Pepco has faced increasing scrutiny over expensive customer bills in recent months. A new ruling could have a lasting impact on how the utility calculates its rates.
It’s been just over a month since The Washington Post and its billionaire owner made a decision that will shape the future of journalism in this city for years to come: They fired the majority of the paper’s local reporters, along with hundreds of their colleagues.
For D.C. residents like us, the consequences have been real and immediate. Fewer reporters means fewer eyes on the Wilson Building, fewer investigations into corruption, fewer stories about the neighborhoods and neighbors that make this city what it is.
It’s hard to find hope amidst it all. But something else happened in the days after the layoffs.
More than 1,000 people signed up to be paying members of The 51st. Our mentions were filled with people tagging us, telling others about how our team is working to build a newsroom by and for the community, not controlled by billionaires.
We have exciting news: Our Board of Trustees President, Viyas Sundarum, offered an $80,000 match that doubles any gift made to The 51st! That means that, as we work together to build the newsroom D.C. deserves, any support you’re able to send our way will go twice as far. One-time donations and new recurring monthly or annual memberships are all eligible.
Our goal is simple but ambitious: We want to triple The 51st’s reporting capacity.
Your support will help us to:
Create a full-time position for our part-time editor
Hire a longtime freelance reporter who already knows this city and its communities
Bring on a third full-time reporter, who we hope will be one of the talented journalists recently laid off from The Washington Post. We know that retaining their team’s local knowledge and reporting expertise is vital!
We’re small, and we’re under no illusion that we alone can fill the void.
But we do know something important: We are building differently.
The 51st doesn’t have a billionaire owner, corporate shareholders, or executives who might one day choose to abandon serving our city.
Instead, more than 67% of our funding comes directly from thousands of readers like you who’ve joined us as paid members. Where we go next is tied directly to the people who live here and care about this city — your neighbors and ours.
Will you join us today? As we mentioned, this last week of the campaign your gift to expand our reporting team will be doubled — thanks to the limited-time $80,000 match.
D.C. deserves strong, independent local journalism from a newsroom that no billionaire can gut overnight. The 51st is ready to grow — sustainably — into the newsroom this city needs. But we can’t do it without you. Join us today!
Thanks for being here, Maddie Poore & The 51st Team
With your help, we pursue stories that hold leaders to account, demystify opaque city and civic processes, and celebrate the idiosyncrasies that make us proud to call D.C. home. Put simply, our mission is to make it easier — and more fun — to live in the District. Our members help keep local news free and independent for all:
