Exeter Observer publishes the independent public interest journalism our local democracy needs while helping our city’s cultural and community life to thrive.
It holds power and influence to account while keeping our journalism free for 50,000 regular readers who might otherwise never know about the things we report.
Exeter Observer is the city’s only news organisation that doesn’t have to answer to corporate advertisers, remote shareholders or those in power. Its non-profit business model is simple.
Instead of clickbait, press releases and public relations spin, our readers support our publishing so we can cover stories that people and organisations we scrutinise would rather you did not see.
“We need institutions that have the ability, both financially and culturally, to bring news that other institutions and individuals cannot.”
Exeter Observer is produced by a tiny team with two part-time staff: Leigh Curtis and Martin Redfern. We launched from our kitchen table in April 2019, building a non-profit newsroom from scratch and publishing work by sixteen volunteers.
In year three we began to raise working capital from readers in the form of community shares. This enabled us to dedicate our time to content production and business development, since when Exeter Observer has gone from strength to strength.
We have scrutinised policy and decision-making, exposed misuse of public money and resources, championed open democracy and leveraged freedom of information legislation to reveal what would otherwise remain obscured.
Exeter Observer has now published more than 1,000 news stories, features, investigations, community and culture previews, galleries, newsletters and special reports, breaking major stories and providing insight about what’s going in Exeter that can’t be found anywhere else.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want published; everything else is public relations.”
Source uncertain, often misattributed to George Orwell
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 codified public interest purpose provides a foundation on which to serve the city and its ownership structure facilitates a publishing model that reflects the diversity of opinions and interests that constitutes Exeter’s public sphere.
These arrangements address many of the problems created by traditional media ownership models, in which wealthy individuals or remote, profit-motivated shareholders often compromise editorial and operational independence.
Exeter Observer also upholds the Editors’ Code of Practice and provides a robust complaints procedure.