As Romania Insider celebrates ten years in 2020, co-founder Corina Chirileasa shares why we chose to launch our community memberships now and how to become a Romania Insider member. 

These are unusual times, none of which have I ever seen in my 15-year career as a journalist. At times like these, having access to independent, reliable media sources is critical. Our team has been informing readers from all over the world in the last ten years. Millions of people every year count on us to bring them objective, reliable news from Romania to their corners of the world. 

We have always worked free from political and financial bias. We abide by the ethical rules of journalism, and we apply ethics in how we do business. We separate editorial and commercial content and activities. And we always mark advertising. These have earned us the trust of our readers over this decade. We proudly continue to do so - free media is the backbone of democracy, and we do our share. 

Now more than ever, we are committed to our mission: to provide a free, independent voice from Romania to the whole world. 

We started as a small media company based in Romania, with a small yet passionate and stable team. We managed to spread the truth about Romania to all corners of the world and different sorts of readers. From foreign journalists at large international media to C-level executives in charge of regional or global activities and interested in Romania. From travelers to diplomats; from large international institutions to expatriates in Romania, and their families. They all follow us and rely on Romania Insider for decisions. Since our launch in 2010, we published over 50,000 articles and kept over 14 mln readers informed. Our readership growth has been staggering in the last years. 

These past weeks of the Coronavirus pandemic have taught us a lot here at Romania Insider. So many people need balanced content. While we were busier than ever reporting on the Coronavirus epidemic in Romania and delivering this content, I will admit it has been an unsettling time for our publication. Our primary income stream comes from direct advertising sales, and these tend to go down during economic turbulences. But it only encouraged us to act fast and think about our strengths, purpose, and values. 

Now, we are opening up our community to you, our readers. We are launching the Romania Insider Community Memberships. We hope this new program will bring us an additional income stream. It will help us navigate tough times for the media, in a country that lacks objective and reliable news. 

With the Romania Insider Community Memberships, you now have a chance to support independent journalism from Romania, and make it available for everyone in the world. By choosing one of these memberships, you are helping us expand our team, our content, and our reporting while allowing us to stay loyal to our journalistic principles. 

Whichever type of membership you choose, Fan, Supporter, or Ultra, you will also benefit from an improved reading experience on our site. There will be no banners for logged in members. We also have a host of premium newsletters for you. Daily and weekly premium press reviews on business, politics, and society are all to the point and ad-free, without any links to click. And monthly Politics & Mergers & Acquisitions newsletters - excellent roundups for those who follow these topics. 

We will also offer corporate plans for larger communities like international schools, embassies, chambers of commerce, corporations. They will be able to give access to their community members bases on customized plans which we can create together. 

We will meet in a new private Romania Insider Facebook group where you, as a member, can interact with our team. There you can share your opinion and ideas while pointing us to new topics you'd like Romania Insider to cover. 

Our core content will remain free for everyone, even for those who may not afford a membership at this time. We believe everyone deserves to be well-informed. We also believe in our community of readers. We trust their willingness to support their favorite publication in Romania. This way, they support the people who have been passionately keeping it alive day in and day out for the last ten years.

As my co-founder and business partner Volker Moser puts it: "We started from a portal for expatriates in Romania and became a Romania portal for the whole world. Launching a community membership model has been high on our list of priorities since two years, and 2020 seems to be the right time for it."

As a small media business, we strive to build solid foundations while extending our services to readers. We want to keep our journalistic principles while engaging our community. So we hope many of our readers will choose to support us for the equivalent cost of a coffee a month. 

A dedicated community of readers. Sharing the truth about Romania. Respect for our readers, our team, our partners. 

"Romania Insider is an important landmark in the English media landscape for me as a foreign resident and business owner in Romania. It provides essential news because it is not biased. It gives me a structured and objective overview of what happens in the country - every day! I trust their team and believe in their independence, which is why I chose to support them even further," said Johannes Burghold, Managing Partner of TRANSEARCH Romania and our first Romania Insider Ultra member. 

I look forward to welcoming you to the Romania Insider Community! 

Check our membership plans here. 

Stay safe and balanced wherever you are! Choose good media sources, and don't forget to support your favorite publication now, when they may need it most! 

With love, your Insider in Romania, 

Corina Chirileasa

Co-founder & Managing Partner of Romania Insider 

(and now, also your Community Manager)

community@romania-insider.com