Exeter Observer is Exeter’s only independent, community-owned public interest news publisher. It holds power and influence to account while keeping local people informed about who is deciding what on whose behalf and what the costs and consequences of those decisions will be.
With broadsheet editorial standards and a not-for-profit publishing model that serves the public sphere, Exeter Observer is demonstrating that reader-funded media can deliver the public interest news that local democracy needs.
“We need institutions that have the ability, both financially and culturally, to bring news that other institutions and individuals cannot.”
Exeter Observer is published by Exeter Observer Limited, Community Benefit Society No. 8435 registered by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014.
It is a true not-for-profit organisation protected by a statutory asset lock: any surplus or assets can only be used for community benefit.
Its members hold shares and have democratic rights on a one-member-one-vote basis regardless of the number of shares they hold, electing an accountable board of directors to oversee its affairs.
Membership is open to anyone who supports Exeter Observer’s community benefit purpose.
The procedures by which decisions are made are laid out in the FCA-registered Rules of Exeter Observer Limited, a legally-binding constitutional document which governs how it is run.
They prohibit Exeter Observer’s affiliation to religious or political groups or parties, and prohibit the appointment of political party members as chief executive, secretary or director.
“A newspaper is much more than a business. It has a moral as well as a material existence.”
Exeter Observer’s aims and objects codify its public interest purpose, its constitution prevents the diversion of that purpose and its ownership structure facilitates a publishing model that reflects the diversity of opinions and interests that constitutes Exeter’s public sphere.
Its community benefit purpose provides a public interest foundation on which to serve the city and its growing community of supporters, members and investors each contribute to its running costs to enable it to do so.
These arrangements address many of the problems created by traditional media ownership models, in which either wealthy individuals or remote, profit-motivated shareholders exert counterproductive influence over editorial and operational decisions.
Exeter Observer also upholds the Editors’ Code of Practice and provides a robust complaints procedure.