Who can you trust

The internet has garbage, but it also has tons of thoughtful writers covering the built environment.

Independent writers will continue to thrive as corporate outlets hemorrhage trust and readers. 

This is true across all genres. It doesn't matter if the focus is local (town planning & public safety) or national (war & economics). I’d bet that the only exceptions to the trend are when independent voices contribute to corporate outlets.

Walter Lippmann, the father of modern journalism, said the "bewildered herd" can't be trusted to process information. He said that knowledgeable elites guide journalists to tell us what's important, what's true, what's useful, etc.

100 years later, people are getting wiser.

A common defense of corporate media is that there’s a lot of crap among independent writers. The worst outcome of a new (and possibly disruptive) alternative is often a description of the status quo. Since the status quo is total crap, an alternative that is partial crap is an improvement. 

But seriously, the internet is amazing. It only takes seconds to validate material. Not that you as a reader will agree with all of an author's conclusions, but at least you’ll know what's real. We can't say that about the corporate press. They’ve already filtered the who, what, when, where, why, how for the greater good.

---

Curious about that Walter Lippmann character? Read this if you haven’t already:

---

Most of my subscribers read Urbanism Speakeasy in their email inbox. That’s fine, but I want to make sure you’re aware that Substack is home to a ton of writers from all walks of life. Hop in their search bar and look for content that interests you.

Here are some of the independent writers I’m supporting. Their pubs are below to make subscribing easy:

• Alex Mitchell

• Addison Del Mastro

• Lloyd Alter

• Michael Natelli

• Anaiah Matthew

• sam sklar

• Kevin