A little word about our funding...
We don't get any!
The papers we produce and distribute have always been funded from our own pockets and occasional cash donations we've been handed when we've had stalls at events in the past. The few cash donations we've had were from people who knew us well, trusted us in what we did and had no desire to exert any editorial influence over us. Obviously, being self funded means we can't print the number of papers needed to get the wider reach we would love to have. This is the reality of being a grassroots based outfit - a reality we have to adjust to.
However, while we don't have much in the way of money, the one thing we do have is full editorial independence. Being able to tell it like it is and call truth to power without having for even one second to think about what our funders would say is the most precious gift we can have. While people may not like what we have to say, at least our content hasn't been bought. When you start to look at the way some self styled 'independent' news outfits are funded, questions about how independent they really can be will inevitably come to mind.
B24/7 receive a lot of funding from their members. However, they have in the past solicited grants to top up their funding. When they hired their 'Climate and Sustainability Editor' a few years ago, it turned out that the position was actually part funded by a grant from the NatWest Bank.
This is how genuinely independent The Bristolian saw this at the time:
"It’s the first of its kind in the regional press," gushes Bristol 24/7 as they appoint a ‘Climate and Sustainability Editor’. This new post is part-funded by a grant from, er, Nat West Bank who get to put their name all over any climate and sustainability articles in the online rag.
Paul Edwards, chair of NatWest’s South-West board explains with a straight face, “Tackling climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time and the urgency for action has never been greater than now. As one of the UK’s biggest banks and the largest lender to business, we have both the ability and the responsibility to take a leading role in that fight.”
Can anyone confirm if this is the same Nat West bank that has lent almost £3billion to the North Sea oil industry since the Paris Agreement in 2015?
Then there's The Bristol Cable. Again, they receive a fair amount of funding from their members. However, they have accessed other sources of money. A few years ago, they were able to fund this initiative: The Bristol Cable wins funding for ‘The Future of Cities’ solutions series. The funding came from the European Journalism Centre who have received grants from amongst others, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
There's no such thing as a 'free' grant. Money always comes with strings and an agenda attached. How that works was explained in some depth by Paul Cudenec in this piece published a few years ago on Winter Oak: Controlling the left: the impact edgenda 10.2.21. https://winteroak.org.uk/2021/02/10/controlling-the-left-the-impact-edgenda/ So when you read what may seem to be an interesting piece of journalism in an 'independent' publication, it's always worth doing a bit of digging into who is funding that and whether there's an agenda in play.
This should be obvious but we’ll say it anyway… We’d rather be skint and run what we do on a shoestring while carrying on telling it like it is, rather than accept any kind of funding that would inevitably have strings and quite possibly, an agenda attached to it. So, when you do pick up a copy of the At the grassroots paper, it will be completely free of any paid for agendas, trust us on that one:)
We’re currently distributing the latest edition of the At the grassroots paper. If any of you are from the Bristol / Bath area and feel that you would like to help us with distributing it, feel free to get in touch via our e-mail – atthegrassroots@protonmail.com – and we’ll take it from there. Also, if any of you run or are involved with a venue you think are supportive of what we’re trying to achieve, and would be willing to take a bundle of papers for their patrons, please let us know and we’ll get them to you.