In the five years since Guardian Australia launched its membership program, we’ve received thousands of messages from supporters about why they make contributions to fund our journalism.
This year, in setting a goal to reach the milestone of 170,000 paying supporters, we asked for more testimonials from people all over Australia about why our voice matters. In terms of what our readers say they value, three themes are constantly repeated – independence, reliability and facts.
Guardian Australia has no billionaire owner and no shareholders to answer to, so your support powers only our journalism, from the recent comprehensive coverage of the IPCC report, to the daily liveblogs and news stories covering the Covid-19 pandemic.
It continues to be an extraordinary time for news, and the need for fact-based reporting and analysis that stays doggedly close to the science has never been greater. As our editor Lenore Taylor has written, the impacts of both the pandemic and the ongoing threat of global heating are not felt equally, so the Guardian’s role in giving voice to the powerless, while holding power to account, is crucial.
This year thousands more of you have put your faith in us by becoming new supporters of Guardian Australia, and we’ve now ticked over the 170,000 mark. Thank you.
Your support has helped us to produce great journalism, including a series of exclusives about the destruction of Indigenous history at Juukan Gorge, and delivery drivers losing their lives on the job. We’ve published an updated database on Indigenous deaths in custody, and series on what the outback means to us in modern times, the rise of misinformation, and new thinking around chronic pain. Of course, as you so often tell us, our ongoing coverage of Australian politics and the environment are two very compelling reasons for your support.
The two-way conversation Guardian Australia has with its reading community is important, informative and encouraging. Your personal messages of support are sometimes just what our editors and reporters need at the end of another long week in news.
We’ve gathered some of these messages and created an interactive map of Australia for you to explore. Please take a look and, if you would like to, share your thoughts with us. Cruising around this virtual map of Australia, when most of us can’t physically go anywhere, is a lovely reminder of who we’re working for.
Thank you again for joining our fast-growing community of supporters and for spreading the word about Guardian Australia’s journalism. And because we’ve been successful in reaching our goal so quickly, we’re going to continue it just a little longer.
Guardian Australia has reached the milestone of 170,000 supporters. You can help us grow further with a contribution of any size
