The Battleground

Blame it on the journalism. The Battleground's audience reached 854,000 by December 2025. While we are grateful for the growth, what surprises us most is that it has happened mainly through word of mouth. It's been a massive shot in the arm for a small team like ours. As any publisher will tell you, investing in the audience you already have is the only way to sustain growth. With readers and listeners in over 60 countries, our work is cut out for us. Our solution is to scale up our operations by adding editorial and marketing capacity and to cover key geographies where media independence and news coverage are threatened. For example, we wish to expand our analysis and contextualisation of events in Israel/Palestine, Syria and Turkey, drawing on existing and new regional contributors. Given developments in the region since October 2023, such as the Gaza war, the collapse of Syria's Assad regime, and the demilitarisation of Turkey's PKK, there is an urgent need for big-picture takes that rise above the headlines and localise their significance in Europe. We are fortunate to have a progressive Israeli editor at the helm, educated in the Middle East, North America, and the United Kingdom, who has worked for Israeli, American, and European news media and book publishers for over 30 years. Based in Brussels, we also have a core management team comprising experienced media and communications professionals from Belgium, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as a journalistic network hailing from Europe, the Middle East and North America. Please see our team bios and contributors on The Battleground website. Building on six years of documenting the rise of nationalism and the far right in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, we plan to broaden our understanding of threats to media independence and democracy by sharing strategies and tactics deployed to destabilise social cohesion globally. Efforts to restrict women's rights are especially significant. The patriarchal backlash is core to the European nationalist project and the delegitimisation of liberal democracy, and an opportunity to heighten The Battleground's coverage of women in politics and culture and increase the gender diversity of our editorial staff. Far-right movements are not assimilable and are often hostile to one another. However, they increasingly communicate with each other and share best practices designed to stigmatise immigrants and minorities and promote ethno-religious and gender homogeneity. Consider it a global playbook. The Battleground will publish the proceeds of our research online and in book format and market the content to the European press and human rights campaigners. EU media do not do this kind of research and publishing in Brussels, as their focus is on policy reporting. Our taking it on is a significant departure from local journalistic convention. We also need funding to create a Western Balkans editorial offer that deconstructs nationalist narratives, counters Russia's malign influence, and provides an informed, critical, and independent alternative to the region’s highly politicised media landscape. The political situation has changed dramatically since the Dayton Accords in 1995. The weaponisation of nationalism is one such example. Serbs employ it against Muslim communities in Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro, accusing them of chauvinism when they push back against efforts to create a Greater Serbia. Their playbook is instantly recognisable for its echoes of Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin. This would involve funding journalism to catalogue local nationalist movements, explore how they fit into East-West political rivalries, examine how they discriminate against local minority groups, and produce podcasts to share this work with Western European and North American audiences. Last but not least, we plan on deepening our culture coverage in 2026. Featuring longform essays on music, film, and books, The Battleground is the only media platform in the EU press community to take the arts seriously — and, even better, tie them to European politics. It's not a bold move in other capital city markets. But, in Brussels, it's revolutionary. With strong regional media connections and a deep understanding of local politics, The Battleground is perfectly positioned to achieve its journalistic objectives. We break the rules to make better journalism. The following is where funding will be directed: Staff salaries: Editorial, marketing, fundraising, and design; Upgrade to the Ghost newsletter platform and CMS; Sustainable growth to 1 million readers.

The Battleground isn’t just for articles. We’re a book and record publisher, too. We complement our politics and culture commissions with Battleground author anthologies and full-length field recording albums. 2026 will continue this tradition. The budget for these releases covers their design, production, and promotion. Our book and audio imprints, Battleground Books and Battleground Sounds , will publish them. The first Battleground audiobook by Battleground Editor-in-Chief Joel Schalit, his debut title, Jerusalem Calling: A Homeless Conscience in a Post-Everything World (Akashic Books, 2002); A collection of essays on European electronic and experimental music, by The Battleground's Culture Editor, Charlie Bertsch; A collection of essays on British news and politics media, by The Battleground's UK Editor, Josh White; An essay collection on the Gaza War, by Mitchell Plitnick; A collection of essays on Donald Trump’s first term by The Battleground's US Editor, John Foster; A collection of interviews with Battleground contributor Wieland Hoban, discussing Israel-Palestine politics in Germany; Our first photo book, on two years of protests against the Gaza War in Italy, by Joel Schalit; The sound of Queens, a collection of field recordings of immigrant New York by Battleground journalist Ari Paul; A collection of field recordings of Jewish life in the United Kingdom, by journalist and commentator Keith Kahn-Harris; Political Field Recordings Vol II, featuring field recordings by Battleground journalists in Europe, Israel and the United States; A collection of field recordings of protests against the Gaza War in Rome, Turin and Milan, recorded by Joel Schalit. 12 podcasts promoting these publications, to be broadcast throughout 2026.