Independent journalism had a very good Saturday in DC

If you want to feel good about the future of news, you should have been in the room this past Saturday. Project C brought together 16 Muslim American creator journalists in Washington, DC, to show off six months of work building actual, sustainable journalism businesses. Businesses that already have readers and listeners, and, after Saturday, funders paying attention, too.

Some of these journalists have been at this for years. Rabia Chaudry has been building Undisclosed for the better part of a decade, long before "creator economy" was a phrase anyone used to describe journalism. Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh has turned @muslim into an audience most legacy outlets would kill for. And then there's Syeda Khaula Saad of Brown Lotus and Ghazala Irshad of Chicago's Brown Line, who are just getting started but already filling gaps nobody else is touching. Saad built Brown Lotus around sexual health and wellness for South Asian women, a topic she's said has been missing from the conversation for way too long. Irshad is bringing that same instinct to Chicago, serving the city's Muslim and immigrant communities in a way the local papers mostly don't. The room had veterans and rookies alike, all wanting the same thing: to tell stories about and for Muslim Americans while actually paying their own bills doing it.

Quick backstory: Six months ago, these 16 creators joined the Muslim Creator Journalism Accelerator, a program Project C launched with journalist and commentator Nayyera Haq. Since then, they've been doing the unglamorous work of building an actual business, refining their beats and relaunching their platforms, then wrestling with the genuinely hard question of what a newsroom of one should charge for anything, from sponsorships to subscriptions. A few of the brands in that room on Saturday didn't even exist six months ago. Karim Shamsi-Basha's Arab in Alabama, for one, which might be my favorite newsletter name I've come across this year.

Each of the 16 took the stage to pitch their work to a room of funders and publishers. Every table had a QR code that pulled up a directory of the full cohort, so anyone could look up a bio or a link the second someone stepped off stage (no fumbling for a business card, no "wait, what was your handle again?"). But my favorite part of the day had nothing to do with the funders. It was watching the journalists cheer each other on, the way you'd want your own friends to show up for you. The judges, pulled from journalism and philanthropy, marketing and academia, seemed just as invested.

Four of the sixteen walked away with $20,000 each to keep building: Rabia Chaudry, Syeda Khaula Saad, Tahirah Folk and Zineb Haddaji. Huge congrats to all four. But the checks weren't the only point of the day. Everyone in the room left with a network of people on the same wild journey who are now a text message away, plus a growing list of funders and publishers actively rooting for them.

We're hoping to run this again in 2027, and to bring the model to other communities too. If you want to see where independent journalism is actually headed, go follow this cohort. Start with Arab in Alabama, or Brown Lotus, or Chicago's Brown Line, whichever name makes you want to click first.

Huge thanks to Nayyera Haq, who connected Project C to the funding that made this program possible, and to my co-coaches over the last six months – Ryan Kellett (who also masterminded the showcase format), Blair Hickman and Caitlin Dewey. To Anna Loy, Project C’s awesome social media producer, for capturing the spirit of the day. To our panel of evaluators – you know who you are! And so much gratitude to our funders, for making this cohort's work, and their future, possible. 🙏