Crinkling News, Australia's only kids' newspaper, saved as $200k crowdfunding target reached

Updated

Australia's only kids' newspaper has raised enough funds to ensure its survival, at a time when print publications are struggling as advertising migrates online.

Crinkling News reached its $200,000 crowdfunding target today, with just eight hours to go in the two-week campaign.

"Thank you for believing in this wonderful newspaper and in the children around Australia who love reading it every week," the team wrote.

The paper's editor, Saffron Howden, tweeted: "I have all the tears of joy right now. Thank you."

She had said previously that if the campaign failed, the paper would not take anyone's money and would cease publication.

Donations ranged from $3,500 to much smaller amounts.

"I have seen one for $1 and you've got to remember that we've been hearing from parents that kids are wanting to donate their pocket money," Ms Howden said.

She said it was a vote of confidence one year after Crinkling News — named after the sound the paper makes when you read it — was launched.

"We've spent the past year showing kids do want a newspaper of their own," she said.

"It is important for media literacy, kids being engaged in the world around them and I feel that getting everyone on board is a testament to that."

The paper was started a year ago, when two former Fairfax journalists used their redundancy payments to kickstart the publication.

Ms Howden and her partner, designer Remi Bianchi, run the weekly publication from a room of their home in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

"We don't have the kind of a overheads that a national newspaper normally would," she said.

"$200,000 may sound very small in the scheme of a national newspaper, (but) it can go a very long way at a place like Crinkling News"



Crinkling News has since seen growth in subscribers, and is posted out weekly to 800 schools with a readership of 30,000 people.

However, the print publication was struggling to survive after running out of seed funding.

Ms Howden told RN Breakfast the money would be invested in the business side of the newspaper, after proving popular with young Australians.

On the crowdfunding page, the team said the paper was close to becoming a self-sustaining publication and just needed a boost to "take that final step".

"Yes! Our 12-year-old will be happy to hear this after school," parent Julie Rayner tweeted.

One of the newspaper's young reporters, 10-year-old Grace Gregson, said she liked that the publication was not "dumbed down" for kids.

"Crinkling allows young Australians to hear about issues that are happening around the world," she said.

She said it was important that at a time of fake news, children had information they could trust.

Topics: journalism, children, australia

First posted