This year’s Indie News Week is happening in June – and the Canary is proud to be involved. But this is also chronically ill and disabled people’s chance to be involved, too – to have your voices heard over what a truly inclusive and representative independent media outlet should look like.
Indie News Week 2025
The Public Interest News Foundation said of Indie News Week:
Democracy is under attack and trust in institutions is low. Many people depend on social media for news and disinformation is on the rise, causing tension between communities and even violence. People need information and shared understandings to participate meaningfully in their community…. No news is bad news. Something needs to change.
Communities deserve healthy news ecosystems that facilitate the free flow of information, speak truth to power and shine a light on important issues. Local news providers in the PINF network are meeting this challenge head-on! Across the country, indie news is strengthening democracy, holding power to account, creating pride in place, and fostering civic participation.
However, big tech greed, corporate takeovers and declining advertising mean that providers are still having to fight to keep independent news alive. More than ever, structural change is needed to regenerate independent news in the UK. We need politicians, publics and philanthropists to seriously throw their support behind indie providers.
So, the Canary is pleased to be participating in this year’s Indie News Week. It runs from 9-15 June, and aims to showcase some of the best local and national independent media outlets and networks around the UK.
Indie News Week is primarily focused on independent local outlets that are pushing back against the tide of corporate behemoths that have encroached into the space of local news. These providers, like Reach, do not care for local people nor their best interests.
Take the numerous “Live” sites (Cornwall Live, Somerset Live, and so on). they do nothing for local people except provide them with clickbait and nationally-syndicated, AI-generated slop.
So, Indie News Week is trying to redress the balance. But this year, national, online-only independent media outlets have been invited to participate if they have a community or communities they represent.
That’s why the Canary is involved.
Amplifying chronically ill and disabled people’s voices
Since we launched in 2015, we have always made it our mission to amplify the voices of marginalised communities – none more so than chronically ill and disabled people. The corporate media poorly represents these communities – from Birmingham Live’s clickbait to the Guardian’s platforming of harmful junk science around ME/CFS
That where you can get involved with us, this year.
Much of our coverage focuses on the issues affecting chronically ill, disabled, and non-working people.
As a team, the majority (90%) of us are either disabled (45%), neurodivergent (54%), or both. For example, 27% of our team live with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS). We have a writer who lives with Lupus. Another lives with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. And several of us live with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).
The point being, we live chronic illness, disability, and have lived worklessness. We get it. But we can always do better in how we amplify the communities we’re part of.
Meet us so we can meet you
So, we want to meet our chronically ill and disabled readers face-to-face – virtually, of course.
We’ve organised two Zoom meetings on Wednesday 11 June which we want our readers who are chronically ill or disabled to come to. We want you to be able to meet us (many of our journalists will be there) and ask us questions. However, most importantly we want you to tell us what you need from a media outlet, so it truly represents the challenges you face, or those the system forces upon you. The Canary team also want your feedback on what we do well, and what we could do better.
The first Zoom meeting will be at 11am on 11 June for around an hour. You can register for that here.
The second Zoom meeting will be at 6pm on 11 June for around an hour. You can register for that here.
Captions will be on. There’s no requirement for people to speak or show their faces – you can drop messages into the chat if you want to comment. Alternatively, you can listen in, make notes, and send them to us afterwards. We’ll provide an email address at the meeting.
To be clear, both meetings will be the same. We’re holding two as we know many chronically ill and disabled people function better at different times of day.
Please do get involved, as we really want to meet and chat with you.
Indie News Week: no news is bad news
The Canary is not owned by a big corporation, nor do we want to rely solely on advertisers for revenue. Our aim is to be a fully independent news publication, completely funded by our readers. So the more people who can pledge a few quid per month, the more sustainable we can become.
Our purpose is to investigate the issues affecting marginalised people. We want to keep them informed of the things they wouldn’t otherwise know. Meanwhile, we make sure we’re holding politicians, corporate media, and corporations – those in power – to account. In turn, our readers hold our journalism to account, which is why we’re committed to a strict code of ethical standards and are regulated by IMPRESS.
Good journalism costs money. So how can we cover our costs in the current climate where traditional business models have become too unreliable? We could write sensational stories that lure readers in so that we can impress advertisers with how many views our website gets, thus securing revenue from ads.
Or we could concentrate on the stories that matter, the ones that inform you what’s really going on in your communities– things you ought to know about.
We prefer to do the latter – but we need you to help us make that happen.
Remember, no news is bad news. The Canary only exists with your support – and can only continue to if you donate to us. So, join us on 11 June, and please set up a monthly contribution if you can, here.
Featured image via the Canary
