New online magazine won't monitor web traffic, say founders

A reader-funded online magazine for narrative journalism is set to launch this month, but its founders claim they will take no notice of traffic as they care about stories, not "clicks".

Latterly will publish its first issue on 18 November alongside a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign which aims to raise $9,835 (£6,204) to finance the start-up in its first three months.

The monthly magazine, which will publish four stories per issue, will also not feature any ads, Latterly's founders wrote in a manifesto.

Instead it will operate a subscription model, with options of $3 a month or $8 for three months. One story will be available for free in each edition.

"For start-up journalism, people who are trying to get away with this new model of doing journalism without venture capitalists backing them, I think this is the only way we're going to be able to do it," said co-founder Ben Wolford.

However, Wolford admitted that getting "the attention we need to make this sustainable but with so few stories" was going to be a challenge.

"You're not going to attract as many people as you would if you were cranking out seven stories a day," he said.

"You just won't get the same traffic. We're subscription-based, but I'm predicting a battle to get people's attention."

Latterly will publish human interest stories that Wolford and the team feel are being ignored as the mainstream media focuses on big stories like Ukraine or Syria.

Wolford, who is also a freelance journalist, said he has been told by editors there are no resources available for stories outside the news agenda, or that audiences are not interested.

"The editor was telling me 'look, you've got great story on your hands, but people don't have the bandwidth for it'", he said, "but I think that they do.

"People want to take a broader look at how all the pieces are moving in the world."

For example, the first issue of Latterly will include a story about divers in Laos salvaging an aircraft after a plane crash.

"I don't see any reason why readers globally can't pay attention to what's happening in Ukraine and Syria and read this human interest story out of Laos," said Wolford.

I think a reader-funded model is more suited for this type of journalism.Ben Wolford, Latterly

Traditional revenue models where metrics such as impressions or page views are valued cannot support this type of narrative journalism, he added, because it would not generate enough traffic to make an investment pay off.

"So I think a reader-funded model is more suited for this type of journalism."

Latterly was inspired by the style of stories published in Epic Magazine, and its funding model is one publications such as Compass Cultura are working with "in smaller niches", he said.

As a reader-funded publication, Latterly also aims to allow its audience to play a part in the editorial process. There will be a subscriber-only community page where behind-the-scenes updates will be posted, for example.

Readers who donate $100 (£63) or more during the crowdfunding campaign will also have a say on which stories get commissioned during the course of one month, when they will be an active part of Latterly's editorial board.

But with only four stories published each issue, Wolford said he needed to be careful not to reveal too much in advance.

While other reader-funded journalism platforms such as De Correspondent get their readers involved in the production process, this type of relationship with the audience does not make much sense for Latterly, he said.

"For us it will be more like, 'have you seen a story we should write about, how could the last story have been better, what questions weren't asked?'," he added.

Additional reporting by Alastair Reid.

Update: The story has been updated to clarify subscription prices for Latterly.

• Tickets for Journalism.co.uk's next news:rewired conference on February 3, 2015, are now on sale. For more details visit news:rewired.com.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).