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PITTSBURGH, PA. - There is no question that my native Western Pennsylvania is critical to winning the election, and you can't win Western Pennsylvania without union voters, a key swing demographic.
Kamala Harris knows this and has spent more time in Pittsburgh than any other city. She stayed in Pittsburgh for nearly a week before the election debate - making it her "home away from home" on the campaign trail.
The only problem is that the two largest newspaper chains in Western Pennsylvania (the Tribune-Review and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) are both very pro-Trump.
Rarely is coverage given to the fact that union voters are now flipping dramatically in Kamala's favor. When we published a story entitled "Poll: PA Union Members Flip for Harris in Stunning Fashion," it went viral because none of the local papers even covered this poll.
This is why we began preparing for this moment over a year ago. We invested a large grant to remake our site, upgrade our social media, and expand our editorial capacity. We also began building out a network of small publications throughout Western Pennsylvania that could reprint our work to broaden our reach.
At a time when trust in mainstream media has declined, outlets like Payday Report that cover things from workers' perspectives are more vital than ever.
For this reason, we would like to raise $50,000 before the election to hire staff to help us cover the story of union activists in Western Pennsylvania that the mainstream press is largely ignoring.
I grew up here in a multi-generational UE union family and have spent the past decade covering the labor movement in Western Pennsylvania in more depth than anyone. The impact of our stories on activists in Western PA can already be seen.
Payday Report's newsletter forward rate is through the roof, particularly in Western Pennsylvania. While the average open rate for a newsletter is only 22.5%, our open rate is 36% over the past six months.
However, among readers in the Pittsburgh region, our open rate is 43%, nearly twice the national average.
We know that union activists are texting and forwarding our stories widely among fellow activists, neighbors, and family. At a time when people are losing faith in social media companies and logging off of them, our readers are forwarding or texting our articles to people who trust them, and that matters a lot. , and it's happening a lot.
In addition to our phenomenal forward rate, we have already begun to impact national conversations significantly. Already, NPR's "This American Life" has asked me to serve as an editorial consultant for their coverage of unions in the 2024 election.
The biggest problem is that Payday needs more staff to keep up with everything happening here. There is a lot to cover, but we need to hire full-time staff to help us for the next 50 days.
Now, Payday wants to expand its local and national audience to tell the stories of workers in Western Pennsylvania that no one else is telling.
We need $50,000 to do it. We want to hire more reporters, videographers, newsletter and audience engagement editors, and have a budget for travel.
Videographers and audience engagement editors will expand our platform reach through platforms like TikTok and Instagram and booking us on podcasts. We also want to build a text message notification system so that activists in Western Pennsylvania can be notified directly about breaking news.
In the past year, we have already increased our fundraising, bringing in more than $120,000 in 2023 and, as a result, receiving a $35,000 matching grant from the Illumine Service Foundation. We've already received another $20,000 matching grant this year due to our reader support.
A big show of reader support would help us lay the groundwork to raise the $50,000 from other foundations, allowing us to bring on staff during the election.
Adding staff will allow us to produce more and thus raise more money, hopefully making a big enough splash to attract more investment from foundations and big donors.
As a publication, we have often forced the mainstream media to cover the labor movement in ways that it previously hadn't.
The Washington Post credited us in a front-page story for being the first labor media outlet to track the pandemic-era strike wave. Esquire called us "invaluable," the New York Times called us a publication with "new energy," and filmmaker Boots Riley has repeatedly cited us as one of his inspirations.
Our work with CNN on Western Pennsylvania was already nominated for an Emmy.
Now, we hope to have a huge impact in Western Pennsylvania because something big is happening, and we need your help to cover it.
Help us raise $50,000 between now and the election to change the coverage of workers right here in the hills of my native Western PA.
Donate today to help us cover Western PA and Unions in the 2024 Election
