Esquire tests paywall for one story to raise funds for murdered journalist’s fund
Howard Lake | 6 November 2014 | News
Esquire magazine is testing a donation paywall for one of its articles as a way of raising funds for the James Foley Scholarship Fund. The fund was set up by the parents and family of the journalist who was murdered by ISIS militants in August.
The article is Tom Junod’s “The Falling Man” which, since it was first published in September 2003, has been read by nearly 20 million people. It is the story of the photo of an unidentified individual who leapt to his death from one of the World Trade Center towers on 11 September 2001.
Esquire has worked with Creativist and Tinypass to put up a paywall on the article, with a suggested donation of $2.99. To put that in context, access to the whole online version costs $4.99.
David Granger, Editor in Chief, said:
“All revenue will go to the James Foley Scholarship Fund at Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication. Our audacious goal is to raise $200,000, enough to cover a full four-year scholarship. We may fail miserably, or we might surprise ourselves”.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.