The Big Thaw

The Big Thaw is here!

Read our groundbreaking new study, The Big Thaw: Charting a New Future for Journalism. Buy a print copy of The Big Thaw in color or in B&W!

Welcome to the Media Consortium!

The Media Consortium is a network of the country’s leading independent journalism organizations. We support smart, powerful and passionate journalism that redefines American political and cultural debate. The Media Consortium is creating a solid cooperative infrastructure that will serve a 21st-century audience and offer a sustainable future for independent media. Millions of Americans are looking for honest, fair, and accurate journalism-We’re finding new ways to reach them. Our strategy has three focal points: Making Connections, Building Infrastructure, and Amplifying Our Voice.

Making Connections

Through meetings and collaboratively built projects, The Media Consortium enables our members to build relationships, strategize, and constructively work together to reinvent the independent media sphere.

Building Infrastructure

We’re analyzing who reads, watches and listens to our members’ work so that we can reach millions more Americans looking for honest journalism. We’re making joint investments in training, technology-sharing, advertising, promotions and learning how to communicate effectively with one another.

Amplifying Our Voice

It’s time to do together what we can not do alone. The Media Consortium seeks to fulfill the role of media in a democracy. We’re strengthening a vibrant, fact-based community of independent journalism producers that educate, inform and engage citizens to create the world to which we all aspire.

RSS Consortium Report

  • Weekly Diaspora: The High Cost of Cheap Labor
    by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger A new study about the effects of immigration on U.S. employment supports the long-standing arguments of immigration advocates: Rather than displacing American workers, immigrant labor actually makes our economy stronger. Kevin Drum has the detail...
  • Weekly Pulse: DIY Abortions on the Border, Pawlenty Screws MN on Sex Ed
    by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger Women on along U.S.-Mexico border are buying black market misoprostol to induce abortions, according to a new report by Laura Tillman in the Nation. The drug is easily available over the counter in Mexico. DIY abortion is cheaper—a bottle of misopros...
  • Weekly Audit: Why Do Deficit Hawks Hate Social Security?
    by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger Last week, Social Security advocates learned something they had long suspected. Arguments for cutting Social Security aren’t really about economics or the deficit. They’re all about waging war on social services. In short, some very prominent poli...
  • Weekly Mulch: Fighting the Joe Millers of the World
    by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger Joe Miller, Sarah Palin’s choice candidate for one of Alaska’s Senate seats, does not believe in climate change. That didn’t bother Alaska voters: this week, Miller bested Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the state’s Republican primary. If tha...
  • Weekly Diaspora: Immigrants Abused, Denied Social Services in Broken Immigration System
    by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger After decades of misguided policies and patchwork practices, the high human costs of our disordered immigration system are only starting to emerge. Stricter immigration policies and overcrowded detention centers aren’t making our streets safer...
  • Weekly Pulse: Stem Cell Hell, Bad Eggs, and DIY Abortions
    by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger On Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that all federally funded human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research is illegal, thereby throwing the scientific community into turmoil. The judge decided that any experiments on these cells is researc...
  • Weekly Audit: Save Affordable Housing, Help Revive America’s Middle Class
    by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger Over the past decade, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transformed themselves into some of the worst-run companies in recent history. But contrary to current talking points, the firms’ failings had almost nothing to do with their programs for low-income borro...
  • Weekly Mulch: Green Daydreams? A Clean Gulf, Energy Efficiency, and More
    by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger Yesterday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) took Obama administration officials to task for encouraging Americans to believe that the majority of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico had dispersed. “People want to believe that everything is OK and I think this report an...
  • Weekly Diaspora: Has Obama Failed the Immigration Reform Movement?
    by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger After signing a controversial $600 million border security bill last week, President Barack Obama is drawing fire from immigration reform advocates and anti-immigrant conservatives alike. While the former argue that the new security measures are a s...
  • Weekly Pulse: Insurance, Dispersants, and Teen Botox
    by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger Is the IV Bag half-empty or half-full? Theda Skocpol, the author of a forthcoming book on President Barack Obama’s health care reforms, argues in the Nation that progressives are underrating reform. Skocpal urges progressives to get over their di...

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