THE Scots independence website, Bella Caledonia, is seeking to raise £40,000 in public donations, to pay for an editor and a writer.
The crowdsourcing drive was announced by the site, as it welcomed former Sunday Times writer, George Rosie, as a new columnist.
Says the website: “Bella Caledonia has been publishing since Autumn 2007 and now, as we enter the referendum year, it’s time to step-up our focus, our quality and our output. To do this we’re asking for your support, so next week launching a crowd-sourced funding appeal to back an editors post and a new monthly columnist.
“Our new writer is George Rosie, one of the most experienced and best regarded investigative journalists of our time, who has previously worked on the renowned Sunday Times team as Scottish Affairs correspondent and who wrote the acclaimed Diomhair programme for BBC Scotland.”
Bella Caledonia describes itself as “an online magazine exploring ideas of independence, self-determination and autonomy”.
The funding appeal continues: “Rosie has been a reporter, a writer, a broadcaster and a playwright. His documentary After Lockerbie won a BAFTA in 1998, and he has contributed to the Guardian, New Statesman, the Scotsman and the Herald, among others. His books include The British in Vietnam: How the Tweny-five year war began and Death’s Enemy: The Pilgrimage of Victor Frankenstein. A play, Carlucco and the Queen of Hearts, won several awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
“His column for Bella launches later this month.
“We want to raise £40,000 to begin to redress the balance of media bias and to play our part amongst the many great new platforms and voices that are beginning to be heard. This will got towards a full -time editorial post, to back George Rosie’s new column, to develop materials to promote the project and to three further editions of Closer, our print version.”
