You wouldn’t believe how far we can make a dollar go.
That’s my simplest pitch to you as we at Phoenix New Times roll out our spring fundraising campaign. We’re asking for our readers to chip in to keep our work free and strong. Our promise in return is to put that money to good use.
We publish hundreds of stories a month, to keep you up to speed on news, culture, food and music in the Valley. Ads pay for most of what we do. But we also rely on our members — readers like you who generously put skin in the game.
Our hybrid funding model has allowed us to remain free to read, some 55 years after our first issue hit the streets of ASU. No paywalls, no fees, no subscriber-only stories — we are still rocking this old-school, to make our work available to as many people as possible.
As the editor of Phoenix New Times, I love giving our stories away. Free access lets a broad audience find our work, giving us the best chance at making an impact on the city. But the downside is obvious. Even an operation as lean as ours needs funds.
Our goal for this campaign? We're aiming for $7,500, or roughly what 0.03 seconds of a Super Bowl ad cost this year. (I'm telling you: We're a stone-cold bargain.)
When you become a member — which you can do at this link, handsome — you enable us to …
- continue to track this contentious, drawn-out legislative session and prepare you for the 2026 elections
- aggressively cover police misconduct and the militarization of Arizona's border
- bring you breaking news about restaurant closings and openings
- surface the best, latest music and cultural happenings in the Valley
- tackle the comically ambitious undertaking that is our annual Best Of issue
- and pay our many freelance writers, photographers and illustrators — locals, all of them
Our style of journalism was long known as “alternative.” That term fell out of use as other media adopted many of our go-to moves and as many publications like ours simply ceased to exist. Whatever you want to call us now, we remain a fiercely local news outlet fighting the good fight alongside the people of Phoenix.
When the smoke clears on this fundraising campaign, we’ll have more announcements about our coverage goals and about members-only events. For now, suffice it that we’re amped to serve this city and state at a time when original reporting and rigorous fact-finding are at a premium.
You keep up doing what we do. We appreciate you for that. And we doubly appreciate the readers who gas us up and watch us go.
