Become part of thearticle’s future — can you help us? | thearticle

It’s been a pretty busy time here at _TheArticle_ over the last twelve months. With the General Election, the Covid-19 pandemic, the current US election and the impending Brexit crunch,

we’ve not been short of subject matter. All things considered, it’s been a very good time to launch an online current affairs magazine like _TheArticle_. Our intention has always been to

provide a range of different voices, viewpoints and attitudes. As much as possible, we try to cover every angle. There are plenty of other publications, many of them excellent, which cater

to specific, more partisan tastes. We wish them all the best. But we offer something different, a sort of journalistic smorgasbord of left, right, Leave and Remain, conservative and liberal

— we even ran columns predicting that Donald Trump would win the US election. It felt like an outlandish claim at the time, but seems much less so now. The reason we take this non-partisan

approach is because there’s something that worries us. Society in Britain, the US and elsewhere feels worryingly divided, politically and culturally. Life is now saturated with social media,

which heats up debates and discussions, forcing both sides out to ever more extreme positions. That’s not a good thing. The further apart people become, the less likely they are to

sympathise with one another’s views, or even to understand them, which in turn leads to further polarisation. _TheArticle_ exists to counter this widening gap, to draw together the estranged

sides of our national debates into one place. That’s why our site features writers from the left, for example Alastair Campbell and Emma Burnell, from the centre, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez,

and from the right, Alistair Burt and Oliver Letwin. As for the people who run _TheArticle_, in a former incarnation, I edited _Prospect_ magazine, a centre-left magazine, while our

editor-in-chief, Daniel Johnson, set up and edited _Standpoint _magazine, which is on the centre-right. Between us we cover a broad range of ideological ground. We feel _TheArticle_ is an

important journalistic project, and the public response has been very strong. Our readership has tripled in the course of the last year and many thousands have joined the site, gaining

access to the social media part of _TheArticle_, where readers can comment on pieces and also rate them. The rating I most enjoy seeing is where a reader liked an article, found it

interesting and well-written, but disagreed with it absolutely. Because that really is what we are trying to achieve with _TheArticle_ — we are trying to present intelligent, engaged people

with arguments and ideas that challenge their assumptions, and which they might not get anywhere else. And of course we do it all for free. _TheArticle _has no paywall. Anyone on the planet

with an internet connection is welcome to wander around our site and read whatever they wish. That has worked well for us so far. The first lockdown earlier this year, however, caused us

some problems. This second lockdown, unfortunately, has brought even more problems, and like many other businesses, _TheArticle_ is coming under commercial pressure. That’s why we are asking

for help. We don’t like having to do this, but we want to keep going, and, as one of our readers, we think you might want us to keep going too. So far we’ve given away our journalism for

free, but now things are a little different. If you could make a donation to _TheArticle_, we would be immensely grateful. You can do it by clicking on the button at the bottom of this page.

We are not asking for huge sums — anything you can donate would be very gratefully accepted indeed. There are important events on the horizon, not only the result of the US election, but

also Brexit, which will come to a head later in the year and which will no doubt bring up a host of other challenges. That’s just one example of where a moderating voice will be so

important, to help give a sense of balance to the national conversation. We want to be there, providing you with the writing and insight to entertain, inform and to help you navigate the

storm of opinion that will follow. There’s only one publication that’s committed to covering every angle. That’s _TheArticle_. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed

now more than ever. So please, make a donation.