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Seriously considering starting a journalism outlet to compete with The Courier in Eastern Scotland so I can have news without transphobia. Probably lefty, green, and pro Indy too. Not everyone will like it, but wondering if there is enough.

Anyone interested or have any tips or warnings?

I'm thinking co-op structure so that profits are shared, but not sure how to structure that properly (or what the good legal structures are for news outlets), so any help there appreciated too.

@otfrom the folks at The Bell in Glasgow have recently set themselves up, and have been running a bunch of freelance articles, so might have some contacts to get some East Coast stories written?

@craignicol cool. Do you have a link/info on their stuff? I've not heard of them before

@otfrom @craignicol The same group have been running livpost.co.uk/ for a few years now, and they seem to be steadily expanding.

I'm a paying subscriber and they seem to be doing a decent job. I saw a little behind the scenes too when they did a piece on

My only concern is that it's a for-profit, and has been fund-raising theguardian.com/media/2023/aug so it's not clear how they'll resist the enshittification phase

The PostThe PostThe Liverpool Post

@amcewen I think this is why I'd like to choose a structure that resists that kind of enshittificaiton. (tho I'm not sure of one that could completely resist it as we've seen co-ops de-mutualise in the past to get more money)

@craignicol

@otfrom @amcewen didn't Nationwide Building Society explicitly put in a clause that no-one could make money if they de-mutualised? Worth seeing up something like that in the founding constitution?

Adrian McEwen

@craignicol @otfrom some clause like that sounds sensible.

I /think/ the risk of that is one of the things that @dilgreen and @tfwoodroof are looking to address with the stewards role in the work they're doing; that's picked up from chats with them, I'm not sure they've got anything written down explaining it yet