In two weeks time - on Wednesday June 10 2009 - Scoop will be celebrating its 10th Birthday. Our 10th anniversary will mark what has been a unique media project – a news outlet created with a mission to enhance democracy by informing the powerless about what the powerful are up to.

In 1999 Scoop was founded by a group of journalists who, even then, could see that the writing was on the wall for their profession. 10 years on, Scoop has been transformed into a strong and vibrant company far removed from its start in a shed in our backyard.

Today we have an audience of 500,000 people a month in New Zealand and around the world and a database of nearly 400,000 news items. On an average day we publish up to 200 items covering all aspects of New Zealand life and culture and a healthy quota of international news and comment.

Our 10th anniversary is a time of celebration, but also a time for reflection. These are not halcyon days for news media and the profession of journalism in New Zealand. Scoop, like any media outlet dependent on advertising, is being affected by the global recession.

Scoop Sustaining Subscribers: Werewolf - A News Publication for the 21st Century

Today, we are launching a campaign to ask Scoop readers to help us to survive and grow through the current tough times, and beyond. As a mark of our appreciation, we will be sending Scoop Sustaining Subscribers a new monthly email magazine called Werewolf - consisting of exclusive articles on politics, business, music and the arts.

Werewolf will be edited and co-written by Gordon Campbell, and mailed out on the full moon of every month. Its contributors will come from all corners of the New Zealand media scene. The next Full Moon is June 8th, just 2 days before our 10th anniversary - and Werewolf will be unveiled that day.

We hope Werewolf will be a beacon for what online journalism can become - a place where we will assemble content from some of the best of the new generation of online journalists. That is the Scoop vision: to provide a genuine, alternative voice to the mainstream media.

It will take time, and commitment to get there. The old forms of print media may be dying on their feet but until we reach the Promised Land, where online media can readily pay its own way, we will rely on advertising, and – we trust - on your pledges of financial support.

Scoop is already at the forefront of the coming change in the news business in operating a viable online news service. Over the past year we have worked to assist several of New Zealand's leading journalists such as Jeremy Rose (Scoop Books), Jonathan Underhill and Pattrick Smellie (Scoop Business) and our part time Scoop Political Editor Gordon Campbell to make a transition to earning a living online. Scoop is also busy outside of the Scoop tent supporting other new online businesses like Pundit.co.nz and PublicAddress.net by helping them to grow and selling their advertising alongside with our own.

If enough readers come to the party, Scoop can continue to supply you with a fresh and alternative take on news coverage. Enough Scoop Sustaining Subscribers would enable us to hire journalists to carry out independent research and coverage of NZ politics and social issues. As an indication of scale Scoop would need around 300 sustaining subscribers to finance the addition of one reporter to our team.

We are seeking your help to keep the story of Scoop going, to enable us to continue to do our job in a time when an independent voice is needed even more than ever. If you are going to start paying for online news media why not pay for a news media that is part of the solution, not the source of the problem?

If you agree to become a Scoop Sustaining Subscriber we are asking you to subscribe to pay $10, $15 (or more if you choose) a month to Scoop. This can be done either via:

Automatic payment to our bank account:
Westpac - Scoop Media Ltd. 03-0502-0254668-000

Or via paypal using your credit card:

$10 Per Month Sustaining Subscription
http://scoop.co.nz/go/subscribe10.html

$15 Per Month Sustaining Subscription
http://scoop.co.nz/go/subscribe15.html

$25 Per Month Sustaining Subscription
http://scoop.co.nz/go/subscribe25.html

Instead of spending $10 a month on magazines and newspapers, why not pledge that to sustaining one of the most promising media prospects on the New Zealand media landscape today!

If you can't afford to support Scoop by way of a subscription (or do not wish to do so at this time), but do wish to support our mission here are a variety of other ways you can support us through your actions:

1. Link to Scoop
If you are a blogger or have a website then place a link to http://www.scoop.co.nz in your blogroll or on your site.

2. Tell people about Scoop
Recommend us to your friends and send them links to stories they will find interesting. There is an email this page button in the top right hand corner of all pages which makes this nice and easy.

3. Make Scoop Your Homepage
http://www.scoop.co.nz/go/homepage.html
This is a relatively easy step to take which makes a big difference to us. More readers and users = more advertising $$$.

4. Join the Scoop Facebook Group Or Become A Fan
http://www.scoop.co.nz/go/facebookGroup.html
http://www.scoop.co.nz/go/facebookPage.html
This will help us keep in touch with you.

5. Follow the Scoop Twitter Feed
http://www.scoop.co.nz/go/twitter.html
This will also help us keep in touch with you. From time to time we may encourage you to do things on behalf of our advertising clients and usually there will be some kind of reward involved. It is very helpful if you read these messages and respond to them if they are interesting to you.

6. Consider advertising on Scoop
http://www.scoop.co.nz/go/advertise.html
Click on the above link for all the details.

ENDS

Despite repeatedly stating that a key demand was an end to administrative detention, and that no partial offer would be accepted, an Israeli offer was yesterday accepted by the Higher Committee for the Hunger Strikers on behalf of the prisoners. Although Israel has agreed to release 19 prisoners from solitary confinement - several of whom have been in isolation for more than ten years - and to lift the ban on family visits for prisoners from Gaza, the agreement states only that administrative detention will not be ‘renewed’ automatically and that after six months, the prisoner must be released, or charged. Current administrative detainees will be released, or charged, at the end of their current sentence. (video by Julie Webb-Pullman - Nakba Vox-pops with Gazans)More>>

REPORTS ON THE STRIKE END:

• Prisoner Interview - Julie Webb-Pullman: Jalal Saker’s Story
• Government Media Office - Victory of the prisoners in the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
• Palestinian Information Center - Palestinian prisoners win battle of empty stomachs
• International News Links - Palestinian prisoners, Israel make deal to end hunger strike
• Israel Security Agency - Terrorist Activity by Security Prisoners
• Israel Prison Service - End of the Hunger Strike

Julie Webb-Pullman: Gaza.Scoop.ps – Real Time News From Gaza

• Photo Essay: Al Jundy on Day 25 of the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
• Palestinians Favour A Diplomatic Solution, Says Haniyeh
• Hundreds Of Gaza Women March To Join Hunger Strikers Rally
Photo essay – 20th day of the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
• May Day In Gaza
• Protest Tent in Support of Hunger Striking Prisoners Relocates in Gaza City