TheDublinInquirer.ie

Established in 2015 by two newly arrived journalists - one British-Indian, the other American - The Dublin Inquirer is one of a handful of Irish-based, Irish-owned and Ireland-facing digital native media outlets in Ireland. It is included in the Top 30 digital newsbrands in Ireland listed in the Reuters Digital News Report Ireland 2023 with 1% of respondents identifying it as a news source used in the previous week.

Although a number of national print titles are frequently accused of being Dublin-centric because they are located in the capital, the Dublin Inquirer overtly defines itself as a Dublin City newspaper (although it has recently extended its editorial scope to include the suburb of Finglas to the north of the city). Its journalism is also distinct: the founders of the paper were influenced by the “slow journalism” approach they had encountered in Calcutta and Washington. Thus the Dublin Inquirer does not purport to be a full service newspaper in the sense of the national dailies (“We’ll never be doing breaking news” : Kapila). Instead it is constituted by a relatively small number of articles per issue which tend to be much longer and adopt a more investigative/exploratory approach than “normal” daily news production. This is reflected in the rate of publishing. Although a digital native media outlet, The Dublin Inquirer took the decision to add a monthly print edition in 2016, one year after its initial establishment as an online only media outlet. The paper also emphasises the importance of covering increasingly neglected subject matter such as the operations of local government. The online version maintained a record of the voting decisions of every local politician via its counciltracker.ie website until the end of 2022.

The organisational structure of the paper is also somewhat unusual. Editor Lois Kapila owns more than 80% of the paper, reflecting the initial provision of seed capital from her family. The Inquirer operates as a workers co-operative, key decisions (including those relating to remuneration) are taken by the staff as a whole.

The Dublin Inquirer is almost exclusively reliant on subscription revenues for its income. These amount to about €160,000 per annum. Based on this figure and the outlet’s subscription charges we estimate that the Inquirer has between 1,500 and 2,000 subscribers. The Dublin Inquirer’s recent content is free to access online but readers can open a paid subscription to either a digital-only offering (€6 per month) or a combined print and digital offering (€9 per month).

It should be acknowledged that the Dublin Inquirer is actively transparent about its finances, publishing quarterly updates on its income and expenditure on its website. That transparency extends to its journalism which is unusually self-reflective with articles explaining the news values informing what does and does not get covered in the paper.

Key facts

Audience Share

MissingData

Ownership Type

Private

Geographic Coverage

Local

Content Type

Paid content

Passive Transparency

upon request, ownership data is easily available from the company/channel

3 ♥

Media Companies / Groups

Dublin Inquirer Ltd.

Ownership

Ownership Structure

The Dublin Inquirer is an independent media outlet owned by The Dublin Inquirer Limited. Editor Lois Kapila is the single largest shareholder with 83.28% of the shares.

Voting Rights

The Dublin Inquirer is structured as a workers co-operative. Thus voting rights related to share ownership do not in practice determine where decision-making power lies within the outlet.

Individual Owner

83.3%

Group / Individual Owner

Brian Timothy Flanagan

10.1%
Media Companies / Groups
Facts

General Information

Founding Year

2015

Affiliated Interests Founder

Lois Kapila and Sam Tranum

founded the Dublin Inquirer together in 2015.

Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief

Lois Kapila

Editor-in-chief and owner. She founded the Dublin Inquirer in 2015 together with Sam Tranum.

Affiliated Interests other important people

Sam Tranum

Studied Social and Global Studies at Antioch College in Ohio (1996 - 2000) and later a Masters in International Relations at the University of Chicago (2006 - 2007). After a spell as a reporting fellow at the non-profit Poynter Institute for Media Studies in 2000, he worked as a journalist at the Charleston Daily Mail and the South Florida Sun-Sentinal. In 2004 he travelled to Asia with the Peace Corp, first to teach health and English in Turkmenistan and subsequently journalism in Kyrgyzstan (where he met Lois Kapila). Between 2009 and 2013 he moved from Washington and Calcutta, often working in the specialized field of energy markets and politics. Along with Kapila he wrote for The Statesman newspaper in Calcutta before the paid moved to Dublin in 2013. Alongside establishing The Dublin Inquirer with Kapila in 2015 he worked as Managing Editor at the Liberties Press and, after 2016 as editor at Four Courts Press. He also acts as deputy editor of the Dublin Inquirer.

Contact

The Digital Hub

Thomas Street

Dublin 8

 

Telephone: + 353 (0) 873924796

Website: www.dublininquirer.com

Email: info@dublininquirer.com

 

Financial Information

Revenue (in Mill. $)

€179,400 (2022)

Advertising (in % of total funding)

0. The Dublin Inquirer took an active position not to seek or accept advertising revenue. Thus subscriptions account for approximately 95% of total revenues.

Market Share

Missing Data

Further Information

Meta Data

The annual revenue is according to data freely made public by the Dublin Inquirer via Twitter/X, and on the paper’s own website (€179,400 in 2022).

The Dublin Inquirer’s website does not explicitly state who the shareholders of the Dublin Inquirer Limited are but the information is readily available on request.

It should also be acknowledged that the Dublin Inquirer is extremely transparent regarding its finances. Detailed breakdowns of its income and expenditure are available via the website and the editors go so far as to proactively tweet this information. This transparency extends to articles detailing the paper’s policy on accepting gifts from other businesses (namely, politely returning them).

  • Project by
    FuJo Logo
  •  
    Global Media Registry
  • In cooperation with
    EUROMO
  •  
    Co-funded by European Union