A new kind of activist journalism: Hunterbrook investigates corporations (and hopes to make bank trading off its reporting)

Hi, by the way, we’re Hunterbrook Media: an experiment to scalably and sustainably fund investigations into under-scrutinized sectors and global news in under-covered regions. This is an experiment — and smarter people have tried and failed to find a sustainable model. Our hypothesis is that if you recruit world-class reporters and OSINT analysts... See more

Investigative journalism seems particularly difficult as a solo enterprise on Substack, which doesn’t reward slowly developed, uncertain projects that come out sporadically.

First, as Sean O'Neill wrote, the “ability to propagate a viewpoint at scale is a new function in financial markets, and it is a big deal.” Firms like a16z are building media platforms. Individual VCs are present on Twitter, podcasts, and YouTube. Their ability to shape and amplify the narrative around portfolio companies can affect hiring, availab... See more

prioritize profits, even when those profits are derived

In traditional journalism, there are strong incentives to act maliciously. Journalists are incentivized to optimize for views and clicks. The answer is not to reform the industry. We can change media through radical decentralization. Everyone becomes a journalist. Each person writes about their local issues or areas of expertise

The business model is fine. It’s whether we matter that needs to be discussed. We believe we do, but we need to prove it to our audience.