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What does The Objective do?

After the summer of 2020, a slew of journalism organizations committed to change in terms of how they cover historically underrepresented communities, as well as how they treated and hired staff from those same communities.

But their failures were not new. We’ve heard it time and time again: journalism organizations making public statements denouncing the treatment of historically underrepresented communities. Those same organizations committing to change how they cover and treat staff from those communities. And then… nothing.

Despite holding themselves up as “objective” and “impartial” for generations, mainstream American newsrooms have almost always been defined by homogenous teams that fail to account for race, gender, class, disability, and sexuality.

We founded The Objective in June of 2020 as a volunteer collective of journalists concerned with systems of inequity in newsrooms. Our small newsroom relies on donations to hold journalism institutions accountable and advocate for journalism that’s understanding of power dynamics and intersections of identity.

Your donation goes to paying our contributors equitably and ensuring we can continue to publish independent reporting and media criticism.

We publish reporting, media criticism, and Q&As with the goal of building collective and narrative power for communities (and journalists) that have been misrepresented or dismissed in order to change the way journalism is practiced in the U.S.

To us this means two things:

1. An expanding number of media reporters and critics, primarily from demographics historically marginalized by the journalism field, are visible to the journalism field. Beyond that, we want all journalists to feel more comfortable offering public, fair, and well intentioned feedback to the newsrooms they work for and read.
2. People historically marginalized, distorted, and misquoted have a forum to read about and express their own concerns about journalism’s production in the U.S.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Incarcerated journalists lead first-ever conference on strengthening U.S. prison journalism

By James Salanga

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News

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May 28, 2026

Bridging the Gap, a conference focused on improving journalism in and on U.S. prisons and jails, will take place in Chicago on May 29 and 30.

‘Pick your hard’: Black independent journalism isn’t as simple as Substack

By Fallon Brannon

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News

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May 7, 2026

While it might be simple to suggest that reporters launch a newsletter or an independent newsroom when laid off from corporate media, those career pivots cost more than just money — particularly for Black independent journalists.

Should journalism have an industry-wide ethics policy for covering artificial intelligence? 

By Jake Pitre

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News

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May 5, 2026

Tech journalists have set their own standards as journalism organizations haven’t yet issued consistent guidelines around generative artificial intelligence — whether around how it’s used in newsroom processes or how it’s covered.