Eliza Anyangwe
This week, I announced that some members of staff will leave The Fuller Project as part of necessary changes within our newsroom. While the volatility of the funding landscape can only be ignored at one’s peril, it was not the single driving force behind this decision.
I have spent my first several months as the Editor-in-Chief at The Fuller Project observing how we make journalism. I have also met with funders, board members and peers from L.A. to Lisbon, getting their sense of the moment and gauging their strategies.
As is evident all around us – and as I’ve previously written about in the newsletter – we are living through a time of deep disruption in the media industry and in the philanthropic sector. This is happening against the backdrop of rising authoritarianism and anti-rights activism in the US and elsewhere that is already posing an existential threat to nonprofit newsrooms, not least those focused on gender, social justice and women’s rights.
The Fuller Project’s strengths are its deep subject matter expertise, a 10-year track record of impactful reporting and a global focus. We have achieved some incredible successes over the past decade and every member of the team at Fuller – past and present – has played a part in getting us to where we are today. I’m grateful to them for their contributions and accomplishments.
However, our small newsroom is currently not structured and resourced to get to where it needs to go next: a future that gives us a fighting chance at competitiveness and resilience in an incredibly fragmented media environment.
Since March, a newsroom transformation consultant has been working closely with me and the team. She is tasked with surveying our newsletter subscribers – the only audience The Fuller Project connects with directly; developing and piloting new editorial products that we know those audiences are interested in (if you follow us on Instagram or YouTube you will have noticed increased video output as part of this pilot work); and beginning to chart a course towards revenue diversification and a membership program at Fuller.
The next step in the transformation is, in the coming weeks, to open and advertise new editorial roles, such as a Head of Community and correspondent posts, with further roles that align with our new strategy coming at a later stage. These investments will deepen our much-prized expertise and broaden our multi-format production capacity to serve The Fuller Project’s current and future audiences; while taking our reporting off-platform and into real-life spaces through convenings, events and non-digital products will increase our influence on the global conversation.
I am determined to make these changes in a transparent way, keeping you, our community, informed as we continue this journey. Like for all journalism organizations, the road ahead will no doubt be bumpy, but The Fuller Project remains committed to its mission of producing world-class journalism that catalyses change for women.
As ever, we welcome your thoughts and questions. You can write me directly at here.
