinary people all over the world. If you would like to be part of this, go to: factsandheart.org.

NOW READ THE ORIGINAL: https://newint.org/features/2017/03/01/our-500th-issue-time-for-courage-and-change/