Old media is collapsing — it’s beholden to big corporate owners and advertisers, and its news is often cynical and disempowering — reporting problems without offering solutions or opportunities to act. An astonishing 97% of our community voted for Avaaz to build a news-site earlier this year, and now the Avaaz Daily Briefing is nearly ready to launch.

Our world is facing historic crises, and we need a media that can rise to the challenge — a media powered by people, not big business, that is reliable, insightful, inspiring and hopeful.

The Avaaz Daily Briefing will be owned by us and driven by us, publishing the news that really matters to the global citizen, with deep insights and ideas on how to address the challenges facing our world. And with over 16 million email subscribers, the readership of Avaaz is larger than most of the world’s biggest news publications.

We’ve spent months shaping the concept and recruiting a small team of top journalists — and the initial response to testing shows that people crave Avaaz media. Now we’re ready to scale up, hire the best editors, journalists, infographics geniuses and social media whizzes and get started! If 20,000 of us donate just a small amount right now, we can launch this exciting, new, big idea. Click here to make it happen:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_becomes_the_media_f/?bLaKmbb&v=18267

We often lobby governments to be accountable to people, but the truth is that politicians often dance to the media’s tune, and the media can be even more powerful than governments in shaping the world. A handful of corporate media barons own far too much of the media and abuse that power for political favours. And even when the owner isn’t meddling, media are often fearful of offending corporate advertisers and sponsors. Today, much mainstream media is cynical and invests too little in the deep investigative journalism that democracy needs to stay healthy. Media needs a totally new model!

People-powered media is already happening — many of us get our news from friends on social media these days. But now we could take it beyond what we share: our global community could become the next wave of the world’s correspondents — producing, distributing and editing the content of this site to build a trusted new people-powered record of the world. Last week, we took it for a test drive, and the response to our post on the Muslim protests and ‘MuslimRage’ sensationalism was fantastic!

We have an enormous opportunity, but if we don’t act now, the information that shapes the views of voters, politicians and our children’s generation will be owned and controlled by a few, and driven by profit. It’s time for the media to be non-profit and run by citizens whose mission is the public good. Maybe that’s where the media always belonged in the first place, and now Avaaz can lead the way. Let’s make it happen — chip in to help launch the Avaaz Daily Briefing:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_becomes_the_media_f/?bLaKmbb&v=18267

The march of democracy that is sweeping our world is remaking many of our old institutions. For 5 years now we have worked to reform politics and government in many countries, with a long string of victories. But increasingly we find that politics and media are two sides of the same coin, that one cannot change without change in the other. The truth is, we as people are governed as much by media as we are by governments. And it’s time to take them both back.

With hope,

Ricken, Dalia, Maria Paz, Alice, Antonia, Ari, Lisa and the entire Avaaz team

PS – In case you’re mulling it over, here are 12 more reasons to donate to the Avaaz Daily Briefing 🙂

Reason 1 – Daily Briefing is Avaaz 2.0

It’s a whole new dimension of the product Avaaz has been putting out for years. We are already the most successful, viral online community ever — this will take us to the next level.

Reason 2 – Daily Briefing is Independent, Impartial, and Trustworthy

Avaaz has always been totally independent, taking no money from governments or corporations, ensuring that our voice is exclusively determined by the values of our members and not by any large funder or agenda. Now, 100% of the Avaaz budget comes from small online donations. This means that the only editorial agenda for the Daily Briefing is the people’s agenda, and we will not shy away from speaking truth to power.

Reason 3 – Daily Briefing is People Reviewed, Approved and Powered

The team will create and maintain feedback and testing mechanisms to ensure Avaaz members exert quality control over the Daily Briefing and are always able to hold us accountable for producing the highest-quality content possible.

Make a donation here: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_becomes_the_media_f/?bLaKmbb&v=18267

Reason 4 – Daily Briefing Sees Deeply and Explains Simply

The Daily Briefing will communicate the most incisive and empowering understanding available of world events. But our team will remain fiercely faithful to the principle that important public debate should be accessible and engaging for all citizens. No matter how complex an issue is, there is a simple, concise and engaging way of explaining it. This never means dumbing down, it mean seeing deeply in order to explain simply.

Reason 5 – Daily Briefing is Briefing and Equipment for the Citizen

The Daily Briefing will always treat readers like Prime Ministers and Presidents – they’re busy, they make critically important decisions about how to spend their time, and they deserve to have the most important and most relevant information and analysis.

Reason 6 — Daily Briefing will give a voice to the untold stories.

Avaaz members have already funded critical citizen journalism to break media blackouts in hotspots of repression across the world. Now, the Daily Briefing will offer an avenue for voices and issues that are ignored by corporate-owned media.

Reason 7 – The Daily Briefing is Not News, it’s Better … and will tell the good news.

It represents in part a return to the soul of journalism — campaigning journalism that upholds the public interest and holds power accountable. And instead of bombarding us solely with stories that portray the horrors of humanity and the destruction of our planet, Daily Briefing will investigate and showcase inspiring stories of hope and courage.

Donate now: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_becomes_the_media_f/?bLaKmbb&v=18267

Reason 8 – Avaaz has No Bureaucracy

Avaaz is a massive network of citizens, but our organization is absolutely tiny – just 55 full time campaigners with operational and technology support. Most large, global NGOs have hundreds or even thousands of staff. Our small size means we have no time for red tape, layers of management, or being focused on anything but getting results.

Reason 9 – Avaaz is Regularly Audited and Fiscally Responsible

There’s a lot of fear out there about misuse of donated money. Most of the fear is misplaced – most organizations are filled with good people trying to do good things. With Avaaz you can be sure – partly because we’re required by law to be audited every 12 months. This audit thoroughly checks every aspect of our books and financial practices. We’ve been audited 6 times since we launched and every time been given a squeaky-clean bill of health (for details, click here).

Reason 10 – Avaaz has a World-Class Team That Does Outstanding Work

Campaigning, advocacy and social change are a serious and demanding business – the more competent the team, the more impact our donations have. Avaaz has always attracted some of the best campaigners and advocates in the world. Now, some of the world’s most experienced and talented journalists and media pros have approached us to come aboard because they are tired of corporate and conflict journalism and can see how a 16 million member media machine can strengthen our democracies and help change our world.

Donate now: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_becomes_the_media_f/?bLaKmbb&v=18267

Reason 11 – Avaaz is Political (this really matters)

Most charities offer tax deductibility for donations. But this means that they are, in a way, partially taxpayer funded, and governments use that to place a very thick set of rules on what they can and can’t do. Chief among them is restricting what they can say to criticize, support or oppose a politician. Avaaz is very rare in that our donations are not tax-deductible, leaving us 100% free to say and do whatever we need to to get leaders to listen to people — which will be crucial to keeping the Daily Briefing independent, impartial and trustworthy.

Reason 12 – Like Avaaz, the Daily Briefing could become the leading site of its kind — Ever, Anywhere.

Avaaz is the world’s first and only multi-million member, high-tech, people-powered, multi-issue, genuinely global campaigning community. No other movement can rapidly mobilize large-scale, coordinated democratic pressure in over 193 countries within 24 hours. Now, the Daily Briefing could be our next step in record breaking if we become the most read and shared global, non-profit, people-powered news website — ever, anywhere. But it can only happen if 20,000 of us chip in what we can today.

Make a secure donation to power the Avaaz Daily Briefing: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_becomes_the_media_f/?bLaKmbb&v=18267

_________

Avaaz.org is a 16-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 19 countries on 6 continents and operates in 14 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

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