Dear reader,
Just when you thought it was safe to send a racist email, give the PM’s daughter a secret scholarship, or engage in a little Muslim bashing, New Matilda is back for the year!
Our small team are champing at the bit to get into another year of investigative journalism, news reporting, analysis and satire, and 2015 is already shaping up as a big one for us.
We’ve got state elections looming in both NSW and Qld, with Liberal incumbents doing their best to sideline Abbott and hold on to power. We’ll have Ben Eltham filing some special reports from north of the Tweed River, and be keeping a close eye on the Baird government as its campaign kicks off.
But 2015 won’t just be about politics.
We’re hoping to have a greater focus on environmental issues this year, and we’ve started with a special Thom Mitchell report on Whitehaven Coal, which reveals the questionable arguments the company made behind closed doors in an effort to avoid environmental restrictions being placed on its controversial Maules Creek mine.
We’ll also continue to provide an alternative voice as the War on Terror rhetoric rages on and the push against civil liberties in Australia continues.
To help us do so, fund New Matilda today.
We’ve been busy over the break plotting ways to make New Matilda bigger and better this year and none have been busier than our Senior Reporter Amy McQuire.
After a blistering 2014 Amy was awarded a prestigious Ochberg Fellowship at Columbia University’s DART Centre for Journalism and Trauma. As we write, she’s rugged up and battling a New York winter, almost ready to return to Australia with an expanded skill set and continue her reporting on First Nations affairs, climate change, and West Papua.
We’ll have some exciting announcements to make soon about her major project for 2015.
Aside from filing regular stories, our core team will be working hard behind the scenes to improve the website to help make it a more user-friendly experience and, well, to keep ourselves out of the nation’s courts.
To help us do both these things in 2015, please fund New Matilda today.
And for those who can’t afford to subscribe right now we make the same request as ever; share our work when it takes your fancy and send us your feedback about NM, we really do value it.
We hope you had a lovely break and that 2015 is a safe and prosperous year.
Kind regards,
The NM Team.