A note on the future of the Halifax Examiner 1/
My personal reporting output has been reduced somewhat over the past week or so (the rest of the Examiner team is keeping to their usual wonderful output and work product), and I'd like to explain why 2/
Besides being a reporter, I'm also an editor (I'm behind on that too) and a business owner. The latter has been consuming my time and mental energy 3/
All is good at the Examiner! I've run the business side of the Examiner extremely conservatively. There's no debt, all taxes are paid, employees and freelancers are paid promptly. There's even money in the bank 4/
But the mission of the Examiner is to produce necessary reporting, and so at every stage, we've hired more employees to better report. This is not a cash cow for me — I'm not paid much — and I've used increased revenues to hire more people 5/
And now, the Examiner is at one of those inflection points, ready to hire! But here's the problem: in terms of possible new people, there's an embarrassment of riches. I want to hire two particular people 6/
And so, I'm forever running numbers through my head, looking at current and expected revenue, wondering just how many additional subscribers the new hires can bring in, juggling the potential with the risk, worrying that I'm biting off more than is realistic 7/
This keeps me up at night. I wake up in the middle of the night, stressing. I look at the bank account a hundred times a day. I pester Iris the Amazing to produce projections for me. And I fret some more. 8/
In the scheme of things, this is a nice problem to have. Lots of business owners stress because they have to lay people off; I'm stressing because I want to hire more people. I get that. I'm not complaining. 9/
Well, I'm going to hire these two people. This is a teaser, I know, but you'll soon see a significant expansion at the Examiner. Details October 1. I'm basically making a leap into the dark: is this sustainable? 10/
I started the Halifax Examiner with the thought that people will support a subscription-based model of local news. So far, they have! It's been 6+ years! I couldn't be more happy about that. 11/
So I have to go with my gut, and hope that this operation can grow yet again. We'll see. It's a huge leap of faith 12/
I'm basically hoping that you, readers, will be willing to pay for the Halifax Examiner, and continue to let it grow. If you haven't already, please consider subscribing: https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/subscription-account/subscription-levels/ 13/
Or, if you're already a subscriber or can't commit to a subscription, please consider dropping us a few coins: https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/donate/  14/
This is all very awkward for me, and I appreciate all your support. Thank you! /end
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