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Kirill Artemenko spoke about Bumaga’s beginning and the successes achieved so far during a meeting with Moldovan journalists organized by the Independent Journalism Center on the 12th of March 2020.
Established in 2012, the Bumaga team had initially three members. At present, the company has 32 employees, an audience of over 1 million readers per month and it manages four big events – Kampus, Science Slam, Science Bar Hopping and ‘Лучше здесь’ [lit. Better here], which attract more than 10,000 people every year. Bumaga is followed by 112,000 individuals on social media, it has a subscriber address database of 35,000 individuals and an income of EUR 500,000 registered in 2019, of which 40% from native advertising.
“The Bumaga company was established eight years ago and, because at that time it did not have an initial capital, we encouraged journalists to be part of the team without being financially motivated. At present, although the salaries we pay are competitive on the Russian media market, we continue to hire people that don’t want to work for money, but because they appreciate what we do, they share our values and want to become part of this media project”, he shared with participants.
He mentioned that Bumaga owns the independent online portal with the same name and at the same time it produces podcasts, free and paid thematic newsletters and organizes events for readers.
“We produce a range of media products that are linked between them although the website is still the most important one. At the same time, our team tries to cultivate the idea that the events we organize are as important as the portal so that the people that work on them do not feel somehow disadvantaged”, the journalist stated.
Kirill Artemenko also focused on the relationship between Bumaga and its partners that pay for their content. “For them, we are not entrepreneurs and they are not our clients. We are partners and the content we create for them is as valuable as the editorial content. We have a golden rule that we observe – we attract partners but we keep the distance”.
Ana Dubeli, manager of the Locals.md portal, said that the experience of Bumaga is a relevant one in terms of local media development. “It was very useful to learn about the ways a local media outlet can get money not only from journalism and about creating a powerful brand that people are willing to pay for”.
This event is part of the ‘Media Enabling Democracy, Inclusion and Accountability in Moldova (MEDIA-M)’ project, funded by USAID, UK aid and implemented by Internews in Moldova. Its purpose is to promote the development of independent and professional media and to build a media sector that is more resilient to political and economic pressure.
