The Bad-News Echo Chamber of Pro-Democracy Substack The Bad-News Echo Chamber of Pro-Democracy Substack
How many pro-democracy Substack authors over-focus on gloom and doom and ignore organizing, and who’s bucking that trend.
Mar 27, 2026 / Micah L. Sifry
From Foreign Correspondent to Uber Driver From Foreign Correspondent to Uber Driver
I once documented human displacement and desperation. Now, due to a crumbling media ecosystem, I am living it.
Mar 21, 2026 / Feature / Steve Scherer
A World on Fire Needs More Climate Reporting—Not Less A World on Fire Needs More Climate Reporting—Not Less
War is a climate story, but billionaire media owners don’t want to tell it.
Mar 12, 2026 / Kyle Pope
Trump’s Threats to Free Speech Aren’t New to Black Journalists Trump’s Threats to Free Speech Aren’t New to Black Journalists
Two years after Trump’s infamous invitation to the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention, the organization is adapting and bracing for escalating hostility.
Feb 20, 2026 / StudentNation / Atarah Israel
Where Climate Coverage Goes to Die Where Climate Coverage Goes to Die
The very notion of public service journalism is under assault at precisely the moment that it’s most needed.
Feb 19, 2026 / Kyle Pope
CBS Surrenders to Trump CBS Surrenders to Trump
The network tried to bury an interview critical of Trump. Stephen Colbert made it an indictment of the administration’s assaults on the First Amendment.
Feb 17, 2026 / Chris Lehmann
Has the Mainstream Media Failed Us? Has the Mainstream Media Failed Us?
Dean Obeidallah and Joy Reid discuss independent media’s role in an increasingly undemocratic world.
Feb 5, 2026 / Q&A / Laura Flanders
Jeff Bezos’s Destruction of “The Washington Post” Is a Disgraceful Plutocratic Crime Jeff Bezos’s Destruction of “The Washington Post” Is a Disgraceful Plutocratic Crime
It turns out that democracy doesn’t die in darkness at all—it succumbs to repeated group muggings at the hands of the moneyed power elite.
Feb 4, 2026 / Chris Lehmann
“We Have Covered Events No Human Can Bear” “We Have Covered Events No Human Can Bear”
Journalists in Gaza have bartered their lives to tell a truth that much of the world still doesn’t want to hear.
Feb 3, 2026 / Ola Al Asi