Newsroom Database
Powering News produced the first comprehensive list of non-traditional, worker-friendly U.S newsrooms. To be included, these organizations are generally stand-alone newsrooms that generate revenue to pay for at least two staff and offer them significant decision-making power.
They are divided into 3 categories:
1. Coops: For-profit business owned by its members (worker coops are listed here)
2. Staff-run nonprofit: Nonprofit that embeds co-op principles into its legal structure
3. Democratic: Traditional for- or non-profit that only uses democratic decision-making
Learn more about these models or add your newsroom’s details.
-
404 Media
Founded: 2023
Coverage: National#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
404 Media is a journalist-founded digital media company exploring the ways technology is shaping–and is shaped by–our world. We're focused on investigative reports, longform features, blogs, and scoops about topics including: hacking, cybersecurity, cybercrime, sex, artificial intelligence, consumer rights, surveillance, privacy, and the democratization of the internet. We produce content that's for humans, by humans.
Type: Coop
Structure: LLC
Governance: Owner-worker board
Decision-making: For big decisions (things that have the potential to impact the company's revenue, health of the business, or reputation) we meet and thoroughly discuss, and then come to a unanimous vote. We don't move forward on these high-level decisions without everyone coming to an agreement. For less high-stakes, day-to-day decisions, we are in constant communication and will continually weigh in when needed, but we trust each other to make good choices within our own spheres of responsibility without requiring everyone's attention or vote. This trust and communication has been essential to our ability to move quickly and effectively as a company, and more importantly as a newsroom.
Team: 4 (Full-time)
-
505omatic
Founded: 2024
Location: New Mexico#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
505omatic is a community representative collective of new media journalists, founded in Santa Fe, NM, dedicated to making hyperlocal news accessible to under-served audiences.
Type: Co-op
Structure: LLC
(We describe it as “LLC in the streets, Co-op in the sheets”)Governance: Owner/worker board
Decision-making: We have an executive team, 3 of us that are working full time, but big decisions go to a vote.Team: 3 (Full-time)
-
The 51st
Founded: 2024
Location: D.C.#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
We believe that all D.C. residents deserve a more equitable and just place to live, and our reporting is rooted in our conviction that local journalism is meant to make people’s lives better. Put simply, our mission is to make it easier — and more fun — to live in the District.
Type: Staff-run nonprofit
Structure: 501c3
Governance: Worker board
Decision-making: We use a prefer, block, agree model of decision-making and votes are determined by majority rule. However, we prioritize reaching consensus whenever possible through discussion, compromise, and developing alternative solutions. The worker board is responsible for making major decisions about union finances, contracts, etc. and committees (editorial, operations, governance) are responsible for making decisions within their purview at weekly meetings. We encourage team members to feel empowered to make their own decisions, but to keep other team members appraised in case they have any concerns. People are also encouraged to make their own schedules and organize their own work priorities, as long as they are communicating transparently and proactively with the rest of the team.
Team: 10 (not all full-time)
-
Aftermath
Founded: 2023
Location: New York#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Aftermath is a worker-owned, reader-supported news site covering video games, the internet, and the cultures that surround them.
Type: Democratic
Corporation: LLC
Governance: Worker-run, with each staffer having an equal say in editorial and business decisions.
Decision-making: Committees, and when bigger or more consequential decisions need to be made, we have a meeting and vote. We strive for consensus but a decision can go through with a majority.Team: 5 (Full-time)
riley@aftermath.site -
Athens County Independent
Founded: 2022
Location: Athens County, Ohio#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
The Athens County Independent empowers community engagement through accessible public service journalism.
Type: Staff-run nonprofit
(We describe it as a democratically worker-managed nonprofit)Incorporation: C Corp
Governance: External board with fiduciary responsibility but no power to hire or fire.
Decision-making: Staff collectively make decisions about the management and direction of Southeast Ohio Independent News, the nonprofit entity that governs publications. The SEOIN board approves budgets and provides guidance and expertise to ensure compliance. Staff select a member to serve as its liaison to the board; effectively, this individual is a delegated executive director, conveying the will and wishes of the staff to the board. The staff liaison is a member of the board's Governance committee, which vets and nominates new board members.
Team: 6 (Full-time)
corinne@athensindependent.com -
Atlanta Community Press Collective
Founded: 2021
Location: Atlanta, GA#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
The Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC) empowers Atlantans to engage in civic participation and build a city led from the bottom up by holding government and those in power to account, changing narratives to center marginalized voices, expanding the possibilities of engagement, and spotlighting the stories of those fighting for a more equitable future.
Type: Democratic
Structure: C Corp
Governance: Independent board of directors
Decision-making: We have a flattened worker structure. One person takes ownership of a project and bring it back to the rest of the team when it's ready for feedback or consensus-building. Decisions that impact the whole organization are brought to the staff as a group to discuss and build consensus, with additional approval, when necessary, from the Board of Directors following staff agreement.
Team: 5 (Full-time)
-
Autonomy News
Founded: 2025
Coverage: National#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Autonomy News is a new worker-owned reproductive rights and justice publication co-founded by Garnet Henderson and Susan Rinkunas, featuring original reporting and sharp analysis that applies a human rights framework to issues including abortion, contraception, and gender-affirming care.
Type: Co-op
Structure: LLC
(We describe it as worker-owned)Governance: Leadership team of only two at the moment
Decision-making: Because there are only two of us (excluding contractors), we make decisions by consensus at the moment. Going forward, with the hope we will be able to bring on more worker-owners in the future, we have decided that each worker's voting power will be tied to their ownership percentage. However, we haven't fully ironed out what our decision making process would be with more than two people.
Team: 2 (not full-time)
-
Canopy Atlanta
Founded: 2020
Location: Atlanta, GA#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Canopy Atlanta is a community journalism nonprofit founded in 2020. We collaborate with residents to tell stories about their communities—neighborhood by neighborhood—redefining who journalism is by and for.
Type: Democratic
Structure: LLC
(We describe it as shared leadership / non hierarchical)Governance: External board and leadership team
Decision-making: Our decisions are made primarily by the leadership team. We also discuss any decisions in staff meetings and one-on-one meetings with staff to ensure that any staff involved have an opportunity to provide input.
Team: 6 (not full-time)
-
Cicero Independiente
Founded: 2019
Location: Cicero, IL#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Our mission is to serve the diverse communities of Cicero and Berwyn with inclusive and bilingual news and storytelling opportunities that elevate local voices and foster civic engagement.
Type: Staff-run nonprofit
(We describe it as a worker-led newsroom)Structure: 501c3
Governance: Worker-led with a board of directors that are there as advisors and approvers but decisions rest with the team.
Decision-making: We have a steering committee where org-led decisions are made.
Team: 5
-
COYOTE
Founded: 2025
Location: Bay Area, CA#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
COYOTE Media Collective was founded in 2025 by a team of longtime journalists in the Bay Area. Inspired by the alt-weeklies of yore, we envisioned an outlet that reflected the complexity and depth of the region we know and love. We serve readers who want to feel more connected to their communities, and who understand that a city’s greatest asset is the everyday people and families living within it. That community is the only way we all survive.
Type: Co-op
Structure: LLC
Governance: All worker-owners who are at least part-time are voting members.
Decision-making: Each member who works at least part time has equal voting rights. We employ a tiered voting system matched to decision impact:
- Supermajority (2/3 of members): Required for decisions affecting fundamental operations and structure
- Simple Majority (50%+1): For operational decisions with cooperative-wide impact.
Delegated Authority: Subcommittees make autonomous decisions within their purview when actions don't impact other members' workflows. Individuals with specific expertise make recommendations in their areas, with final decisions made by the relevant group or subcommittee.Team: 12 (not all full-time)
-
Defector Media
Founded: 2020
Coverage: National#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Defector is a sports and culture website that reflects the taste, humor, and decency of the people behind it, and the community supporting it. In this inhumane moment, no other major media company offers such a refuge.
Type: Co-op
Structure: LLC
Governance: Manager board, with additional operational standing committees
Decision-making: We use the RAPID framework and have assigned decision rights to specific people or committees. Where we require a staff-wide vote, we have clear protocols of what decision require a simple majority and which require a two-thirds super majority.
Team: 27
-
Discourse Blog
Founded: 2020
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Since our founding in 2020, our mission has been the same: to say what we think. We don’t hide behind fake objectivity or mealy-mouthed centrism. We tell you exactly what’s on our minds about everyone fucking this world up—the U.S. government in all its forms, media cretins and propagandists, cops, billionaires, and many, many more—and about the good people who fight back every day. We leave a lot of room for weirdness and stupidity.
Type: Coop
(We describe it as a fully worker-owned, independent collective) -
Dollars & Sense
Founded: 1974
Coverage: National#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Provide left and labor-friendly reporting and analysis on the U.S. and global economies.
Type: Staff-run nonprofit
Structure: 501c3
Governance: We have a nonprofit board, a democratically-run paid staff, and a democratically-run (volunteer) editorial collective.
Decision-making: We tend to make decisions through consensus, but we take a majority vote if necessary.
Team: 3 (Full-time)
-
Flaming Hydra
Launched: 2024
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
FLAMING HYDRA is a new kind of publication for people who like to read and write whatever we want, and to connect in an unmediated way, with no weirdo surveillance or profiteering—like the old internet used to be.
Type: Coop
-
The Flytrap
Founded: 2024
Coverage: National#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
The Flytrap Media is a worker-owned, intersectional, and expansive feminist media group that thinks beyond clicks and hashtag-engagement. We are bringing principled and diverse cultural criticism from a feminist perspective back to the internet.
Type: Co-op
(We describe it as a worker-owned collective)Structure: LLC
Governance: All worker-owners have votes, which we use to make day-to-day decisions. We have a board of 3 people for external and internal complaints/issues.
Decision-making: Each worker-owner can vote on Big Decisions (examples: flash sales, raising membership costs, expelling people from the collective) and they're decided through quorum. We do this either through out Votes channel on Slack for stuff that needs to be decided faster or during our biweekly meetings.
Advice for other newsrooms: It's one of the best projects I've ever been a part of, even if it's not making any profit. Just do it. It's awesome to have the freedom to write what you want.
Team: 7 (not full-time)
-
Garlic and Roses
Location: D.C.
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Garlic and Roses is a news site that exists to bring cooperators around the country closer to the food co-op movement. We explore the big picture stories and small acts of solidarity that define grocery cooperatives. Garlic and Roses is a worker cooperative incorporated in Washington DC.
Type: Coop
-
Gourmet Magazine
Founded: 2026
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Gourmet is a food magazine. And famously was a food magazine, but a certain media empire failed to maintain the trademark, and so it is our food magazine now—yours, too, if you want. We deliver newsletters to our treasured paid subscribers at least twice weekly via electronic mail. One will feature a recipe from our brilliant squad culinaire, the other will be an assortment of investigations, scoops, vibe reports, diatribes, and all manner of gossip from the front lines of the human appetite.
Type: Coop
-
Greenbelt News Review
Founded: 1937
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Founded in 1937 by the Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Association, Inc., the paper began mere weeks after Greenbelt’s first residents moved in. It has been published weekly since without interruption, maintaining its long-standing tradition of providing news and information to the community. Organized as a worker cooperative, it is staffed and owned by its members who are eligible to receive dividends for their participation. It is also supported by a a small group of part time employees who provide essential skills.
Type: Coop
-
Hearing Things
Founded: 2024
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Hearing Things is a new home for independent music journalism.
Type: Coop
-
Hell Gate
Founded: 2022
Location: New York City#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
We are a subscriber-funded, worker-owned news outlet about New York City, named for the city's sturdiest (and handsomest) bridge over its most treacherous currents. The goal? To be trenchant, playful, outraged, irreverent, and useful to our readers; deeply skeptical of power but stubbornly idealistic. And never a chore to read.
Type: Co-op
Structure: S Corp
Governance: Worker-owner board
Decision-making: We strive for consensus but when it is not achievable decisions can be made by a majority (or, for particularly important or high stakes decisions, a supermajority) vote.
Team: 9 (Full-time)
-
Invisible Institute
Year: 2015
Location: Chicago, IL#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
We are a nonprofit journalism production company on the South Side of Chicago. We work to enhance the capacity of citizens to hold public institutions accountable. Among the tactics we employ are investigative reporting, multimedia storytelling, human rights documentation, the curation of public information, and the orchestration of difficult public conversations. Our work coheres around a central principle: we as citizens have co-responsibility with the government for maintaining respect for human rights and, when abuses occur, for demanding redress.
Type: Democratic
Structure: 501c3
Governance: Board of directors
Decision-making: A large leadership team is responsible for the health of the organization, and participate as members of different projects. All staff members direct project initiatives, participate in setting strategies, and execute the work. (The difference in salary between leadership and staff is less than 10%.) Each staff member will play a leadership role based in their expertise, and will usually also work in other areas at the direction of their co-workers. Leadership team members are expected to work in the same way, and when they are co-workers in projects, they do not have the authority to unilaterally direct strategy or decision making. We spend a lot of time working through difficult problems together, and typically work towards the type of consensus where even dissenting parties agree to support the decision moving forward. There is no formal voting process, but we have a template of all the strategic angles to address before making a decision, and staff chime in according to their relevant expertise.
Advice for other newsrooms: There's no policy substitute for spending time together.
Team: 17
-
Long Beach Watchdog
Founded: 2024
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Long Beach Watchdog is published by Watchdog Media Cooperative, Inc., a worker-owned collective committed to building a new future for local journalism in our community. We are dedicated to providing Long Beach with accurate, timely news and fearless investigative reporting. We hold ourselves to the highest standards of transparency, accountability and responsibility, and advocate for the rights and wellbeing of our workers.
Type: Coop
-
The New York Groove
Founded: 2023
Location: New York City, NY#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
The overall mission at The New York Groove is to help our readers be better New Yorkers in every way that phrase implies.
Type: Democratic
Structure: LLC
Governance: Three co-founders make primary editorial decisions as a collective (without formal titles of roles), larger team collaborates on event, story ideas, brand identity etc.
Decision-making: We don't have a formal decision-making framework. As such a small team, decisions are generally a conversation until a consensus is reached. We don't have formal veto power, but if one member of the team strongly objects to a story idea, business idea, etc., we'll generally seek out another option as a team.
Team: 5 (not full-time)
-
Pop Heist
Founded: 2024
Coverage: National#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Pop Heist is a worker-owned, reader-funded publication founded to give writers space to explore the pop culture they love — not what's dictated by CEOs, SEO, or AI. We're a cafeteria table that welcomes the cool kids, the weirdos, the nerds, and the new kids, a space for critics and journalists to dissect and tell stories about the things that excite them: TV, movies, music, video games, toys, theatre, concerts, or whatever; highbrow, lowbrow, side brow, or no brow; the now, the tomorrow, or the retro (or sometimes the ancient). In short: We're stealing pop culture back from the algorithm, and everyone's in on the heist.
Type: Co-op
Structure: LLC
(We describe it as worker-owned)Decision-making: Our team is currently a skeleton staff — three (with only one truly full-timer) with an intention of scaling up in the new year. Because of this, our decision-making process is currently informal but most closely adheres to the ""one worker, one vote"" model. We have one editorial lead (our "editor-in-chief") whose major decision-making is made with input from the other staff, and one of us is an admin/marketing lead whose major decision-making is informed by the others. When there is any disagreement, we move forward with majority opinion. As we scale up, we will most likely take a similar approach, with aspects of the org's work broken into finer pieces, each area with its own lead. Our final model will be designed and agreed upon by consensus among our expected team of 10. Teammates have autonomy in that they are welcome to publish any content they like within the site's scope of coverage (current and retro pop culture).
Team: 3 (not full-time)
-
The Pudding
Founded: 2017
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
The Pudding explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays. We’re not chasing current events or clickbait. We choose topics where visuals inform and entertain. We’ve been in the business of bringing you stories you didn’t know you needed since 2017.
Type: Democratic
-
Racket
Founded: 2021
Location: Twin Cities, MN#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Your writer-owned, reader-funded source for news, arts, and culture. Keeping alternative journalism alive in the Twin Cities since 2021.
Type: Coop
Structure: LLC
Decision-making: The four of us talk things out. Since we all worked together for years, certain tasks followed us from our former job. Otherwise, we're pretty good at volunteering for stuff and voting on things when decisions need to be made.
Team: 4 (Full-time)
-
RANGE
Founded: 2020
Location: Spokane, WA#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
We want to refocus the news in the Inland Northwest toward the needs of ordinary people by cultivating complex conversations, expanding our moral imagination, and holding the powerful accountable. We do action-oriented reporting that serves people where they are and gives everyone the tools to demand better, providing a journalistic spark for a more robust, democratic, just and fair region.
Type: Co-op
Structure: LLC & state co-op. (RANGE is an LLC, but is wholly owned by Spokane Workers Cooperative, which is incorporated as a Limited Cooperative Association)
Governance: Spokane Workers Cooperative is governed more traditionally for coops: by a board that is made up of — at minimum — a 66% super majority of workers and a super minority of investors. We are currently at a 75/25 ratio with three worker-owners on the board and 1 investor.
Decision-making: The RANGE team generally runs on a streamlined version of holacracy that emphasizes individual initiative and a safe-to-try model. For bigger decisions we try to seek consensus and have, to this point, generally achieved it. For decisions that could affect our entire cooperative family — such as debt and investment, those decisions are approved by the board.
Team: 6 (Full-time)
-
Rascal News
Founded: 2023
Coverage: Global#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Rascal is a tabletop roleplaying game and culture outlet striving to sustainably publish voicey journalism that is compelling, deeply-reported, and fearlessly honest. We’re also a little cheeky.
Type: Coop
Structure: LLC
Decision-making: All of our decisions are made via consensus vote, though we have individuals who specialize in various aspects of running the business. For example, we have a financial lead who focuses their efforts on the company's finances, and all financial decisions are filtered through them and their expertise — though the final vote on how those funds will be used is left up to a vote, which is a majority based decision (though after discussion those agreements tend to be unanimous). Similarly, we have an editorial lead who acts as a managing editor and editorial questions are presented to them for their opinion and advice, before being left up to a vote. People have autonomy over what it is they want to cover and how they want to cover it, though during weekly pitch meetings we ensure that the type of coverage we do aligns with our remit and mission.
Advice for other newsrooms: Like any good relationship, starting a worker-owned newsroom requires trust, communication, and forgiveness.
Team: 6 (Full-time)
-
Remap Radio
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Remap is a new media company from the creators of the long-running video game website, Waypoint, and its popular adjoining podcast, Waypoint Radio. Join Rob Zacny, Chia Contreras, Patrick Klepek, and a rotating cast of friends as they set off on a new adventure that has them obsessing over the video game Dragon’s Dogma nearly as much as they question the nature of capitalism.
Type: Coop
-
Rogue
Founded: 2025
#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
In May of 2025, we all lost our home and our outlet to talk about our passions when Vox Media sold Polygon and laid off the majority of its staff. We came back together after the layoffs with a little help from our friends at Rascal, determined to make something new. A new place where we can continue to share our love of video games and the ever-expanding culture surrounding them. But we knew we wanted it to be different this time.
Type: Co-op
-
Sequencer
Founded: 2024
Coverage: National#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Sequencer is a place to decode our world with stories about science.
Type: Coop
Structure: LLC
Governance: Owner/worker board (there are 4 of us so we are all decision-makers)
Decision-makers: Consensus for decisions. All funds agreed upon and approved by the co-founders not directly requesting them.
Team: 4 (not full-time)
-
The Southlander
Founded: 2024
Location: Greater Los Angeles, CA#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
The Southlander is the only dedicated investigative news cooperative serving Greater Los Angeles. We are a worker-led nonprofit newsroom focused on bringing a critical eye to the region’s slumlords, polluters, politicians, cops, and corporate crooks.
Type: Staff-run nonprofit
Structure: Nonstock corporation
Governance: Worker board
Decision-making: The members of the organization hold weekly meetings and make major editorial and business decisions democratically. Most decisions require a simple majority, although policy changes, personnel changes, and some financial decisions require a two-thirds majority. Members are split into four departments: Admin, Editorial, Fundraising, and Outreach. Each department has a certain level of autonomy to operate, and all members are able to participate in pitch intake discussions/decisions, as well as the democratic portion of the editing process.
Advice for other newsrooms:
1. Build slowly and intentionally. We have been building this newsroom in the midst of so much chaos and tragedy here in Los Angeles in 2025. The urgency to hit the ground and start reporting has been immense, but we learned that each time we tried that without having enough of the organization’s infrastructure formed, it led to pitfalls. Even just learning to work together as a team in all the different realms that building a worker-led newsroom demands takes time to cultivate. Start slow and be wary of being overly ambitious right out of the gate. The news will always be there.
2. Reach out to other like-minded newsrooms. One of the biggest morale boosts for us was chatting with the good folks over at The 51st at a time when we felt like things were moving too slow. They reassured us and shared that their own experience was filled with many ups and downs and frustrations. It was grounding. Beyond that, they shared with us their bylaws and other internal policies that helped to shape our own.
3. Build as you go, things do not have to be perfect, but they should evolve along with the project.Team: 7
-
Strange Matters Magazine
Founded: 2020
Coverage: International#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Strange Matters is a magazine of new and unconventional thinking across economics, politics, and culture. We publish issues regularly in print and digital formats, and also publish new digital content on a rolling basis. Strange Matters was founded in 2020 by a collection of co-editors with interest and training in a range of intellectual disciplines – literature, architecture, history, political economy, the natural sciences, and computer science, among others. We are proudly living our values as a worker-owned and self-managed cooperative of the editors.
Type: Coop
Structure: LLC
Governance: A worker cooperative of the 5 co-editors/worker-owners. The sovereign body is the Editors' Meeting.
Decision-making: We have an Editors' Meeting of the five worker-owners/co-editors every week. All editorial and business decisions are made in this Editors' Meeting or asynchronously in our shared communications channels between Editors' Meetings (currently Discord). According to our bylaws, all we need is a majority vote; but informally, due to our longstanding trust in one another and our experience in movement spaces that use these methods, we aspire to consensus decision-making, modifying proposals that raise objections to address the concern of the dissenter(s). An internal slogan: "I'm willing to be outvoted on this, but I think..." etc). When we make decisions asynchronously, it's by tagging everyone and doing a quick tally of thumbs up/thumbs down responses. Finally, the one exception to this direct-democratic procedure is when we direct-democratically decide to delegate some decision to one editor or a subset of them, because we trust them better than the larger group due to specialized knowledge.
Advice for other newsrooms: Starting a new business always leans heavily on the business partners themselves as people. But that's doubly true for a worker cooperative. We wish someone had explained to us the sheer extent we'd be relying on each other as business partners -- and frankly, as friends -- to weather the various storms of the business and get through to the surprisingly wide readership we've earned today. You can fire someone from a worker cooperative, but it's much more painful than firing them when they're an at-will employee: it's more analogous to buying out a senior partner in a law firm. So our advice is: recruit very carefully long before the first production cycle even begins, and don't incorporate until they're locked in. You need at a bare minimum somebody who knows business and accounting, somebody who knows the industry inside and out, and somebody who knows how to do radical democracy -- and then they need to teach each other. You're basically getting married. Divorce is possible, but painful.
Team: 5 (not full-time)
-
Tone Madison
Founded: 2014
Location: Madison, WI#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
Tone Madison is a journalist-owned, reader-supported website covering culture and politics in Madison, Wisconsin. Since 2014, Tone Madison has provided a lively voice in a sea of bland. We’re truly a tiny publication, but our reporting and commentary make a big impact. We publish work you won’t find anywhere else, highlight the neglected corners of Madison’s cultural landscape, elevate vital viewpoints from the left, and pull off ambitious reporting projects.
Type: Coop
-
The Vallejo Sun
Founded: 2021
Location: Vallejo, CA#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
At the Vallejo Sun, our mission is to shine a light on the workings of democracy, politics, and government in Solano County.
Type: Democratic
Structure: LLC
Decision-making: The Vallejo Sun started as a three-way worker-owned publication. Three co-founders did all the reporting and other labor for the organization and each owned an equal share of the company. Decisions were handled by consensus or, absent that, two members could overrule a third. Two co-founders have become absent or significantly less involved since then, but we have built a stable of freelancers and employees who have taken on leadership roles in the organization. While most people working with us are freelancers, they participate in editorial meetings where decisions are made collectively.
Advice: It has been difficult to maintain a worker-owner structure given worker turnover. We still have ambitions to expand equity stakes to workers who have made significant contributions, but have not yet developed procedures to do so. In retrospect, this could have been a greater consideration in our founding.
Team: 2 (Full-time)
-
WORT 89.9 FM
Founded: 1975
Location: Madison, WI#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
WORT is a non-commercial, listener-sponsored, member-controlled community radio station broadcasting to South-Central Wisconsin and maintaining an active Internet presence. WORT programming shall respect all peoples and their environments, and shall serve a broad spectrum of the community by: (i) Providing a forum for both the discussion of public issues, and the expansion of musical and cultural experience; (ii) Facilitating community expression and providing community access to share music, culture, news, and information; (iii) Challenging the cultural and intellectual assumptions of our listeners through unique and diverse programming; and (iv) Including audiences and programmers under-represented by other media."
Type: Democratic
Structure: 501c3
Governance: Volunteer journalists elect the board, with seats reserved for volunteers, listeners, and staff.
Decision-making: Because our journalists are mostly volunteers, stories are chosen semi-collaboratively. Reporters often pitch their own stories, and the editor tries to accommodate those pitches when able. Ultimately the editor makes the final call on running a story, but their work is reviewed by the board of directors, which is pulled from and elected by the volunteers, including the newsroom reporters.
Team: 3 (not fulltime)
-
The Colorado Sun
Founded: 2018
Location: Denver, CO#fhtogglels/More →/Less ↑/ib
The Colorado Sun is a journalist-founded, award-winning and nonprofit news outlet based in Denver that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state — our community — can better understand itself. In this way, we believe we can contribute to a more vibrant, informed and whole Colorado. We are committed to fact-based, in-depth and nonpartisan journalism. We cover everything from politics and culture to the outdoor industry and education.
Type: Staff-run nonprofit
Structure: 501c3
Governance: Staff vote on board members, which is made up of 3 non-executive staff members and 2 community members who set organizational strategy and approve the budget. Staff vote for a new representative each year, and can call board meetings, change bylaws, and dismiss board members.
Team: 28