Based in the UK, so I won’t subscribe, but the problems you describe are familiar in the UK. Fortunately independents such as Byline Times are fighting back. I wish you well in your efforts to provide real news - America desperately needs it.
Ah, this is painful to read. You and Leah have done such amazing work. I’d been getting a weird vibe from OPB lately but couldn’t put my finger on it. Thanks for pulling back the curtain. And welcome to Substack!
I, too, once worked for a corporate media outlet. But I worry just as much about the ways social justice advocacy masquerades as journalism. I can still hear Anna Griffin saying (in all honesty) that most of the Portland protests in 2020 were “peaceful.” I can still hear her dismissing Quanice Hayes’ crimes as simple “car clouts.” Tell that to the homeless man he held at gunpoint after trying to steal his car and had to settle for his Oregon Trail card. Or tell it to the women whose homes he tried to break into.
I dutifully donated regularly to NPR from the time I graduated from college. It stopped after I returned to Portland following a 25-year absence. To me, OPB came to stand for “Oregon Progressive Broadcasting.”
You write: “The moneymaking side of media must stay the hell out of the newsroom so the work isn’t tainted.”
Agree, but you know what also taints news coverage? Politics. Sometimes the moneymakers know things that journalists are blind to. In the early 90’s I was a bureau chief at a Gannett daily in SoCal. In a smaller bureau, reporters and ad people may work in close vicinity of each another.
One day, the news side was oohing and ahhing over this new thing called “Amazon.” Debbie, one of the ad people at the paper, came over to see what we were looking at. She took a quick glance and said, “That’s going to kill us.”
And how is it that Craig Newmark saw opportunity in classified ads that newspapers took for granted in their smug monopolies? Hard to believe, but there was a time when newspapers could be cash cows.
Ooof. This made me feel a LOT of things. Good for you Ryan. Rooting for you. Those of us who have been bruised by the bosses do eventually find a community of good people still working in media. Or we decide to become bosses!! And I believe segments of the public will still support good journalism.
I worked for OEPBS, back when OPB was utterly untainted by filthy lucre.
But I stopped donating to what became highly political "advocacy journalism," one example being taking killers off death row and branding them "exonerated" because after endless amounts of public defense money force retrial after retrial, ,many witnesses die out and the case cannot be retried. Calling that person "exonerated" is obscene.
Under that standard Donald Trump has been "exonerated" because virtually all the cases against him were dropped.
Based in the UK, so I won’t subscribe, but the problems you describe are familiar in the UK. Fortunately independents such as Byline Times are fighting back. I wish you well in your efforts to provide real news - America desperately needs it.
Would love to subscribe but substack platforms too many nazis so if you used an alternative platform I’d be in.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-substack-makes-money-from-hosting-nazi-newsletters
Maybe the echo chamber of Bluesky would feel safer for you
I'm in 👍
Thank you so much!
Would love to subscribe but I’m out of reasons not to subscribe oops just subscribed
Ah, this is painful to read. You and Leah have done such amazing work. I’d been getting a weird vibe from OPB lately but couldn’t put my finger on it. Thanks for pulling back the curtain. And welcome to Substack!
Thank you for the kind welcome, Shasta! I hope you're doing well.
I, too, once worked for a corporate media outlet. But I worry just as much about the ways social justice advocacy masquerades as journalism. I can still hear Anna Griffin saying (in all honesty) that most of the Portland protests in 2020 were “peaceful.” I can still hear her dismissing Quanice Hayes’ crimes as simple “car clouts.” Tell that to the homeless man he held at gunpoint after trying to steal his car and had to settle for his Oregon Trail card. Or tell it to the women whose homes he tried to break into.
I dutifully donated regularly to NPR from the time I graduated from college. It stopped after I returned to Portland following a 25-year absence. To me, OPB came to stand for “Oregon Progressive Broadcasting.”
You write: “The moneymaking side of media must stay the hell out of the newsroom so the work isn’t tainted.”
Agree, but you know what also taints news coverage? Politics. Sometimes the moneymakers know things that journalists are blind to. In the early 90’s I was a bureau chief at a Gannett daily in SoCal. In a smaller bureau, reporters and ad people may work in close vicinity of each another.
One day, the news side was oohing and ahhing over this new thing called “Amazon.” Debbie, one of the ad people at the paper, came over to see what we were looking at. She took a quick glance and said, “That’s going to kill us.”
And how is it that Craig Newmark saw opportunity in classified ads that newspapers took for granted in their smug monopolies? Hard to believe, but there was a time when newspapers could be cash cows.
Still, good luck to you.
Ooof. This made me feel a LOT of things. Good for you Ryan. Rooting for you. Those of us who have been bruised by the bosses do eventually find a community of good people still working in media. Or we decide to become bosses!! And I believe segments of the public will still support good journalism.
I think you're absolutely right, Florangela!
I worked for OEPBS, back when OPB was utterly untainted by filthy lucre.
But I stopped donating to what became highly political "advocacy journalism," one example being taking killers off death row and branding them "exonerated" because after endless amounts of public defense money force retrial after retrial, ,many witnesses die out and the case cannot be retried. Calling that person "exonerated" is obscene.
Under that standard Donald Trump has been "exonerated" because virtually all the cases against him were dropped.
Definitely confusing to see the derision of Bari Weiss while asking people to fund her platform. There are so many other options.
Substack doesn’t have anything to do with Bari Weiss.