Putting a paywall on the Stray Ferret a year ago wasn't an easy decision

In the autumn of 2023, I took the decision to make the Stray Ferret a subscription publication.

At the time I had two choices. I could either leave it free to read but, to balance the books, I would have to cut down the number of journalists and the amount of news we covered. It would mean little time to cover court cases or investigate issues that local people ask us to look into.

Or I had another other option. I could invest in a new website and app, boost the number of journalists at the Stray Ferret and put a paywall on the site. It would mean asking local people to pay to read quality local news, just as they had done in the past when they bought a newspaper. 

But it would also mean we could expand our offering, keep doing investigations, covering court cases no other journalists went to and be able to respond to your requests to investigate local issues.

I knew putting up a paywall was not going to be received well by some readers of the Stray Ferret who had been used to reading us free for the previous four years. These are tough times and all extra costs add up. We have to be worth it.

But to me, the choice was clear. Even if it did come with some risk.

I am a journalist and I am only interested in providing a comprehensive, quality digital newspaper. That’s why I set the Stray Ferret up in the first place back before covid in January 2020. Subscription was not an easy message but I had faith enough people would appreciate the quality and accuracy of what we do and be prepared to pay for a good local news service. We are not alone, all news publications have struggled with declining advertising income. The Stray Ferret, like many others, has decided subscription is the only way to survive.

So, after a six month website build with local firm Show and Tell, we converted the Stray Ferret to a subscription publication exactly a year ago today.

Those first few days weren’t easy. We had some technical glitches (subscription is really complicated technically) and we also had loyal readers who really found the whole process of signing up and paying online tricky. I more than understand. I’m 57 and find digital technology challenging. I am deeply impressed by someone thirty years older than me who perseveres to overcome the digital hurdles of subscription because they want to keep informed about local issues and understands we need an income. 

A year after we launched subscription, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our subscribers. We have 2,500 subscribers to date and that number rises every day. Every subscriber plays their role in helping us provide as good a news service as we possibly can. Our aim is to get to 5,000. 

In the past few months we have been the only news outlet to cover a Harrogate murder trial, asked questions about endless traffic disruption, we broke the news about councillor Keane Duncan resigning and we exposed historic homophobic posts made by a Conservative candidate for Harrogate Town Council. I could go on..

The Stray Ferret exists for you – if you live here, we work for you. If you haven’t subscribed please consider doing so. We know each week 45,000 people browse the homepage. In an age when you’re never quite sure if what you read can be taken at face value, trained journalists play an important role in providing factually accurate, sourced information.

We have been publishing for more than five years now, every subscription allows us to plan for the next five. 

And if you think we should be covering something or have a story to tell us, please get in touch. 

Thank you. 

Tamsin O'Brien is the founder of the Stray Ferret. Get in touch:  contact@thestrayferret.co.uk