What Remains: The Holdouts of Integrity
Amid the wreckage, some newsrooms still fight, proving that journalism’s spirit endures even where its infrastructure has crumbled.
At the national level, ProPublica has demonstrated how nonprofit investigative reporting can still hold the powerful accountable. Funded by foundations and readers, it has exposed Supreme Court corruption, billionaire tax evasion, and abuses of power too risky for many legacy outlets to touch.
In Texas, The Texas Tribune offers another path. Founded in 2009, it is a nonprofit sustained not by shareholders but by readers, sponsors, foundations, and its own creativity, from membership drives to its annual TribFest festival. Its diversified funding shields it from undue influence and enables it to focus on state politics with rigor and independence.
At the local level, a wave of community‑driven outlets has risen to fill the void left by corporate chains. In Chicago, Block Club Chicago sends reporters into neighborhoods that have long been ignored, covering housing, policing, and resilience. In California, Berkeleyside, a reader-owned cooperative, delivers grassroots reporting rooted in its city. And in Baltimore, after the collapse of the Sun, The Baltimore Banner emerged — nonprofit and fearless — already breaking major stories on city contracts and misconduct.
These organizations operate without the deep pockets or glossy brands of the old guard. They’re lean, dependent on donations, staffed by tireless teams, and yet they persist. What they lack in scale, they make up for in independence, rooted in their communities and accountable only to readers.
They are what journalism was always meant to be: fearless, public‑spirited, and embedded in the lives of those they serve.
They’re not just surviving. They are quietly redefining what journalism can look like in the 21st century.
