The Speaker started in 2013, and we had during that incarnation about 50 journalists, photojournalists, etc., and then we stopped publishing because, as everyone knows, there’s no money in news journalism online, and without at least running costs you can’t really go on with any endeavor. That’s why even first-rate news organizations like The Times, AJ, The Guardian can sometimes be seen publishing junk, clickbait, etc. They’re trying to stay in business and make a profit in the internet world.
We did other things, but now we are able to use those other things to fund The Speaker journalists. It is a pleasure and a service to be able to do journalism. Anyone who wants to make money should look for things other than journalism, or pay the bills with something else and do journalism as their schedule allows. The publisher and chief editor of The Speaker is not going to be making any money from The Speaker. He is using money from other projects to fund The Speaker, and is working on The Speaker without pay. This means The Speaker can really do journalism, and not do junk or try to clickbait-ize our articles.
We started anew with our social media in order to get the audiences we want (the audience who really cares about a given subject) and avoid to some degree the broadest possible audience that includes a lot that is more a detriment to journalism or social media. A lot of what we were doing over the past years, though, included building audiences on social media, so as soon as we have content in a given area, we will be able to build that audience quickly. Think of what you’re doing at the initial phase as laying a foundation. You want the thing to eventually be good, so make a good foundation. You will be working with people who also want the thing to be good, and will be working to make that happen.
We are just starting to hire journalists again. We will be hiring part-time journalists for at least 25 countries where we see something very interesting developing, plus about 15 other journalists to cover non-regional subjects.
The final The Speaker News Journal, what it is to become, is something we won’t describe, because we’re too small to compete with any of the sharkish giants who could snatch our idea and run with it. It’s something very interesting and useful, though.