Idaho Dispatch Done in June 2022?

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While the Idaho Dispatch is still very young (18 months), we had hoped to be farther ahead than where we are currently.

Independent journalism doesn’t have big corporate donors typically, and I would rather the Dispatch be funded by the readers anyway. Without readers, there is no purpose in doing this.

When we began this journey, I told the other owners and my wife that there was an appetite for real journalism and that the market would support this effort.

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However, our current level of subscribers, along with the decline we have seen over the last month, have us all pondering whether or not Idahoans will support independent journalism. Or maybe we just aren’t doing a good enough job in our writing to get more of you on board.

Either way, it’s not where we want and NEED to be.

Currently, Idaho Dispatch sits at 199 monthly subscribers and a few other subscribers who have paid for a yearly subscription. We couldn’t be more grateful and honored to have you on board!

While we are working hard to keep those subscribers, more people dropped subscribership last month than joined, and that’s a constant battle that we are having.

With over 1.5 MILLION page views in the last 18 months, we initially hoped to get 1,000 subscribers supporting the Dispatch.

We hoped that we would have a constant flow of new subscribers to counter the drops that would naturally occur by this time. But for whatever reason, we are not converting our readers to being financially invested in our work.

So, in discussion with my wife and the other owners of the Idaho Dispatch, we have given serious consideration to closing up the Dispatch if we can’t get our subscriber numbers to 350, or close to it, by the time June rolls around.

The reality is, we need to be at 1,000 subscribers for us to be very comfortable that things can continue long into the future.

But 350 subscribers we feel would be a good benchmark by June and then reassess where we are at.

That means Idaho Dispatch will also be trying to increase our content, make our stories even better, and work even harder to find those extra 150 subscribers.

Our request to you is to become a monthly subscriber for just $2.97 a month (or more if you wish) by clicking the link here.

Some of you would rather make a one-time donation, and that is completely fine too! However, the benefit for the Idaho Dispatch is that monthly subscriptions help us prepare for expenditures each month and know what we can do as a company.

But, if doing a one-time subscription or a one-time donation is what you would like to do, you can do that by clicking the link here and scrolling down to the option you want!

We are working on benefits for the subscribers, other than helping out a good cause, and in 2022 our intention is to send subscribers/donors early access to our exclusive interviews and more!

Please notice that we no longer use PayPal and went to a different system that will allow you to set up your account and control it yourself without needing Idaho Dispatch to do it. That was a request many of you had.

Whether you subscribe/donate or not, you can help spread the word about Idaho Dispatch by sharing our content as widely as possible.

Thank you all again for your support and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us and we’ll do our best to answer them!

Sincerely,

Greg Pruett
Editor
Idaho Dispatch