What if clean information is as essential to democracy as clean air is to public health? That’s the question at the center of this episode — and it’s one that today’s guest has been thinking about longer than most.
Ryan Haas spent more than 20 years in journalism, including 12 years at Oregon Public Broadcasting, where he served as Managing Editor of News. Last year, he left OPB after watching what he describes as a broader pullback from ambitious, investigative reporting — a pattern he sees playing out across institutional media. He and his co-founder Leah Sottile launched The Western Edge, a reader-supported investigative outlet focused on the communities — rural, small, and underserved — that legacy media has all but abandoned.
In just a few months, they’ve already broken news no one else was touching, including a deeply reported story on worker deaths at Amazon’s Troutdale fulfillment facility.
Mike and Ryan get into all of it:
Why Ryan left OPB — and what the slow retreat from investigative journalism looks like from the inside
The Western Edge’s mission — bringing long-form, narrative investigative journalism to communities outside Portland that have been left in a media desert
The Amazon story — what it took to report it, why long form investigative journalism is not at risk of being replaced by AI - and the depth of nuance that actually communicates more than “just the facts”
What Mike saw as DA — salacious headlines with the more mundane story hidden behind the paywall, editors promising cover stories for take down quotes from sources, and the real-world policy consequences of gotcha journalism on our public institutions
The “right to clean information” framework — why Mike argues that the same logic behind clean air and clean water standards should apply to the information ecosystem
Solutions worth taking seriously — an organic certification model for trusted journalism outlets, a bar-like licensing framework for journalists, media vouchers, and Ryan’s proposal for an AmeriCorps for journalism
AI and the threat to accountability reporting — including the Peter Thiel-funded “Objection AI” tool being used to discredit independent journalists
What media literacy actually requires — and why the collapse of local news isn’t a left or right problem - it impacts us all
Ryan’s closing line says it all: Scroll less, savor more.
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