I’m not going to bore you with my analysis of the US election. You didn’t sign up for this newsletter to read that kind of stuff and I doubt my take would be better than the dozens of others you’ve probably read today.

But I do want to expand on something I posted to social media this morning:

Today would be a great day to support independent media, because corporate media certainly won't save you. Neither will the large tech platforms that control our content feeds.

I didn’t mean that as a blanket attack against all of mainstream media. After all, I’m a paid subscriber to a range of outlets that include the New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Bloomberg, and I don’t plan to cancel my subscriptions in the near future. These outlets produce amazing journalism that’s vital to the work that I do here.

At the same time, I think the legacy corporate media outlets can do a poor job of educating the public on the stakes of elections, whether it’s because they regularly publish op-eds from misinformation-spewing demagogues, succumb to lazy both-sides narratives, or make editorial decisions that serve the monetary interests of their billionaire owners.

By supporting an independent journalist, you’ll not only fund the type of coverage you find important, but more of your money will go to actual journalism. Whenever you subscribe to a corporate media outlet, a sizable portion of that money goes toward either a private equity fund, a rich billionaire owner, or a shareholder dividend payment. But when you subscribe to your favorite independent newsletter writer or podcaster, your money goes directly toward paying their rent or putting food on their table.

I’m not going to pretend I’m unbiased on this issue. Not only am I an independent media operator myself, but I also spend the majority of my time each week producing longform interviews with independent media entrepreneurs. And while my audience includes plenty of folks who work in legacy media and tech, my largest cohort consists of indie media operators.

So if election news coverage this year made you angry, then challenge yourself to find one independent media outlet that covers issues important to you — whether that’s progressive politics or your local government — and give it your paid support.

And if you’re a media operator who’s reading this and want to get better at running your own business, consider subscribing to my work.

As you can see from the list below, I’m building an enormous library of evergreen interviews, which means the value of the subscription increases each month. A subscription also gets you a half-hour introductory phone call with me so you can pick my brain about how you can better optimize your own content business.

Use this link below, and you can get 20% off for the first year:

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