This is Annie Chabel, The Intercept’s CEO. I don’t usually email you directly, but what’s happening to press freedom right now demands it.

While corporate media outlets slash their newsrooms to the bone and capitulate to Donald Trump’s intimidation, The Intercept is breaking news that matters. This month, we exposed ICE’s plans to hire bounty hunters to track down immigrants. We revealed how, under State Department pressure, YouTube erased more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations. We’re publishing investigations nearly every day that expose abuses of power — stories that simply wouldn’t happen without The Intercept.

This is the accountability journalism democracy requires. And it’s disappearing nearly everywhere else.

More than 130 newspapers have shut down in the past year. The media industry hemorrhaged 16,680 jobs in the first 10 months of 2025. Traditional outlets are abandoning expensive investigative reporting just when we need it most, choosing instead to appease the powerful rather than hold them accountable.

The Intercept has, so far, defied gravity for one reason: you.

Today, we’re launching our Giving Tuesday fundraising drive, which is essential for us to meet our budget and keep our newsroom running. We need to raise $225,000 by December 2. Will you donate $5 now to keep our fearless journalism alive?

More than 60 percent of our budget comes directly from readers like you, chipping in whatever they can. We don’t answer to billionaires with business interests to protect. We don’t answer to corporate advertisers worried about controversy. We answer to you.

That independence is everything right now. It’s why we can report stories that make powerful people uncomfortable. It’s why we’re still here doing this work while so many other outlets retreat.

Our Giving Tuesday fundraising goal is not a nice-to-have number — it’s what we need to continue the fearless journalism you depend on us to do. Without it, investigations like our recent exposé on how universities worked with corporations to surveil student Gaza protests won’t happen. Government and corporate abuses will go unreported. At a moment when accountability journalism is disappearing elsewhere, we cannot afford to pull back.

The choice is stark: Independent journalism survives and thrives, or it doesn’t. There’s no middle ground.

This Giving Tuesday, will you invest in journalism that refuses to back down? Will you donate $5 to keep The Intercept’s investigative reporting alive and independent?

Your support is what makes The Intercept possible. Every dollar counts, and we truly can’t do it without you.

With deep gratitude,