Kickstart This!

I have always had a fondness for longform journalism. While I understand the appeal of short, easy to process pieces, some stories deserve a longer, more in-depth telling.

So when I saw that the folks behind the Riveter Magazine online site were working on publishing a quarterly, I was intrigued. Longform pieces written by and about women? Yes, please!

The Riveter is a women's longform lifestyle magazine in print and online, dedicated to exposing the power of women as longform journalists. It is an effort to fill the void that exists in women's media and to diversify the narrative surrounding women in publishing. The Riveter publishes stories that can't be summed up in a sell line, because women, as writers and readers, deserve more from a women's magazine.

This is so very important right now! While it may sometimes feel as though women's stories are easier to find than ever, it's still nowhere near how it should be. And female journalists still have a difficult time finding jobs in the industry.

As journalists, we noticed a gap in the industry. According to this Nieman Report, in 2013, only 37.2 percent of journalism jobs were held by women, whereas women received 62.5 percent and 67.6 percent of bachelor's and master's degrees in communications respectively -- statistics that were consistent with what we noticed in journalism school. Never mind the almost $10,000 income gap in the industry. So, where did all of the lady-journos go?

So, if the telling of women's stories and supporting women in journalism is important to you, please consider supporting their Kickstarter campaign. If $60 sounds steep to you, keep in mind that print journalism is expensive, and while magazine subscriptions tend to be around $20 a year, that is subsidized by advertisements -- advertisements that may (although shouldn't) have some impact on the content you're reading.

While much of what we read online is free, the price to pay the authors and artists has to come from somewhere -- whether it's from ads, or some other way. Many sites have been switching to a subscription model over the last year or so, because otherwise they simply cannot afford to pay their staff what their time and talent is worth. It is up to us readers to put our money where our mouths are, and pony up some cash to support our favorite publications.