This edition sponsored by Outpost for Ghost publishers

It’s Thanksgiving week, so I wasn’t planning to write anything. But on Monday Project C Community co-host Lex Roman and I hosted the “Is Indie Journalism Right for Me?” virtual event and it knocked me sideways. The hour-long Zoom session was overwhelming and generous and sweet and cathartic and such a clear reminder of who actually makes the journalism industry run: the people who show up every day to create.

We had 79 journalism creators join us. These were not C-suite executives or strategy chiefs, but the people doing the work. Reporters. Visual journalists. Audience producers. Podcast hosts. Folks who care deeply about their craft and are wondering what’s next, what’s possible, and whether building something of their own could be viable.

Every one of them was at some point along this spectrum:

We didn’t give specific advice for individual problems, but we did ask four working indie creator journalists – Andy Dehnert, Maddie Poore, Emilie Raguso and Arabelle Sicardi – to share their stories: what they do now, how they got there and their biggest piece of advice for everyone on the call. It was honest, smart, vulnerable, and wildly useful.

Then, thanks to a pre-Zoom survey, we zeroed in on the two topics people were most hungry for: business models and building a personal brand.

Then we broke into smaller rooms led by members of the Project C Community for deeper, more intimate conversations. People talked about everything from worker-led collectives to creator journalism (we even split by geography), to freelancing, to job-seeking (because sometimes the most independent choice is choosing a steady paycheck for the time being).

We closed by asking everyone to share their Asks and Offers in the chat, and wow. This group showed up for each other. Not performatively, but truly. Mutual support in real time.

Because the session was private, the Asks/Offers stay in the room. But ICYMI, here are some of the resources we (and this incredible emerging network) shared along the way:

What has stuck with me the past few days after wrapping up the event is the feeling of watching journalists actively choose to help one another. Indie journalism can feel lonely, especially at the beginning, but Monday was a reminder that there’s a real, growing ecosystem here. We see that every day in the Project C Community, but for one Monday in November, we were so happy to speak to a wider network of people who want to build work that’s sustainable, values-driven, and theirs.

So thank you to everyone who shared, was vulnerable, offered support and just showed up for each other.

📌 Micah Gelman (exec producer over at LNI Media) shared his skepticism about publishers’ latest pivot to (vertical) video (tabs) on site and in app: “Readers do not come to come to legacy publishers for video.”

📌 Retrospective season rolls on, with new reports from Emily Sundberg (she’s starting a West Coast version) and a deep dive into how Isaac Saul’s Tangle grew into a $5M business.

📌 Speaking directly to the skeptics: Still don’t get the appeal of this whole creator journalism thing? Read Victoria Le’s smart piece for The Verge about why the youngs prefer sources like 26-year-old News Daddy Dylan Page to “the biases and political leanings of traditional news outlets.”

📌 Had enough of the Olivia Nuzzi/Ryan Lizza drama unfolding daily across social and media insider newsletters? Your time would be better spent, suggests Dan Kennedy, reading indie investigative journalist Marisa Kabas’ work.

📌 Anne Helen Petersen and Jen Hewitt in a delightful hour-long conversation about the ups and downs of running a small creative business.

📌 Creator-y startup Newsreel, which promises to “make news feel social, rewarding, and habit-forming without the toxicity that defines most feeds,” received a $100K round of funding from American Public Media Group’s Glen Nelson Center.

📌 CAA hired agent Becky Van Dercook to help established media figures, including Crooked/MSNBC contributor Alex Wagner, find opportunities beyond traditional outlets.

📌 The creator economy ad market will hit $37B this year, per a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. “Leveraging the creator economy to connect with audiences is no longer experimental for marketers – it’s essential,” said David Cohen, CEO at the IAB.

📌 The Independent Lens Creator Lab is offering up to $36K in funding to vertical video creators “who embody the spirit of our award-winning PBS documentary series Independent Lens.”

📌 Is it possible you’ll be in Paris next week? If so, join me at the Sciences Po Journalism School for the 2025 New Practices in Journalism conference. 🇫🇷 🥖

📌 Top 50 listee Alicia Kennedy is taking applicants for her upcoming newsletter workshop: "How to think about a newsletter as a foundational space for your culture work.”