Here's How We're Fending Off ChatGPT and Google AI
Thanks to your generosity, we are growing our audience at a pace other newsrooms envy
Dear Reader,
You might have seen headline after headline about the existential crisis engulfing news outlets: Google has been replacing links to trusted news websites at the top of your search results with sloppy AI Overviews, while AI tools like ChatGPT have been stealing the work of human journalists without attribution or links to the source.
News outlets are losing up to 80% of their online readers because they have been forced to survive in a shifting, uneven playing field. Not us.
In fact, as of September 10th, The Xylom has already exceeded our total readership in 2024, with a 14% jump in organic search traffic. How?
This is all possible thanks to our outgoing part-time Managing Editor, Rhysea Agrawal, who has managed our award-winning network of contributors across the Global South and helped our newsroom develop our audience with a three-pronged approach:
A strong focus on cross-border environmental health and democracy reporting
Building our audience through events and decentralized social networks that are more resilient towards the influence of algorithms and chatbots, and
Creating partnerships with international, national, and local news outlets to deliver actionable information to your fingertips directly.
At this critical time, I’m stepping in to build upon Rhysea’s legacy. We are committed to tripling the number of stories we publish every month, so you can have a fuller understanding of what it takes for us to build healthy, interconnected communities together. This requires me to work in a full-time role, so we’re raising $25,200 to close the funding gap.
We’ve extended our fundraiser to September 15th; if everyone who follows us gave $2, we would be able to reach our goal. Can we count on you to help The Xylom deliver news you could trust?
With gratitude,
Laasya Shekhar
Managing Editor,
The Xylom
P.S. There’s still time! Please help us spread the word by forwarding this email to friends and colleagues who you think would be interested in supporting our work.