Thread: When I started doing investigative journalism full time, I fully understood the responsibility I was taking on. In a sea of disinformation from all sides, I vowed to be a place people could come where they knew they were getting the truth, even if painful.

As time went on and I looked at the landscape around me, I widened my goal. How could I start a new company that was FILLED with people who had the same commitment to honest journalism that I did? With the help of some amazing people, @UncoverDC was born.
We have a set of standards at @UncoverDC that I am honored to say are much different than elsewhere. Straight news, with NO partisan spin, investigative journalism, and opinion. This is what we do at @UncoverDC and we do it really well.
Since we “opened” a year and a half ago we have had some amazing accomplishments. I shared some of them in this post: “One year of Actual Journalism” https://t.co/PsnmV6quAN
We’ve come so far even since this article, and I think it’s because we value and respect all of you so much as our equal. UncoverDC is for everyone. You are all a part of this family. A lot of folks have told me that what I will say next has been to my detriment.
There are two things I vowed not to do at UDC. 1. Assault our reader with ads. I refuse to place advertising that insults our reader on the site. There currently are no ads being run and haven’t been - and if we ever do run ads, they will be in direct partnership with companies
I won’t run served ads and bombard you with toenail fungus and viagra megs and bags and whatever else while you are trying to get the news of the day. You deserve better. I intend to deliver it to you. And - 2. Content will NEVER be behind a paywall.
No, I won’t do it. We are reporting on crucial information of the day. I can’t in good conscience make you pay to read it. This model has always bothered me.
Many have told me I could be rolling in cash if I would just do these two things that are counter to everything I believe in. I won’t do them. So, we sat down to dream up a way to fund this business and I did something ELSE few do:
We’ve launched a completely voluntary monthly or one time subscription option at UncoverDC: https://t.co/6LrH9bwRXN
Here you can VOLUNTARILY subscribe for a monthly contribution - there are some inexpensive ones and some more expensive ones - to support UncoverDC and the work that we do. There are some really cool perks there and I hope that you enjoy reading through.
I suppose my leap of faith is that I am counting on the good people out there to want to help us keep going. I will never sacrifice our values for money, and I will never force anyone to pay us. We are reshaping media, and I want to prove that THIS is a viable option.
So, if you appreciate the work at UDC, consider a monthly support tier and join our family. We are a business and businesses need money. More than that, you’d be a part of revolutionizing media for a new age. Lots of love, and my humble respect to all of you.
https://t.co/CZCnU1mkiL

More from Journalism

You May Also Like

“We don’t negotiate salaries” is a negotiation tactic.

Always. No, your company is not an exception.

A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.

Listen to Aditya


And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.

I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.

You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.

Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x