Note: this is an "All-Or-Nothing Campaign", you can make your contribution early in the campaign, knowing that if the campaign is not successful, you will receive a full refund. Early contributions are the most important - they encourage others to join the momentum.
The Public Record Rundown
Joey Coleman's ThePublicRecord.ca is Hamilton's source for City Hall and civic affairs coverage.
The goal of The Public Record is simple: to provide informed coverage
of Hamilton’s communities and civic affairs to enable all residents to
fulfill the responsibilities of citizenship by ensuring more
transparent, good civic government that is accessible to all residents
of Hamilton.
In 2012, we decided to launch an experiment in Hamilton. Could we use
crowdfunding to provide our own local coverage of public affairs in a
way that was innovative, informative, and helps improve our City's
civic conversations?
The answer - after tens of thousands of hours of coverage - is a resounding Yes!
Because
of you, we've been able to provide public access to City Hall meetings, community meetings, the Police Services Board, Town Halls, and the news
that matters to all of us 24/7.
The Public Record is local journalism, and it needs your support to continue.
Why You Should Fund The Public Record
The challenge for local journalism is
sustainability and the problem is paying for high-quality in-depth coverage. The solution is
not a paywall. The solution is creating high-quality journalism that
people value and are willing to voluntarily support.
By funding The Public Record you provide for unedited live video coverage of City Hall and community affairs that enables everyone to be informed, creating a rich record of civic decisions that can be permanently referred to.
You get, for our entire community, high-quality in-depth coverage of City Hall that no other media outlet provides including coverage of sub-committees and planning processes when decisions are made, not just when they are ratified.
This campaign will fund the continuing operation of The Public Record including:
- Overhead expenses including office rent, web hosting, equipment maintenance, cellular expenses, and all the associated expenses in creating high-quality original journalism;
- Equipment upgrades including a new microphone for better audio quality of community events and meetings in committee rooms, other sound upgrades, and a new streaming box to improve reliability of mobile streaming.
- A modest salary for The Public Record's editor Joey Coleman.
As a society, we lament the decline in local journalism. In Hamilton, we're rebuilding original local journalism.
Why a All or Nothing Campaign?
Many of you will notice that this is an all-or-nothing crowdfunding campaign.
I've committed to never receiving your support and not delivering great coverage in return The Public Record requires $11,000 to continue operations into the fall and to continue the business plan of implementing a secure monthly contribution choice for patrons.
Simply put, if I can't raise $11,000 to continue covering our City, I will not be able to continue doing so.
High quality journalism must be funded, it cannot exist without being able to pay the bills.
How Your Past Support Has Build Better Journalism
I'd like to take this space to share how your most recent support has significantly improve The Public Record and why The Public Record will succeed at becoming the first sustainable local online news startup in Canada.
- New laptop and software for video streaming - I cannot understate how important this investment has been to improving my work. Live video streams now have "picture-in-picture" that enables you to see documents and presentations during meetings. I'm able to add information graphics to meetings to make it easier to understand what's happening, and thanks to finally being able to invest in better equipment, I'm able to produce more work by quickly editing video and audio.
- Improvements to the website, which is now a secure site with a SSL certificate. This enables the monthly supporter system, protects your privacy, and will enable secure tips to be received for investigative journalism.
This enable The Public Record to be at more community events, and to cover more issues at City Hall.
The Public Record exists because of your support, Thank You!
The Incentives and Perks
Another reason this is an "all-or-nothing" campaign is to enable better perks than previous campaigns. By being able to budget for production of perks and the mailing of perks.
Contributions above $60 dollars will receive an embroidered The Public Record t-shirt, contributions above $125 will receive an embroidered The Public Record polo shirt, and above $200 will receive two polo shirts.
All contributions will receive the new ThePublicRecord.ca supporter button.
When you contribute, please select your perk if you wish to receive a shirt and let me know if you wish to have it mailed.
I'm planning an event for September 17 or 18 during which you can pick up your shirt as well.
How You Can Help - Share Why You Support The Public Record
The Public Record needs your help sharing what we do with others, and reaching Hamiltonians who will support local journalism.
We're looking to publish your stories of why you support The Public Record, post them to your Facebook, website, and share with us by sharing the link on Joey's Facebook page or emailing editor@thepublicrecord.ca to post on ThePublicRecord.ca
Thank you for your continuing support, I'm honour to be able to cover our community.
