Long-Term Investing

Supporting independent journalism means you only get to know what you've accomplished...sometimes

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez addresses a Jan. 30, 2025, town hall in Salmon Creek, WA. (Screengrab / CRTV video.)

While tutoring someone on Substack recently, I was horrified to see that this very Substack promises paid subscribers exclusive commentaries from me. Which…I haven’t done! So, here we go…

This is sort of a combination thank you/humblebrag. But I think it’s an important point about journalism and power, too.

Big-name media typically make waves instantly when they break a story. Which means no one misses their impact and influence.

But they also seldom do the kind of accountability rabbit-hole chasing that we crazy, independent journalists do. Which means lots of stuff that would never get reported, only becomes public because one of us decides to chase it.

With smaller, indie media — especially at the size of this Substack by a not-in-any-way-famous person — those stories often don’t make any waves, because the audience is so small. And that can depress support from people who understandably don’t see it making a difference. Vicious cycle!

So I want to share an example of how it actually works. As a preface I should note that when I was at The Young Turks I toiled for years painstakingly breaking stories about The Family — aka the Fellowship Foundation — that runs the National Prayer Breakfast.

Most of them disappeared without a ripple. But then, secular advocacy groups began to notice. And they made a stink about the, um, revelations in my stories. Eventually, Democrats stopped attending the breakfast, forcing The Family to split the event in two. (The most recent entrance to this rabbit hole is here, for you intrepid explorers.)

That’s an example where the investment took time to yield a return. The example I wanted to share is one where the ripples came instantly…I just didn’t know about them!

I broke a story back in January, revealing that Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) was helping a far-right evangelical, Ralph Drollinger, recruit for his congressional Bible study. Disappeared without a ripple.

Or so I thought.

A couple weeks ago, if memory serves, someone asked me on Bluesky (if memory serves), if I had ever followed up. I hadn’t, so I did. I went to Drollinger’s website, which led me to breaking the story that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had signed up.

But in nosing around I also discovered that my original January story did make waves. Not nationally, but in Gluesenkamp Perez’s pond. In fact, my reporting — which, please keep in mind at all times, you make possible — spurred so many people to her town hall a few days after the story broke that it made headlines in her district.

Here’s an excerpt from that story:

“Yes, the separation of church and state is critically important,” she said, adding that she doesn’t put her faith toward her political work and that if Larsen’s article was not written, she would not be talking about it.

That’s actually not true. Because I asked her office about it before I published it and they would not talk about it. What actually happened is that if her constituents hadn’t seen the article and cared enough to question her about it, then she wouldn’t have been talking about it.

That only happened because you’re keeping this Substack going and at least some of you subscribers (free or paid) spread the word so that her constituents knew about it.

I’ve only got 271 subscribers in Washington state (hello!) but their support (or that of someone who knows someone in Washington!) rippled so hard that now thousands and thousands of her constituents know about it. Now it’s part of her public record among her constituents and local journalists and her party and potential rivals. (They’re already talking about primary challenges for her rightward shifts since winning in 2022.)

You all obviously have your own reasons for supporting my journalism. And they are, of course, as valid as any. But the reason I do it isn’t to, for instance, get Gluesenkamp Perez out of office.

It’s so that everyone has information to guide their course of action. Maybe constituent anger or political rivals will lead her to step away from Drollinger’s anti-LGBTQ+, anti-reproductive rights indoctrination.

Maybe it won’t, but someone will replace her. Maybe it won’t, but it creates a political weakness that she has to counter with some other compromise. I don’t get to know and you don’t get to know.

But the outcome that drives me in this work is that I want people to know, to have information that those in power aren’t sharing. About issues that matter and affect our lives.

Every once in a while I get to see a ripple we’ve made, and I just wanted to make sure you got to see it, too.

Thank you.

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I’m a veteran journalist and TV news producer who’s worked at MSNBC — as co-creator of Up w/ Chris Hayes and senior producer for Countdown with Keith Olbermann — CNN, ABCNews, The Daily Show, Air America Radio, and TYT. My original reporting on Substack is made possible by a handful of paid subscribers. Thank you.