After our hardest year ever, the Asheville Blade co-op is asking for your help to survive — and thrive — in 2024
Graphic by Matilda Bliss
Readers, the Asheville Blade has faced a brutal, incredibly difficult year. Two of our journalists were put on trial — twice — for doing their jobs. While we’re appealing a conviction widely condemned by press freedom and civil liberties groups around the country, that ordeal put our reporters through hell. It also meant pouring our time and energy into fighting police persecution rather than bringing more stories, investigations and perspectives to the public.
Our journalism co-op is entirely working class trans and non-binary folks who care about the communities of this city. We don’t have corporate ads or wealthy backers. We aren’t favorites of the non-profit complex or influential politicians. Indeed our role requires us to sharply and honestly confront the status quo.
All of us struggle to make ends meet — especially in one of the least affordable cities in the country — while facing escalating bigotry. Sometimes this makes it difficult to do our jobs, determined as we are. On multiple fronts this year has been particularly hard.
So we’re asking for your help. We’re trying to raise enough to survive in 2024. We’ve set up a fundraiser to try to make ends meet, help our reporters afford rent and food and expand our ability to better cover our city. You can donate here. Any amount helps, as does simply sharing the fundraiser or this piece.
You can also subscribe to the Blade for a small amount each month, or make a one-time donation via Paypal.
Despite the hardship, we’ve done a lot of good work this year. We’ve shined a light on city hall, the corruption behind the decaying water system, modern-day redlining, the ongoing pandemic and crackdowns on mutual aid and the poor.
We gave an on-the-ground look at protest against genocide, published a ground-breaking guide to fighting transmisogyny and dived deep into city hall funding an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
We delved into the trial of mutual aid volunteers and unearthed documents proving police retaliation.
We did an in-depth investigation of over 12 hours of body camera footage from the infamous Christmas 2021 crackdown that saw our journalists and other locals hauled off to jail. We provided honest, hard-hitting analysis when Asheville’s horrific police chief was finally ousted.
Next year the Blade will mark 10 years of publication. From the start, everything we’ve done has been built by community support. That means the world to us and we are thankful beyond words for everyone who reads our work and believes in what we do.
We plan to keep up the fight for a long time to come. We need your help to do it.
Solidarity,
The Asheville Blade Co-op