Independent Media Matters
Filed by: Jessica Hoffmann
September 16, 2008 9:00 AM
http://www.bilerico.com/2008/09/independent_media_matters.php"If I believe an independent publication should exist, I subscribe to it. Even if I know I won't have time to read it, if I have the cash, I subscribe."
That may not be an exact quote (I can't find my old notes!), but about a year ago, Brian Dominick, a member of the collective behind The NewStandard, said something to that effect to me. TNS was one of the best (and most wildly undersung) indie-media projects of recent years--a nonprofit, public-interest, independent news site that produced serious, rigorous reporting on current events with a focus on the people, communities, and land affected by those events. TNS folded in April 2007 for lack of money.
The list of independent-media outlets that have folded in the last few years for financial reasons is long and sad: Clamor, Kitchen Sink, Punk Planet, LiP . . . and now Bitch, which for 10 years has been publishing feminist critiques of pop culture with sassy wit, and which seemed somehow to be staying afloat while so many others went under, well -- Bitch needs to raise $40,000 by October 15, or they're done. (more after the jump)
