It's only been five months since Eric Beecher's Crikey launched its beefed-up investigative offering Inq, funded by subscriptions as well as a $2 million investment from wealthy media scions John B Fairfax and Cameron O'Reilly. Earlier this month, the business made another splash hiring ex-Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times editor Peter Fray, who starts in January.

But behind the scenes, it hasn't been entirely smooth sailing for the small but heavy-hitting digital media outlet. Staff were told last week that the business would embark on a small voluntary redundancy round for editorial staff, made necessary by the fact that subscriptions hadn't caught up to where they need to be. The business hired 12 new journalists earlier this year, which we can't imagine was cheap.