Is the Future Bright for Progressive Media?

While the journalistic establishment, and even progressives like Bob McChesney and John Nichols wring their hands over the demise of advertising-driven corporate journalism, activists and journalists Tracy Van Slyke and Jessica Clark have chosen to tell a different, more positive story about the future of media in America.

In their book Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media (New Press), the authors take us on a celebratory journey through the relatively recent (over the past eight years) surge of independent, progressive media. The conclusion they reach is undeniable: by every measure, what we know as the progressive media and the netroots, "reaches far larger audiences -- millions of people every day -- and is decidedly more influential than ever before."

In the old days, it was considered a big success when a progressive magazine had 200,000 monthly subscribers. But today, there are a dozen or more blogs, magazines and online news sites that have enjoyed more than a million unique readers in a month. A recently formed Ad Progress Network, founded by AlterNet, The Nation, and Mother Jones, and joined by American Prospect, The New Republic and others, reaches over four million people. And by the way, progressive media is not in crisis, primarily because it is not dependent on one source of revenue -- advertising -- as corporate media is, but rather is often supported by a mix of grants, reader donations, advertising sales and list partnerships with the large non-profit advocacy sector.

Led by aggressive creative media makers like Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, John Byrne of Raw Story, and Mark Karlin of BuzzFlash, the new progressive media use a range of strategies and tactics that are far more hard-hitting and activist-oriented than the smaller print magazine universe that dominated progressive media for a long time. (Heck, the Nation magazine is 145 years old.)

But before the progressive media establishment gets too cocky about its role, there are still major weaknesses and some dark clouds on the horizon. Clark and Van Slyke don't sidestep the obstacles, spending the better half of the book weaving the challenges of the future with the success stories and promoting models of social networking and collaboration they feel can increase the progressive media's new-found influence.

What Are Progressive Media?

Progressive media are made up of a large collection of entities of all sizes and delivery systems. But by far, their largest audience is online.

Progressive media are ideologically diverse, ranging from liberal to radical. Roughly speaking, the thousands of people who make progressive media happen generally to believe in making the world a better place through their media efforts. They are fighting for a more fair and just society; the democratization of information; speaking truth to power and holding social systems and elected officials accountable (to name a few of the values progressives support). Many progressive media outfits practice opinion journalism and investigative reporting, while others are far more willing to use agit prop and highly successful organizing tactics for drawing attention to issues and causes.

And the term progressive is a catchall. There are many differences among these groups, in philosophy, kinds of journalism practiced, ideological orientation and business structure. Some of these differences may not seem so significant to the uninitiated, but among media practitioners they are noteworthy. For example, there is a canyon-sized gap between the hugely trafficked Huffington Post, and smaller entities with more narrow foci like Laura Flander's Grit TV, or ColorLines Magazine, or even some of the mainstays of progressive media like Mother Jones Magazine, The Nation, and Amy Goodman's influential Democracy Now! radio and TV show. Huff Po, with upwards of 10 times the traffic of the rest of the pack (with the exception of Salon.com) sits on top of the pile of media entities with progressive views, enjoying quality staff writing and the influential voice of its founder, Arianna Huffington.