Take a journey through the very best of our stories, visual journalism, podcasts, and insights from members and experts, shaped around the themes that truly define us.
I’ll explain each section as we go, but first: learn how member-funded, independent journalism can make tomorrow’s world better than today’s from managing editor Eliza Anyangwe and founding editor Rob Wijnberg.
What will you
explore first?
Future gazing
What might the future look like and how can we help shape it?
Opening up the fourth estate
Why and how we do journalism with you, not just for you
"Our journalism doesn’t just begin and end with the published article. We’re in constant conversation with people on the platform who want to share the things that they know about," says conversation editor Nabeelah Shabbir.
Members are at the centre of our journalism, from the very beginning, until long after a story is published. They’re a huge source of knowledge, our strongest critics, and our biggest fans. Here’s how we do journalism with you:
@The_Corres, it didn’t take me long to choose what I wanted to kick off with: Guilt. Shame. Forgiveness. Stuff that I was grappling with in my own head.
This year, I’m taking cues from readers. This is what they want me to write about. 1/ If you want to find good journalism backed by its community, you should consider checking out @The_Corres. Quality writing and stories that create positive ripples for us all. Congrats! I love love the work you put in and the refreshing feeling after reading your journalism. You could pick any piece ! It’s hard to do generative narratives, and harder to make them go viral. Keep going, you’re all a doing a brilliant job 👏🏻 Welcome to the Member Quarterly “Think of this as member support’s public notebook of what interacting with members has achieved so far.”
Member support manager Carmen Schaack shows how members have helped shape our journalism and ethos. Let’s get our v-words right! And other lessons members have taught me First 1,000 Days correspondent Irene Caselli shares three important lessons members have taught her while she’s been covering her beat. Sapiens: groundbreakingly original in the history it tells, predictably disappointing in the history it leaves out “Does this history have room for a queer African female human?”
In her online book club, The Other Shelf, Othering correspondent OluTimehin Adegbeye discusses with members the books that inform her journalism. Why the name of your street is a sign of the times – and what to do about it These images from the series Museum of the Revolution (Guy Tillim / VU Agency) show Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi. Under British colonial rule, the street was called Lord Delamere Avenue, in honour of a British colonial administrator. Following independence in 1963, the street was renamed after the independence leader, ‘Mzee’ Jomo Kenyatta.
Members shared their own street names and signs that were a sign of the times – colonial or otherwise – under this article by Everyday Colonialism correspondent, Elliot Ross.
Modern dilemmas
Asking and finding answers for some of the biggest questions of our time
"Our brain works like a lawyer; it will find the arguments to defend our convictions, whatever the cost or the facts." From the myth of meritocracy to the rise of bullshit jobs – it’s time we admit work doesn’t make us happy "Offering frills in the office is much easier than fixing the big structural problems that are almost always at the root of people’s disgruntlement, not the lack of a sleep pod at work or uninspiring snacks." Meet the parenting expert who thinks parenting is a terrible invention Correspondents Irene Caselli and Lynn Berger spoke with renowned developmental psychologist and parenting expert who had some pointed advice to parents: stop parenting.
Think again!
Looking beyond the headlines to reveal the ways the world really works
News is mostly about what happens today, but rarely about what happens every day. It covers the most sensational exceptions, leaving you uninformed about the rules that govern our world and lives. We’re redefining what news is about, by shifting the focus to the foundational and uncovering the stories beyond the headlines.
Our wondrous world
A look at the highs and lows of living on planet Earth
Speaking truth to power
No system is permanent. Here’s what challenging them can look like
Tomorrow’s world can be better than today’s – and journalism can be part of that change. By telling stories about those who speak truth to power, we can progress.
Ales Herasimenka researches anti-authoritarian protest movements and joined us from Belarus to share his expertise in building and sustaining social movements. 2019 was a year of global unrest. Here’s what protesters want you to know "We need new narratives and alternative ways of relationship between people and nature."
An activist who goes by the pseudonym Ning1no, joined us from Mexico to share their experience on why protest movements must change radically to be effective in the future. We were told technology would end Covid-19 lockdowns, but the truth is there’s no app for that When the pandemic hit, governments started building Covid-19 tracking apps. We started tracking these apps and their implementation around the world, with an international collaboration of journalists.
Othering correspondent OluTimehin Adegbeye examines the need for protest through the lens of the #RhodesMustFall protests in South Africa. The birth of a movement: how activists are winning the battle to make abortion a right How governments use the internet to crush online dissent "Every time Thomas Erdbrink’s copy of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad landed on his doormat in Tehran, its contents had already been inspected. Iranian civil servants were tasked with opening the paper, and applying blue tape to cover up images that failed to meet the censor’s standards. Photographs were left intact as much as possible, with only the offending details obscured." (Lise Straatsma, image editor).
From the series Censorship Daily by Jan Dirk van der Burg, published alongside an essay on government control online. This Bolivian organiser shows us: we can solve the world’s problems without politicians “The cardinal lesson that Oscar Olivera teaches us: it’s better to lead – and to learn how to lead – as a community, than to remain ignorant and powerless by committing to follow a leader.”
Political Literacy correspondent Patrick Chalmers interviewed Bolivian organiser Oscar Olivera to find out: does the arc of progress bend towards democracy?
The story of us
The good, the bad, and the downright mind-boggling experiences of being human
Are there any creatures on this Earth as perplexing as human beings? Our journalism seeks to uncover the foundations of the societies we shape and share in order to discover what unites us, what divides us, and what it all means.
Here’s a look at who we are, in all our complexity.
Here’s a radical idea that will change policing, transform prisons and reduce crime: treat criminals like human beings “In Norway, where 40% of prison guards are women, all guards complete a two-year training programme: they’re taught that it’s better to make friends with inmates than to patronise and humiliate them.” Kneading sanity and stability: why bread broke the internet “It is poetic, and perfectly awful, and maybe inevitable that right now, as civilisation itself – schools and businesses and supply chains and geopolitics – grinds to a halt in the face of a worldwide pandemic, that humanity would turn once again to the grain that made civilisation possible.” Trapping ghosts: photographs don’t lock us to loss, they remind us to live “A photograph is the evidence of our determined and futile attempts to defy time, to always be here and there, to be alive.” Thinking again about civility. Why are some folks more angered say by looting than they are by police brutality? Science shows forgiveness really is a medicine What does forgiveness look like? For her series Anatomy of Forgiveness (2014), Croatia-born photographer Lana Mesić photographed victims and perpetrators of the genocide that took place over 20 years ago in Rwanda. The resulting portraits show how discomfort, anger and sadness can live alongside the act of forgiving. (Lise Sraatsma, image editor)
Design and development by Luka van Diepen and Heleen Emanuel