Debunking some myths about Tangle (and me).

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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I’d like to start by doing something unusual: I’m going to share a slide with you from an internal deck that I recently presented to the Tangle team:

A slide from an internal presentation.

In the next slide, I outlined five values core to the Tangle mission:

1. We are a big tent media organization. Everyone is invited. We are for everyone.
2. Be human. Stay curious. Communicate like a person. Admit mistakes. Make it personal. 
3. Simple scales, fancy fails. We win with consistency, rhythm, pace. Work deliberately and smartly. No frills, no tricks, no complications. 
4. Money unlocks the mission. If we want to win, we have to make money. We are building a mission-oriented business, not a passion project.
5. Work hard, play hard, rest regularly. We embrace the work and the play. There’s no point to any of this if we aren’t having fun. We’re in it for the long game.

Obviously, not all of these values apply directly to our day-to-day editorial choices, but this is the news organization we’re trying to build. I want to produce political news that is trusted by a larger swath of the country than any media organization on Earth. I want us to communicate the news like the wisest versions of ourselves — with curiosity and skepticism and humility and open-mindedness. I want our content to feel informative and premium, but also personal.

This deck is not marketing material. I never planned for it to go public (in fact, about 48 hours ago, I specifically instructed my team not to share it with anyone). This is not our outward-facing pitch to readers. They are the internal values I try to live by and that I invite my employees to live by: Trust. Big tent media. Curiosity. Humility. Skepticism. Personal.

Bringing Americans of different political stripes under one roof has always been difficult. In this hyper-polarized era, it often feels impossible. One of the biggest challenges we face at Tangle is that so many people regularly misunderstand what we are doing and why we are here. That makes sense; people come here at different times and for different reasons, and not everyone wants the same thing. At various points over the last five and a half years, I’ve tried to restate the mission — especially when I feel the Tangle community (and the country) tearing a bit at the seams. This is one of those times.

So, let me start by clearing up five common misconceptions about our work.

1. Tangle, as an organization, is non-partisan and balanced. Central to everything we do is the idea that many Americans are living in a media echo chamber. Our goal is to get people out of their echo chambers. We want to create a destination where you can find a plethora of views on whatever topic we are covering all in one place. The “Today’s topic” section is a neutral, just-the-facts breakdown. Then we share a wide range of opinions from the left, right, and center-left or center-right. Then someone from our staff (typically me, but occasionally another editor) shares their opinion in the “My take” section. That structure, we believe, creates balance — not every time, but over time. We are non-partisan because we are not biased toward any political group. That is why the top media watchdogs have rated us as balanced, highly factual, and nonpartisan.
2. I am not claiming to be unbiased. I, Isaac Saul, am a person. I have views, principles, and opinions. Sometimes strong ones. But I believe I have two qualities in particular that make me well suited to execute Tangle’s mission: 1) I’ve been a politics reporter for over a decade, so I have the tools, sources, and experience to analyze the news thoughtfully. 2) I am a political moderate. I am deeply skeptical of both major political parties in our country, and deeply exhausted by our political fringes. Every now and then I strongly align with one party on an issue, but it’s relatively easy for me to oscillate between agreeing with one of the two big political tribes in our country, and I often find myself somewhere in the middle. 
3. We are not “centrist” or “heterodox.” Centrism is its own political ideology, no better or worse than liberalism or conservatism. Centrists straddle the partisan divide on principle, always looking for some kind of middle ground for moderation’s sake. A centrist will look at Point A and Point C and say, “We’re going to take Point B because it’s in the middle.” Heterodoxy is an ideology, too. In the media, it’s the act of looking around at the mainstream consensus, or the majority opinion of the right or left, and then intentionally disagreeing with the consensus. Sometimes I will arrive at a heterodox opinion, but I never let a desire to feel different guide my analysis. At Tangle we’ll share heterodox and centrist views, of course, but we don’t subscribe to heterodox or centrist ideologies.
4. “My take” is an act of transparency. When I first had the idea for Tangle, “My take” didn’t exist — the newsletter was just a short explanation of the main story with summaries of what the left and right were saying. But friends and family I shared the concept with were curious about what I thought. They felt like I raised a bunch of questions and issues and then… it just ended. This feedback resonated. So, I added the “My take” section, which (according to reader surveys) is now the most popular part of the newsletter. “My take” is not about convincing you that I’m right. It’s an act of transparency; it’s me sharing exactly what I’m thinking, trying to call some balls and strikes, and hoping it helps you make better sense of things. You can take it or leave it, but I don’t want you to ever feel that I’m dishonest about what I think. 
5. I am wrong a lot. I get stuff wrong all the time! Sometimes I have bad takes. I hate being wrong publicly — people typically aren’t very nice about it. But I’m relatively young, open-minded, and I’ve got thick skin; and I know my opinions will keep evolving. I know I have been wrong many times in the past and will be wrong many times in the future. I am comfortable with this arrangement and am married to very few of the views I hold, and I believe that having evolving views (so long as they are evolving for the right reasons) is healthy and natural. People whose positions never change make me suspicious. I sincerely doubt all of your opinions are correct. While some of my opinions will end up aging poorly, I still might try to defend them when they come under attack. If we ever make factual errors in the newsletter, however, we correct them promptly and prominently.

Here’s another way to think about what we are doing: We are filling a gap. There are news organizations “just reporting the facts,” though they are increasingly rare. With the fragmentation of media ecosystems and the incentive structure from social media, entertainment and partisanship have become the easiest ways to build a profitable media business. There are many news organizations that structure their coverage around criticizing or supporting one side or the other. If you want to read about how Trump is an authoritarian leader who is going to usher in fascism in America, you can find plenty of left-leaning news organizations willing to tell you that story. If you want to get nonstop opinions about how the media and Democrats are pushing a leftist cultural agenda on the American public, you can find a number of conservative-leaning news organizations telling that one. But we aren’t here to service a preset narrative.

We cover one topic a day — typically an issue that is dividing the country — and we seek out and publish a diverse set of opinions about that topic. That’s it. It’s really quite simple. “My take” is a feature to make our content more engaging and personal (see value #2), and I understand that this is the part of the newsletter people are typically replying to. But it’s just one of a collage of views on a given issue; if you are using my take as a resource to better understand the news, it should be taken with the same weight and value as the several other opinions we share.

To steal from a piece I previously wrote on this subject:

I am not trying to moderate your views. I am not trying to hold hands, bring everyone to the center, and pretend we all agree (as I’ve said before, I think centrism is an ideology of its own — and a rather poor one). I’m trying to do something even more basic and fundamental: I'm trying to tell you that you don't actually know the best arguments out there yet, so you couldn't possibly have a holistic, well informed opinion yet either.

Tangle is about exposure, not coercion. It's about expanding the debate, not agreeing on the conclusion. You can land where you land. I'm just trying to make sure you actually get a chance to fly on the plane.

So that’s why we’re here. And in the era of Trump, we are (probably) not going to be the news organization lighting your hair on fire over all the bad things he does. We also (probably) won’t be the news organization framing everything he does as some incredible revelation. Outlets that do that are everywhere. They’re not only unavoidable but often unhelpful in better understanding our country. You'll still find those opinions in our newsletter as part of a larger whole, but "My take" is an opportunity for our staff to analyze those arguments and also share our own unique analysis when we have it.

If you read Tangle for long enough, I promise that you will vehemently disagree with some of the things we publish — if not, then we probably aren't doing our jobs very well. That’s the hard part about the business model we’ve chosen, and we don’t shy away from it. We could just tell you everything you want to hear — reaffirm your priors and rake in the cash — but then we’d be no different from Fox News or MSNBC or any number of the small and lucrative media outlets thriving in the cottage industries of telling their specific subset of the nation exactly what it wants to hear. In the last week, we’ve had readers cancel their subscriptions because we allegedly justified Trump’s “shakedown” of Ukraine for a potential peace deal and allegedly hate Trump so much we’d rather see thousands more Ukrainians die in the war than give him a foreign policy win. These responses were in reaction to the same newsletter. That’s the nature of our challenge. 

So, what am I asking of you?

I’m asking you to be a part of this community with our values in mind. This is not your typical news organization, and it’s not trying to be. 

If you think our coverage is falling short, by all means: Speak up. Leave a comment. Send us an email. But please try to address our actual writing and track record, not those of other media organizations. And try to be persuasive — try to change our minds, or the minds of the Tangle community, rather than just score some partisan points. 

If something you read makes you angry, approach it with curiosity — try to better understand the opinion you’re struggling with. Ask questions. Inquire. Open your mind.

And, as a last option that I hope you don’t take, if you really feel like you can’t stand what we are doing, then feel free to leave. But maybe, first, take a break. It’s okay not to read the news for a few days and come back refreshed. This can all be exhausting for readers and reporters, and as we continue to build this community — this next generation of news consumers — I want to encourage you to enter it with the goal of thickening your skin and opening your mind. If everyone quits the first or second time they get offended or annoyed, we’ll never get there.

So that’s it. That’s why we’re here, that’s what we’re trying to do, and these are the values we’re trying to embody. I know Tangle won’t be for everyone, but I genuinely hope you all stay along for the ride — I’m excited to see this community continue to grow.

And, as always, if you want to support our work, the best thing to do is become a Tangle member. If you already are, the best thing to do is forward this email to friends and tell them to subscribe. 

Thank you for being here.

Best,
Isaac & the Tangle team