forth? Any future in it

Here’s what last week would have looked like:

• Waah, waah, waah! We deserve money because we help people
• The arts will make us an economic powerhouse
• I’m not paying for that obscenity
• Thierry Henry is a rotter and a spoilsport!
• Being cheated in the World Cup will wreck our economy
• Why you should be happy to have less money
• The peace process would be perfect if it wasn’t for all those nasty thugs
• Road deaths are the leading cause of deaths on Irish roads
• AIB is the most evil institution ever
• 17 ways to feel smug about saving the planet while sitting on your arse
• Anyone who has ever met Declan Ganley is suspect

Horrible, isn’t it? Tired old recycled tropes endlessly repeated day-in and day-out. And if you don’t believe us, why not pick-up a few papers today and have a flick through them. If only there was a fresh new voice with a razor sharp analysis to cut through the bullshit…

Don’t worry, forth is still here to reject the nonsense and prejudice that fills the pages of our newspapers, but we want to do more.

In the last week alone forth said that crying ‘we wuz robbed’ was not a substitute for having a shared vision, that soccer should not be used as a political football, that the Green Party was never radical to begin with, that some people seem to be enjoying the recession a little bit too much, that the British-Irish institutions founded by the peace process are a pointless waste of time, that the rise of Aussie politician Clive Hamilton is bad news, that guilt by association is a nonsense, that road deaths are an inflated issue in Ireland, that the debacle over executive pay at AIB prefigures an assault on the rest of us and that green lifestyles help no-one but do cover up the fact that the economy has failed to develop evenly.

We have commissioned even more material for the coming weeks so alongside the sharp political analysis you can look forward to features on the rise of science fiction as literature, the EU presidency, how attacks on cults like Scientology make things worse for free-thinkers, why public monuments are so hideous and lots more besides.

But that’s not enough for us. We want to do more. We want to pay our writers so that they can spend more time on stories, we want to hold some events including public debates on policy, the arts and the media,

If you want to help forth survive and thrive, here’s what you can do:

• Keep reading the site: we update with new stories seven days a week
• Spread the word: tell your friends about us and forward stories to people who might find them interesting
• Put your money where our mouth is: donate today (no donation too small)

We realise that many of you are as broke as we are and there is no pressure to donate. If you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it. But please keep clicking on forth. We’re here to shatter the echo chamber of debate in Irish life, but we can’t do that on our own.

Jason Walsh,
editor, forth