TELL THE PUBLIC WHERE TO FIND YOU NOW: An Open Letter to Journalists Who Have Moved Beyond the Traditional Newsroom — Is America Better Yet?

By Roberto Zapatero
Is America Better Yet?

To our fellow journalists, reporters, editors, producers, photographers, photojournalists, correspondents, commentators, documentary makers, and other media professionals:

Many people who spent years reporting the news are no longer working where the public first came to know them.

Some were laid off.

Some left after changes in ownership or management.

Some saw programs canceled, newsrooms reduced, bureaus closed, or their roles eliminated.

Others decided that the best way to continue their work was to leave traditional media altogether.

They did not necessarily stop being journalists.

Many simply moved.

They are now publishing newsletters, producing podcasts, hosting independent video programs, reporting through websites, creating documentaries, working through nonprofit news organizations, building their own channels, or using other forms of distribution that did not exist when many of their careers began.

The problem is that much of the public does not know where they went.

A viewer may remember a correspondent they trusted for 20 years but have no idea that the same journalist now publishes independently.

A reader may think a reporter disappeared when that reporter actually started a newsletter.

A television audience may lose a familiar investigative journalist without ever being told that the journalist now has a podcast, website, YouTube program, Substack, independent newsroom, or other public outlet.

That separation hurts both journalists and the people who relied on their work.

We would like to help reconnect them.

A simple idea

Is America Better Yet? would like to explore creating a public directory showing where journalists and other media professionals can now be found.

The concept is simple.

If you previously worked for a newspaper, television network, radio organization, magazine, wire service, digital newsroom, local station, or other established media organization and now publish your work somewhere else, we would like the public to be able to find you.

The directory could include, with your permission:

• Your professional name.
• Your former news organization or organizations, if relevant.
• The name of your current publication, podcast, program, channel, newsletter, or organization.
• A short description of the journalism you now produce.
• Your public website.
• Your public podcast or video links.
• Your public newsletter or social-media accounts used for your journalism.
• The subjects, communities, regions, or beats you cover.
• Information about how readers, viewers, or listeners can follow your work.

Participation would be voluntary.

We would not ask anyone to provide a home address, private telephone number, personal email address, unpublished location, confidential source information, or anything else that could create a security risk.

This would be a discovery directory, not a ranking system.

Inclusion would not mean that Is America Better Yet? endorses every opinion, report, program, organization, or journalist listed.

It would mean something much simpler:

This journalist is still working. Here is where the public can find that work.

Why this may matter

The media world is fragmenting.

People who once worked under the same network logo or newspaper masthead are now spread across hundreds of independent platforms.

That may create more opportunities for independent journalism.

It also creates a serious navigation problem for the public.

People should not need to search the entire internet to discover where a journalist they followed for years has gone.

And journalists who have spent decades building trust with an audience should not have to start from zero simply because the institution that once connected them to that audience no longer does.

There may be a public benefit in creating a place that helps make those connections again.

We are asking for your ideas before we build it

This is an idea, not a finished system.

We would like journalists and other media professionals to help shape it.

What information should a directory contain?

What should it leave out?

Should journalists submit their own listings?

Should members of the public be allowed to suggest journalists for inclusion, subject to confirmation?

How should professional identity be verified?

How should corrections be handled?

Should former employers be listed?

Should the directory include freelancers, documentary journalists, local reporters, nonprofit journalists, photographers, independent correspondents, retired journalists who still publish, and international journalists whose work serves American audiences?

How do we make it useful without turning it into another popularity contest?

How do we protect journalists who face harassment or threats?

And how do we make sure the project remains a tool for finding journalism rather than a tool for judging political viewpoints?

Those are questions worth answering before anything permanent is built.

This is not about ideology

We are not looking for journalists from one political perspective.

We are not trying to build a directory of people who agree with us.

A journalist should not have to pass an ideological test to tell former readers or viewers where their work can now be found.

The purpose is access.

If a journalist has moved, the audience should be able to find the journalist.

That principle should apply whether the journalist works in investigative reporting, politics, local news, foreign affairs, science, business, culture, sports, photography, documentary work, commentary, or another part of the profession.

To journalists who thought their audience disappeared

It may not have disappeared.

It may simply have lost your address.

And to members of the public who have wondered:

Whatever happened to that reporter?

Where did that correspondent go?

Is that journalist still working somewhere?

We think there should be an easier way to find out.

That is the idea.

Now we would like the journalism community to help us make it better.

If you are a journalist or media professional who has moved to an independent platform, or if you have experience that could help us design this responsibly, we welcome your input.

Tell us what would make this useful.

Tell us what would make you uncomfortable.

Tell us what safeguards it needs.

Tell us what we have not thought of yet.

Because the people who know this problem best are the people who have lived through it.

And because losing a newsroom should not automatically mean losing the audience that valued the journalism produced there.

The newsroom may have changed. The journalism does not have to disappear with it.

I write for you,

— Roberto

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