Whether you are celebrating or catastrophizing about the results of this year’s election, the one thing we think may unite us all is some frustration with the modern media environment. 

The media ecosystem has left a lot to be desired over the last couple of years. There are the obvious problems which do nothing but help sow distrust in or dissatisfaction with overwise reputable outlets – issues like clear bias, arbitrarily shifting endorsement policies on the eve of an election, and a lack of resources simply reducing the number and quality of outlets. Then there are the more pernicious problems that create issues across the media ecosystem – a blurred line between factual reporting and opinion, overcoverage of certain types of stories that don’t matter, and undercoverage of others that do.

To a certain degree, no outlet can address all of these problems: the fact that journalism is a low-paying, deeply competitive, and expensive business that exists in a clear tragedy of the commons market means high quality outlets will struggle to profit from that quality. That any person can pick up a cell phone and start a “news” program with the potential of reaching millions makes this field all the more competitive, and all the more important for those serious about their coverage to have clear ethical and editorial standards.

This leaves us, The Postrider – once a humble enterprise established by a couple of roommates passionate about covering stories we thought deserved more attention than national (or even local) outlets could give them – wondering what our place is, and what we can do. It’s not that we need to justify our existence (this is an entirely volunteer effort after all), it’s that we want our existence to matter. If the last six years of running this outlet and watching the media ecosystem around us struggle told us anything, it’s that our approach and our work matters more than ever.

Why Our Approach Matters

Back in 2023, five years into this project, we took some time to reflect on our work, and came to the realization that the defining strength of our approach is not our ability to break news, but our ability to realign expectations and perspectives about politics and pop culture in reality. 

If the modern media landscape has failed in one critical way, it’s that it often disregards a grounded approach in favor of sensationalism. Just look at how quickly outlets went from noting how close the election was (“it would be no surprise if Donald Trump wins by a decisive margin,” wrote The Economist on Election Day) to more shocking and dramatic characterizations in the aftermath of a somewhat predictable result (“A stunning victory,” they wrote a day later).

We all need to get better at living in the reality of our times, where paradigm shifts take time and surprises are often unsurprising. It may not seem exciting, but we think it’s worth calibrating expectations against so much of the headline-grabbing content you see today. So, we aim to write about and analyze these things with a humility that is woefully uncommon; we will never claim to be the best and we will never ask you to take our word as gospel. This modesty is important both because healthy skepticism is okay, because trust has to be earned, and because – to put it bluntly – we’re not the best, we can always be wrong, and we’re just a few folks trying to do some earnest work we don’t even get paid for.

We’re not the five-star restaurant you go to once in your life that claims every dish is to die for, nor are we the corporate fast-casual Chipotle you’ve been to a hundred times but where you never bothered to learn the name of the impermanent staff. What we are, though, is the team next door. We’re the neighborhood diner you go to on weekends, where you know the server, and where they’ll be upfront with you if a certain dish isn’t worth ordering.

We strive to inject this ethos of humility and caution into all of our work.

You can see it in this year’s election models, where we openly encouraged our readers to tinker with our assumptions if they disagreed with them and see how it affected the results. Errors are unavoidable in any industry, particularly in polling, journalism, and politics, and we’re no strangers to them, but we do strive to give readers power when we (or others) may fall short. Using our model, you could have assumed Trump picked up more from Latino or Black voters, or asserted that abortion was less salient than we did, and you may have ended up being more correct than we were. That’s great, and that’s why we encourage you to use our model to do exactly that.

You can also find that approach in our reporting, where we’ve prioritized stories or perspectives that traditional media failed to do due diligence in investigating subjects critically. While many outlets ignored or danced around the real risks facing Democrats in the Rust Belt and in Nevada, expecting that party’s success in midterms would last or that the public would revert to the mean of 2020, we dove into trendlines, narratives, and a nuanced look at the data to conclude that something was clear: recent Democratic successes aside, these states were getting redder. This balanced out our presidential model and ultimately made it much more conservative (and correct) across the swing states this cycle, showing nearly all of them favored Trump.

And when major outlets – from The New York Times to USA Today – failed to do their due diligence and championed the predictive record of Professor Allan Lichtman without critically examining the nature of his missed predictions, we dug deep and noted his manifest predictive failures. And, as thousands expressed relief after Lichtman predicted Harris would win the election, based on the inaccurate assumption he’d never been wrong, we agitated about the complacency. Though USA Today and The New York Times (politely) declined to issue corrections, we provided an important voice of caution against unearned certainty, simply because we actually looked at the full story.

And, you can find this ethos in our style, where we attempt to embrace difficult subjects with some levity, bringing joy and enthusiasm to what we do, even as we’re writing about undercovered topics or perspectives. Adding some humor, passion, and energy to our work tends to make it more interesting for our readers, who we are often asking to think critically about an undercovered subject. 

Whether it’s the uncomfortable and unscrupulous aspects of true crime, the lasting impact of Richard Nixon in our popular culture, the flailing returns of those entering the GameStop stock ploy, or how fringe campaign events have become more mainstream, we strive to build our small stories from the ground up and offer a comprehensive takeaway. 

We’re not the first to approach stories this way, but we do feel it’s sorely underrepresented in the content landscape, and a personal touch and relationship to our work often ends up making the difference between a story we can refer to and use for years, or one that will fade into the background in a matter of days. 

Why Transparency Matters

This individual treatment and entanglement with our work also necessitates strong standards; in an era where independent journalism is under renewed scrutiny, and where the importance of doing it is greater still, it’s on us to explain and meet those standards.  

No matter what steps you take to avoid it, every reporter, writer, editor, and publisher brings inherent bias to their work. How that bias is dealt with has been a fraught issue for the mainstream media to tackle, as they try to accurately portray Donald Trump and the right wing populist movement that swept him into power as a potential threat to democracy without demonizing the voters (or readers) who choose to support him. We suspect that our personal politics are not exactly a secret – but we also hope that our desire to describe things how they are, not how we want them to be (unless, that is, we’re explicitly making an argument to that effect) keeps us from publishing mere polemics against our enemies and political cover for our allies. In fact, we would argue that being honest about the perspective we’re coming from is an important part of transparency – that way you can adjust your reaction to what we write accordingly and maybe even appreciate that it provides our work with a sense of life and personality you might not find in other outlets that bend over backwards to be neutral to the point of being neutered. 

Of course, bias and perspective aren’t revealed merely by how one writes, but what one writes about as well. You may have noticed that we spend a lot of time writing about Nevada and indie music, and that some of our best pieces are also personal pieces, ones that we poured our hearts and souls into because we care passionately about the subjects and stories. To invoke the old cliche, we write what we know – and we like to think that our coverage is better because of it, affording us a bit of credibility on a select number of subjects, a credibility that we hope to build on in the next couple of years. And if there’s a subject area where you think we’re particularly lacking, you’re always free to contact us and correct us or, if you’re so inclined, pitch your own piece. 

To help you understand where we’re coming from, we’ll be publicizing a comprehensive set of editorial standards in the next few months, that will not only help readers understand how we make editorial decisions, but also act as a sort of covenant between us and our audience regarding our commitment to producing honest and rigorous journalism and commentary and a signal that we remain committed to doing serious (as well as entertaining) work. 

Who Else Matters

There are other outlets who do a great job publishing fantastic and engaging reporting, communicating policy changes and standards, and turning a skeptical eye to too-good-to-be-true claims.

It may seem stupid, in what is already an incredibly competitive industry, to promote direct competitors, but we don’t see it that way. It’s like dating: if you’re not getting what you need from us but you like a lot of what we do, we want you to find the outlet that gives you what you need exactly how you like it. We’re also a completely volunteer effort – so we’re not losing out on a major source of income if we get a few thousand fewer views next year – and you deserve outlets that give you what you’re looking for.

The industry is hollowing out, but our advice is to consider extending the framing with which you approach the news: away from the daily, recurring, and omnipresent content of outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Fox News; and towards enterprises that report on particular topics, with precise expertise, or with a more comprehensive timeline. If there’s a breaking news story, by all means turn to the names you know – they’re probably not going anywhere and they all do important work – but we think you’ll find more bang for your buck (or benefit from some free, low-ad, nonprofit journalism) if you expand your media diet. If you like our work, here are some recommendations.

With the change in leadership and decline of data-oriented journalism outfit FiveThirtyEight, we’ve been really thrilled to see the up-and-coming Split Ticket fill this niche. Their team does an excellent job at engaging with their audience, diving into the numbers driving politics and polling in a digestible way, and not just telling but showing you what’s happening.

Our pop culture coverage is clearly indebted to and inspired by the many talented writers and podcasters at The Ringer, who’s wide range of coverage we try to emulate at this much smaller and thinner-staffed website. Most of our film writing is mere footnotes to Vince Mancini, late of Filmdrunk/Uproxx and currently the publisher of the #ContentReport Substack. Steven Hyden remains our chief music criticism influence (you can currently find him on Uproxx, but we encourage you to dive deep into his back catalog on Grantland and The AV Club) and Stereogum provides some of the best current coverage of all genres, indie rock in particular. 

In terms of local and regional reporting, some outlets epitomize the ground-up knowledge and love for their work that makes for great journalism. The Nevada Independent and New Jersey Globe provide excellent coverage of our two most obsessed over states.

And, if you’re looking for some high-level, long-form, high-standard journalism, we encourage you to turn away from dailies or outlets that break news, and towards those that can take a step back and write with some more time and context in front of them. We’re fond of both The Economist and The Atlantic for this purpose, as they often can reflect on the arc of history and build an article over weeks or months. They also excel at challenging our own worldviews (the former is a bit more right leaning and is an English publication, the latter leans left and is American) while producing convincing, well-reasoned pieces. Stepping outside of politics-focused publications, The New Yorker and New York Magazine still set the gold standard for long form journalism.

Why Going On Matters

We try to combine these approaches into a style of journalism we like and can feel proud about. We hope you not only keep us a part of your media diet, but also increase the portion of your media diet going to outlets like us. Independent, local, and accountable outlets who strive not to waste your time, that give you grounded analysis, and can give you a track record based in both humility and pride in our work.

We’ll end with this, a thought we hope will resonate no matter your political persuasion or your approach to the world – after the unthinkable, unimaginable, terrible, surprising, inspiring, or wonderful things happen, something that Lars’ stepfather once said leaps to mind. 

Asked once, after one of the many world-shaking events we’ve experienced over the last decade, what he would do the next day, he answered succinctly: “I’m going to wake up… and go to work.” 

And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to wake up every morning and keep this project going, because it appears to be more valuable than ever – and, if nothing else, because we love doing it.