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💪Go Spinoff👍 Hope the support is enough to keep you producing the same quality going forward...

🙋The part about not getting public funding had me thinking - Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny) wrote about the prospect of a return of Trump in the US, & his authoritarian policies & likely enablers, BEFORE the election. He warned that media, civil servants, and the population at large, should not "obey in advance". In other words, try to appease the monster & protect their jobs IN CASE he regained power, and argued that is what allows acceptance of authoritariansim to creep in.

🤔Is it possible that here in Aotearoa these agencies are "obeying in advance" of what they know the MP's in the 3-headed-Taniwha think about "public funding" going to what they call "left/liberal/woke" entities?

There has been no shortage of vitriol aimed at The Spinoff & it's excellent publicly funded pieces as well as it's core everyday work. Indeed, a source of unlikely (?) support for people subscribing/donating to The Spinoff came from a right wing commentator Liam Hehir (The Blue Review) who rightly said that "it remains an articulate, creative and interesting place for progressive thought (and snark) in New Zealand media"👍 but also puts the boot in about "public funding" and how The Spinoff should NOT be entitled to it 🤬 Maybe that is what is going on⁉️

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I feel like until this week I’ve very much been living in a bit of a bubble. I had no idea about the vitriol from some circles towards The Spinoff (though it shouldn’t surprise) and subsequently their glee about this week’s news. My annual donation recently renewed, and although I bumped it up, I realised it really is still too light and I’ll make another to bring it up to a more appropriate level.

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Thanks for being so open and honest. I really respect your commitment to being ethical and paying freelancers properly. The interviews on The Fold offers so much insight. Ngā mihi ki a koutou.

I've got one suggestion for something that you could offer members: a way for readers to crowd source story ideas for you. If you do this, set a word limit on suggestions, allow upvoting.

BTW . Our household will sign up as members again after a lapse - the way you're approaching this has won me over.

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Love the spinoff, have just doubled my donation. In the US, NPR does “begging week.” Always a problem when arriving from New Zild to find instead of quality programming you get asked for money! But it does concentrate the begging and people get used to it and pay up. Would this format work for the spinoff?

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