Aotearoa / New Zealand

The Spinoff founder Duncan Greive says there's "no plan b" to save the website if an attempt to dramatically increase the number of paying supporters is not successful.

He and The Spinoff's chief executive Amber Easby and editor Madeleine Chapman issued an open letter on Thursday, outlining the financial predicament of the platform.

"Two of those buckets have been leaking hard lately. The steep decline in advertising for local media has been well documented. We're no different - we've just seen the worst monthly decline since the business was founded.

The Spinoff also discovered on Friday that all of its proposals had been declined in another round of NZ on Air funding, for the second time in a row.

"Meanwhile, our Creative NZ funding has been halved this year, and the Public Interest Journalism Fund, which currently supports two roles within our small team of 31, is due to finish next year. While the state is under no obligation to fund our work, it's hard to watch as other platforms continue to be heavily backed while your own funding stops dead."

They said as a result, as well as reducing staff count, The Spinoff had frozen virtually all external editorial commission and put newsletters on hiatus. It had also paused publication of The Friday Poem.

You can donate here if you want to help.