In an ideal world, raising money to build a media organization centered on expertise would not be difficult.
You would assemble a newsroom the way scientists assemble research teams — bringing together people who actually understand the subjects they’re writing about. Climate scientists writing about climate. Labor historians writing about labor. Epidemiologists explaining public health.
Instead, the modern media economy rewards something else entirely: attention.
Money flows into sprawling far-right propaganda networks that treat misinformation like an industrial product. At the same time, much of the institutional money on the center-left is poured into corporate outlets designed to smooth over uncomfortable truths about political power rather than confront them.
The result is a media landscape that often elevates the loudest voices instead of the most informed ones.
That problem has bothered me for a long time.
If we were building a better system from scratch, assembling a team of truste…
