The new "Opt Out" app provides a smartphone portal for independent news outlets in the US. Could the same work here?
It’s a big part of our reframe of the Alternative Global towards “Planet A” - the components of an alternative media system that might inspire and inform citizen-actors and community-agents, pulling them away from disempowering and passivising mainstream/establishment media.
So as we’re building, we’re picking up practice that shows the world that this future is already here, just not properly distributed or connected up enough. Like the above new app, the OptOut, launched on Apple recently, hosting only independent media outlets
On her media Substack, Eliz Mizon (who is a early feed to OptOut) tells more:
The app presents a newsfeed of articles - so far, so news app. But rather than algorithmically filtering stories, optimising for clicks to maximise advertising revenue, stories are hand-curated by a team of journalists/editors, more like a traditional newspaper. (The app itself features no advertising, though doesn’t exclude outlets that rely on ad revenue).
Outlets are also selected by the team, measuring against specific criteria: they’re required to be financially independent of corporate money, free of financial conflicts of interest, and must abide by a code of ethics.
The venture is part of a nonprofit co-founded by journalists Alex Kotch and Walker Bragman:
“The OptOut Media Foundation is a progressive nonprofit charity with a mission to educate the public about current events and help sustain a diverse media ecosystem by promoting and assisting independent news outlets and, in doing so, advance democracy and social justice.”
OptOut hosts a range of digital outlets; newsrooms that produce investigative articles are joined by opinion writers, analysts and commentators, and multimedia outfits focused on podcasts and/or video.
We were also interested in Eliz’s answer to the classic question: Well, how “independent” is this?
I heard about OptOut early on in its development; seeing the roster of sites already signed on I loved the idea of having a place to find all my favourite progressive news and commentary.
When I applied to be a part of the platform, the anxious part of me immediately began some mental gymnastics about marrying the word ‘independent’ to something that seemed to lean clearly towards my political ideals.
(I’m surprised at how often, given that I frequently think about the fallacy of media ‘objectivity’ as part of this work, that specific anxiety comes up. I think it’s partly a useful failsafe to challenge my own beliefs, and partly a response to online ‘gotcha’ culture that means I’m always expecting a pile on.)
As part of my discussion with Kotch, OptOut’s executive director, I put this to him. Luckily, he also thinks about this on the daily:
“Unfortunately in the U.S. today, the increasingly extreme right isn't interested in basic democracy, so it's those on the left who are trying to preserve it by advocating for things like expanding access to voting and getting corporate money out of politics. And progressives and leftists are typically the people who are working towards meaningful racial, social, economic, and environmental justice.
These essential elements of a healthy society shouldn't be partisan, but that's how it is right now, so in this context, you could say that the OptOut Media Foundation and the news network we've built is on the progressive side.
But I want to be clear: we welcome app users of all political stripes. If you think we can do better as a society, if you believe that money and power are unfairly concentrated in the hands of big corporations and oligarchs, if you think every person deserves respect and equal rights, you'll find a lot to like.”
From the UK perspective, this is exactly the kind of thing that I find funny (read: deeply frustrating) about the BBC debate. Both progressive and conservative folk seem to think the BBC is biased toward the other’s views (the reality is far more complicated). So the idea of what ‘independent media’ means at the moment is muddled in the cultural consciousness.
OptOut’s inventory of ethical, financial, and accuracy standards mean they’ve managed to crystallise a clearer idea of how to choose outlets based on both independence and reliability. And, in addition, what is investigative journalism is separated on the homepage from what is commentary.
If a centrist, non-partisan, or even non-reactionary-and-financially-independent-conservative outlet was making reliable journalism about, say, sustainable energy businesses or ethical banking, might that be included on the app?
Kotch continued:
“…what matters is that we increase the market share of uncompromising independent media outlets that aren't beholden to corporate interests or party bosses, outlets that expose the massive inequalities in our societies and corruption in politics and business, and present perspectives often overlooked by the corporate and legacy media.
Democracy is in peril, and the planet is dying. We can't afford a news environment that's dominated by a handful of huge corporations whose quarterly earnings goals are at odds with the wellbeing of our communities.”
We’re very struck by all this - it makes real the idea of a “consortium” of providers to a new media platform that we’ve been exploring with many of our peers (see these blogs and presentations, and here too). Contact us if you think you’d like to be involved in setting up a UK/European version of this.