Spain crowdfunded news site El Espanol aims for the top spot!

On October 7, the launch of an online Spanish news website will be unveiled to the world. Everyone is excited to see if it has found the magic formula to crack what is proving a major global business challenge: making money out of quality online journalism.

Pedro J Ramirez, who was the charismatic founding editor of Spain’s El Mundo newspaper up until he was sacked last year, has a good feeling about his new project and thinks he has reinvented the newspaper – but with no ink or paper in sight.

“We are trying to provide an alternative to the traditional newspaper,” says Mr Ramirez, who wants El Espanol to compete with the digital versions of Spain’s leading newspapers, including El Mundo.

Mr Ramirez has gained the faith of many Spaniards and so much so, El Espanol already has around 10,000 subscribers before its launch. The project also broke the crowdfunding record for a media project by raising €3.6m (£2.7m) with donations of between €100 – the value of one share – and €10,000.

Pedro J Ramirez, hopes to help revive and reinvent journalism, and improve the quality of democracy with this project.