What do Guardian and Newslaundry have in common?

They say great minds think alike. Also that birds of a feather, flock together. So would it be wildly fair to say “#NLimpact!” now that British daily the Guardian has issued an impassioned appeal to its readers to support the kind of journalism it does?

In her letter, Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner warned that following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, “we are entering a period of great political and economic uncertainty, and the Guardian’s role in producing fast, well-sourced, calm, accessible and intelligent journalism is more important than ever”. Viner requested readers to support the publication by helping to “fund that journalism – either through a monthly or one-off payment – so we can continue interrogating exactly what has happened, and why, and what needs to happen next”.

Now, we’re not saying that we did it first (we’ll just bat our eyelashes and point out that we’ve been around since 2012 while The Guardian turned to its readers only in 2014), but we at Newslaundry have been vociferous advocates of the subscription-based model right from our inception. Plus, our subscribers have time and again supported us in cash and clicks.

We can only hope that The Guardian’s subscribers are as awesome as ours because its pitch to its readers is commendable. For a publication that has a 195-year-old history and a strong commitment to independent journalism to go down the subscriber-model path is a huge encouragement for anyone striving for a free press, including us. As Viner puts it in her letter, media outlets are “operating in an incredibly challenging commercial environment”.

So on that note, why not subscribe to Newslaundry? Pretty please?