Encouraged by the $100,000 raised by another publisher in the city, Sydney alternative paper City Hub has launched a crowd funding appeal to readers.

After almost two decades of publication, the free weekly says it needs to raise $50,000 on Indiegogo to "help stabilise debt and increase the paper's longevity" against rising costs and decreasing revenues.

The move follows a campaign that raised more than $100,000 to fund restructuring of the Sydney Star Observer, and another in the USA, where the San Francisco Bay Guardian crowdfunded an extensive archive system and a last issue exploring the history of the paper after it was shut down.

The City Hub campaign has as its slogan, 'Don't Make Your News Limited' - a (slightly outdated) reference to the Murdoch-owned publishing company based in the city, now News Corp Australia. There's also more than a little implied criticism of the global rival in publisher Lawrence Gibbons' urging of the case for Alternative Media... which is also the name of his company: "Independent news coverage in Sydney is absolutely vital to the community and there are countless stories that need to be told," he says.

"As the government prepares to privatise publicly owned utilities, as more and more publicly owned land is sold off to developers, as more and more dwellings are crammed into our already densely populated inner city neighbourhoods without the infrastructure to support them, as the state government prepares to merge small and accountable local councils into massive, soulless urban bureaucracies, the need for fearless, independent news coverage is more vital than ever."

Gibbons points to a media market in Australia he says is "the most consolidated in the free world" with Rupert Murdoch controlling a claimed 57 per cent of daily newspaper distribution in the country. "No other western democracy has allowed so many media assets to be controlled by one corporation," he says.

Local businesses are supporting the appeal with more than 100 different gifts for supporters - see https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/don-t-make-your-news-limited for details.

The campaign is being launched with a party next Tuesday (April 14) at the Beauchamp Hotel in Darlinghurst.

Launched on August 24 1995, with a promise to "print the news and raise hell," City Hub expanded over the following decade with three breakout editions. Last July falling revenue prompted it cut back to one print edition - printed by Spotpress and covering the same key outlets - although all four titles appear online.

Pictured: The first issue from August 1995