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Dear Friend of the Journal, As a nonprofit newsroom, Earth Island Journal relies on reader contributions to fund the hard work of finding and reporting stories — and making those stories available to everyone, without a paywall. Why doesn’t Earth Island Journal have a paywall? It’s simple really. We believe access to high quality information is key to fighting the climate crisis. How is the public good served when well-sourced, deeply reported journalism is hidden where few can access it? Meanwhile, our airwaves and social media channels are flooded with free junk and misinformation, often written by PR professionals. This crowds out reliable, fact-based information. People deserve to know who is polluting their waterways, who is spewing toxic particles into their air, and who is wiping out their forests. People deserve the truth and access to reliable information. When corporate spin displaces factual, evidence-based information, people lose trust in our institutions and each other. Furthermore, turning journalism into a luxury product with high prices and stingy paywalls hasn’t protected journalism jobs. Last year, job cuts in US news organizations grew by nearly 50 percent. Big names weren’t spared, either: layoffs hit the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and Time magazine. Even the storied National Geographic laid off all its writers in 2023. Some days it feels like a miracle that Earth Island Journal has managed to hold steady and cover the environment for four decades. Readers like you deserve a lot of the credit for that.
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