Haringey Community Press is looking for patrons who love local news as much as we do to help us to continue to publish the newspaper in print.

An image of print newspapers with the words 'We need your help'

Local news is too important to be behind a paywall, sent out in private newsletters or locked into a model where circulation dwindles month on month. Local news needs to get in front of people to inform, to stimulate and to entertain.

We see it as our duty to bring news to everyone in Haringey, regardless of their income or circumstances. News that’s free. News that’s trustworthy. News that reflects life in our borough as it actually is.

When we started as Tottenham Community Press in 2016, we knew that the newspaper industry was facing challenging times. We knew it would be an uphill struggle. We’ve never had grant funding or investment.

What we didn’t anticipate was a pandemic and a cost of living crisis.

We knew 2024 was going to be a tough year. But it’s tougher than we thought. And that’s why we need to ask for your help.

Why are we asking for help now?

Each month our ad sales team does an amazing job selling adverts. Each month the number of local people and organisations who kindly contribute financially to HCP increases. Each month we become more efficient at what we do. But each month is a juggling act to pay ever-rising costs, invest in doing more of the news Haringey needs and pay off the costs we incurred getting here.

At the end of 2021 Tottenham Community Press became Haringey Community Press. In 2023 we upped our game massively, publishing 84% more stories in the last three months of the year than we did in the first three months.

Building a newspaper takes time and money. Each month we distribute 15,000 copies of the paper for free across the borough and publish an average of 90 stories to our website.

In 2023 we spent £20,000 more on writing, printing and distributing Haringey Community Press than we brought in through advertising and supporter contributions.

Why is HCP in this situation now?

The money to publish HCP comes from three sources:

Advertising
Supporter contributions
Cross subsidy from our other publications and business activities

In previous years, we have filled the funding gap for HCP with money we have made through other activities. As the cost of living crisis continues, all of those sources of revenue have been squeezed and squeezed.

One big problem is that the single biggest source of advertising in Haringey is public notice advertising placed by Haringey Council. However, due to the combination of archaic laws around the definition of a newspaper and the council’s inflexible approach to procurement, we are not eligible to even quote for this advertising and all of it is currently placed with local corporately owned newspapers.

Put simply, we do not have the money to keep HCP running as it has been without some help.

What do we need?

What we’re looking for is a small number of local patrons who believe in local news for Haringey as much as we do. Patrons are people who can contribute £500 per year or more to securing HCP’s long-term sustainability and help us to preserve our free-to-access public interest journalism.

Patrons recognise the crucial civic duty of making sure that local news in Haringey does not die and the vital nature of trustworthy, reliable reporting and coverage of local events to the functioning of civil society.

In 2024, we are looking for patrons who can contribute £500 or more towards our goal of a £20,000 fund to keep HCP in print.

If we are not able to raise this amount it is likely we will have to move to online only publication – and reduce our output of local journalism.

Even if we do not reach our target, all donations we receive from patrons will be spent on continuing to produce original local journalism in Haringey.

Patrons will receive quarterly reports from our editorial and management team showing the impact their contribution has made to Haringey. Patrons will also receive public recognition and print and online for their significant contribution to our local impact.

If you think you might be able to help and would like to find out more please email [email protected] and we will send you further information.

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, or one-off donation.