One hundred issues of The Objective’s newsletter

I’m not sure what I expected when I decided to publish a piece about objectivity and narratives in the summer of 2020.

100 issues later, The Objective and our newsletter are still here. What have we learned?

Media reporting and criticism are still necessary (now more than ever). Mainstream newsrooms have largely abandoned the promises of 2020. In 2024, there will be no annual industry-wide journalism diversity survey. Journalists who have asked the New York Times to do better on trans issues and on Gaza have largely been ignored by the publisher. The primary problem with media, despite all of the other issues floating around, remains the lack of influence given to communities who have historically been marginalized by newsrooms. The Objective is a broken record — we need more media criticism and reporting through the lens of marginalization and power. And whether we have a budget of $0 or $1,000,000, The Objective will keep doing the work to highlight that.

Running a consistent newsletter is hard and we need your support. Around 2,500 people read our newsletter every Friday and tens of thousands read our articles, but far fewer support our work. For four years, we produced this newsletter and The Objective with minimal financial support – we paid freelancers, but we never paid ourselves. This summer, that changed. We’ve always pushed for a runway from foundations in order to make this work happen and Borealis Philanthropy’s Racial Equity in Journalism has given us some of that runway. The way forward for us still looks like a combination of philanthropy, advertisements, and reader support.

If you’re a reader who values our work and can support us, please do! It makes a huge difference in our ability to grow and sustain our media criticism and reporting. Seriously, this isn’t just a tactic — we don’t take in a lot of revenue compared to other newsrooms and we’d love to do this work without scraping by. Support The Objective here.

This moment cannot be about defeat. It’s easy to be defeatist about the media landscape and the fact that mainstream media consistently misses the mark when it comes to trans people, Palestine, and structural oppression at large. The other day, The Objective’s co-director James mentioned that it’s disheartening as a marginalized journalist to be a part of a field that doesn’t even want to claim you. But they also said something critical: Being able to cover the people who are trying to make journalism better or imagine new forms of it is at the crux of the work. We know this is true because readers like you have reached out over the last four years and tell us how important it is that we do what we do.

You can build something as a labor of care. This newsletter would not exist without the contributions of people like Holly Rosewood, Curtis Yee, Marlee Baldridge, Omar Rashad, and the countless others who have helped build The Objective into what it is today. We say that, because if you are considering building something, know that you don’t need money at first — you just need to care. Journalism can offer new visions of care through reporting on people working to make an impact with their communities. And the structures that undergird it can do better to care for their workers and recognize their labor. 

We’re not saying to overextend yourself, but if it’s validating and useful and fulfilling to work on a project you care about, consider how you can build something with those you’re aligned with and determine its future together, or join other people already doing the work. That’s how The Objective came to be, and we don’t regret any of the time we’ve spent building it together in addition to our other full-time jobs.

Gabe Schneider is the co-director and co-founder of The Objective. He also works as a consultant for L.A. Public Press.

James Salanga edited this piece.