When we launched Issues & Insights in late April, we weren’t sure what to expect. Amid the cacophony of – mostly uninformed – commentary on the Internet, would anyone notice a new site? A site launched by three journalists who had no experience launching websites, no money to do so, and even less money to market it. And who had to squeeze out the time while holding down paying jobs to produce it.
But we did have one thing going for us. Years of experience producing hard-hitting, fact-based, deeply reported commentary and opinion, and a passion for telling the truth.
We aren’t interested in political gossip that consumes most commentary sites today. We aren’t posting click-bait stories to drive ad revenue. None of us is located inside the Washington, D.C., bubble. We only care about informing readers about the major issues that will affect their lives, and that will either help or hurt the country.
We’d also built up a large and loyal following while we were at Investor’s Business Daily – where we’d spent years honing our craft. Many of those readers followed us here when they learned that we had reassembled the IBD editorials team.
But we never would have imagined that just 92 days after we opened the door, Issues & Insights would cross over the 1 million page-view mark.
Our editorials and op-eds are now regularly featured on the indispensable Real Clear Politics, as well as its Real Clear Markets channel. They regularly appear on great blogs such as Lucianne, Instapundit, and Powerline. We’ve been on The Ed Morrissey show and on talk radio. Real Clear Politics ran a feature on our fledgling effort just weeks after we launched. We’ve already had nearly 100,000 page views from Facebook posts, and 20,000 from Google searches.
We’re blessed to have the priceless help of a tech expert who has freely given of her time to create a beautiful redesign of the site and keep it functioning properly.
We also have to recognize the contributions of great writers who provide top-flight material without asking for anything in return. We also thank each of you who has read our work.
And we are tremendously grateful to all the readers who have so generously donated to our effort – based on nothing more than the quality of our work. Thank you!
But we want to do much more.
We want to reach the next million faster than we reached the first, and continue to spread the principles of free markets, free men, and limited government. We want to enlist a bigger team of writers, start producing informative videos, increase the amount of stories we can produce. And, we’d like to pay the bills and eat every now and again.
So we’re asking readers to remember our Tip Jar, and to encourage those who haven’t been to our pages yet to donate
If everyone contributes the smallest amount, which is just $1, we can keep the momentum going.
Thank you!
The I&I Team