What a year it has been! In 2015, we celebrated our 150th anniversary. We toured the country with a live show and a documentary film. We published a coffee table–bending 268-page special issue. We delved into our archives with daily explorations of our country’s rich and tumultuous history.
Perhaps most vitally, on July 6, 2015, exactly 150 years after we published our first issue, we relaunched TheNation.com. Our new website, redesigned and reengineered from top to bottom, represents our commitment to being at the forefront of independent journalism for the next generation. Through the generosity of our donors, we were able to make all of our articles free for everyone for the remainder of our anniversary year.
That turned out to be a very good thing—because in these turbulent times, we’ve never been more necessary. We’ve also never had greater reach. Here’s one measure: November 2015 saw a 102 percent growth in unique visitors and a 155 percent growth in page views over the same period last year. Many of these new readers came to us in the days after the Paris terrorist attacks, desperately searching for an explanation of ISIS’s origins and motives, an alternative to the racism and xenophobia that sprung up in response, and, above all, a strategy to wage peace, not war. Probing, passionate, brilliant articles by Juan Cole, Laila Lalami, Lydia Wilson, Kamel Daoud, and Yousef Munayyer were read by millions, more than a third of whom came from outside the United States.
In 2016, an election year, we rededicate ourselves to journalism of this import and impact. That’s why you won’t find empty clickbait on our website. It’s also why, for many of you, nothing will change. New and casual readers will continue to be able to read our articles for free. If you like them, we hope you share them and come back for more.
But doing journalism of this quality is expensive. In the past year, we’ve sent writers to the streets of Athens to report on the financial crisis; to the factories of Iowa to talk to working-class voters; and to the borders of Europe to document an unprecedented refugee crisis. We’ve interviewed presidential candidates, explored what’s at stake in the next election, investigated broken healthcare systems, and exposed the cruelty of the prison-industrial complex. We’re proud that we were among the first media companies to pay our interns a living wage, and that we just signed a groundbreaking contract with the union that represents our staff.
The only way to read everything The Nation publishes (including our 150-year digital archive) has always been to subscribe. Unlike most magazines that rely on advertising to pay their bills, The Nation depends upon the support of our readers and the generosity of our donors. But starting on January 11, 2016, we’re changing to a different model of accessing all of our content online. We think this new metered system will better allow people to read and share our most important work during critical moments (after all, we’re working to help build a movement here), while also asking our regular readers to chip in to support our journalism. Here’s how it will work:
Many of you already subscribe (thanks!). Some of you have let your subscriptions lapse (now’s a great time to renew). And for some of you, this will be the first time you’re asked to pay to access our articles. Because we only do journalism that matters, we believe our regular readers will be proud to subscribe—and to help keep The Nation accessible to new readers. Over the next few months, we’ll be keeping a close eye on how this is all working, as well as answering customer queries.
And of course, we’ll continue to bring you the pioneering journalism that made our first 150 years and will make our next 150.
Richard KimTwitterRichard Kim is editor in chief of TheCITY.NYC, New York City's nonprofit, nonpartisan, local news organization. He was formerly executive editor of HuffPost, and before that, spent over two decades at The Nation, where he held positions ranging from intern to columnist to executive editor.