Letter: How Can I Donate to The Dragon?

Published on: 11 Apr, 2020
Updated on: 11 Apr, 2020

From: Fiona Yeomans

I am finding The Dragon’s coverage of local news particularly useful during the current crisis and am opening its pages more frequently than ever.

This prompts me to compare the price of the Surrey Advertiser (which I still buy but find increasingly thin on news) with the fact that I pay nothing to read The Dragon.

Can some form of donation button be set up? A full subscription service would presumably be cumbersome and also contrary to the open-access principle behind The Dragon.

Dragon editor Martin Giles responds: Thank you for your letter. Obtaining financial sustainability is essential to the long-term survival of The Dragon but, so far, I have failed to do so and it cannot rely on only voluntary effort, as it does now.

Our team has discussed adding a contributions button (as does The Guardian, for instance) but it would be essential to have a capable fund manager with known integrity and accounting skills to ensure proper accountability and to allow a separation between knowledge of contributors, their contributions and the editorial team. Our independence is of utmost importance to us and, I am sure, our readers.

So far, my superficial search for such a person has failed but if anyone could recommend such an individual, who is politically independent, perhaps they could write in to: mgilesdragon@gmail.com?

The problem of funding local journalism in the internet age is widely recognised and the current Coronavirus crisis has brought the issue into sharper relief as income from regular advertising streams has been reduced to a trickle. Unlike us, most publications like ours depend completely on advertising for their viability.

Our regulator Impress and the Independent Community News Network (ICNN) are acutely aware of the issue and continue to work hard on our and all their members’ behalf to secure financial support.