Dear Chronicle Readers,
Although it’s spooky season, we’ve got the end of the year in our sights – specifically, our end-of-year giving campaign, which we’re dubbing 45 RPM: 45 Years of Real Print Media. As The Austin Chronicle’s development + donor coordinator, you’ll be hearing from me a little bit over the next couple of months in our print issues, newsletters, and social media, but I’ll try not to pester you too much or keep you away from your regularly scheduled programming.
Since 1981, The Austin Chronicle has remained free – our print issue is distributed at no cost, online articles have never hid behind a paywall, and our newsletters come without a subscription. But, as we adjust to a rapidly changing environment for independent, local newsrooms, the need for support from our readers and community has become paramount for papers like ours to survive.
Local news is essential public infrastructure. Without it, civic engagement and voting numbers drop, political leaders need not fear accountability, and voices from our neighbors go unheard – a frightening reality that news deserts across the country face right now.
Simply put, supporting local newsrooms like the Chronicle also supports your First Amendment rights. Democracy doesn’t exist without an informed citizenry, and with half the number of local newsrooms as there were in 2005, many of which now owned by media conglomerates with questionable motives and tenuous ties to the community, it’s become increasingly evident that independent newsrooms won’t survive without contributions from readers who value real journalism, written by real people.
There are a number of ways to support 45 Years of Real Print Media today. You can become a one-time or recurring contributor at austinchronicle.com/support, subscribe to our Daily News mailing list or one of our six weekly newsletters, or head to our merch store to pick up the just-launched 45 RPM T-shirt.
If you value the work we do – from keeping tabs on City Council and AISD developments, to keeping you clued in to what’s new in Austin’s arts and culture scenes, to celebrating the best our city has to offer in our annual Best of Austin issue – we humbly ask you to join those who have already made the leap from Chronicle reader to Chronicle supporter. Donating to The Austin Chronicle keeps you, your neighbors, and your neighbors’ neighbors informed, and informed neighbors make better neighbors.
Thanks for 45 years of readership, and as we flip the record over to side B, here’s to the next 45.
This article appears in October 30 • 2026.