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Australia’s only children’s newspaper Crinkling News set to close

Crinkling News, Australia’s only national newspaper for children, has announced it is set to close.

The newspaper’s founders, Saffron Howden and Remi Bianchi, told their readers in a statement issued on Tuesday night “we are very sorry to say we cannot keep publishing the newspaper with the resources we have,” adding “it will need a much bigger business, government or philanthropy to take all the amazing things we have done together and keep the momentum going.”

Howden and Bianchi used their redundancy payouts from Fairfax Media to start the newspaper in April 2016.

But even the appointment of Peter Fray, former editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald, to the Crinkling News advisory board in early 2017 wasn’t enough to keep the paper’s revenue issues at bay.

Shortly before appearing before the Senate Committee into the Future of Public Interest Journalism in May 2017, the founders were forced to ask for funding through crowdfunding site Indigogo.

Thanks to the publicity, the campaign managed to raise $212,303 of its $200,000 goal, which meant the paper could continue weekly production. 

“That money allowed us to cover news for kids for a further eight months, launch Australia’s inaugural media literacy conference for young people, do the first research into how kids and teens get their news across the nation, and more,” Tuesday’s statement explained.

“We made every cent stretch as far as it possibly could.

“And all the people working behind the scenes volunteered lots of their time because we believe Crinkling News is so important – and we didn’t want to let you down.

“But we are very sorry to say we cannot keep publishing the newspaper with the resources we have.

“There are big, exciting opportunities out there for Crinkling News and for you, the kids of Australia. But it will need a much bigger business, government or philanthropy to take all the amazing things we have done together and keep the momentum going.”

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