Something remarkable is happening in journalism, and the traditional newsroom model is losing. Fast. The big publications still have the buildings and the mastheads. But the audience? They’re following individuals now, reporters who walked away from institutional constraints to build direct relationships with millions of readers. In 2025, independent journalism stopped being the alternative. For a growing number of people, it’s becoming the primary source.
The numbers tell part of the story. More than half of working journalists say they’re thinking about leaving traditional outlets, worn down by everything from burnout to editorial interference. At the same time, trust in independent media has surged, with just over half of Americans now viewing indie outlets as better equipped to fight disinformation than their legacy counterparts.
From Substack newsletters reaching 40 million people worldwide to individual writers pulling audiences that match, sometimes exceed, major newspapers, the gatekeepers are losing control. The nine journalists featured here didn’t just leave their newsrooms. They built something better. Their work represents where journalism is heading: direct accountability to readers, freedom from corporate pressure, and reporting that values depth over clicks. If you want to understand where trusted news is going, start here.
Top 9 Independent Journalists Worldwide
1. Heather Cox Richardson
Heather Cox Richardson commands over 2.7 million subscribers on Substack, making her the most-subscribed individual creator on the platform. As a Boston College history professor, she’s turned a nightly writing ritual into the most influential newsletter in American political journalism. What sets Richardson apart is her refusal to treat news as disposable. Nearly every night around 2 or 3 a.m., she publishes essays of 1,000 to 1,200 words, placing today’s chaos within the long arc of American history. She doesn’t chase outrage. She provides context which is something cable news abandoned years ago. Her readers aren’t looking for hot takes. They want to understand what’s actually happening, which is why Richardson treats them like adults capable of following complex arguments. President Biden interviewed her in February 2022, a recognition rarely extended to independent journalists. She’s proven that expertise, consistency, and genuine intellectual engagement can outperform the entire infrastructure of corporate journalism. All on subscription revenue alone.
2. Matt Taibbi
Matt Taibbi spent years as one of Rolling Stone’s most celebrated investigative journalists. Now, running Racket News (formerly TK News), he’s built an audience of over 497,000 subscribers. His newsletter was explicitly modeled after I.F. Stone’s Weekly, and the comparison holds up. Taibbi’s work on the Twitter Files investigation broke major stories about how platforms coordinate narrative control with institutions. His independent status as one of the most popular writers on Substack earns him significantly more than he made at Rolling Stone, proving readers will fund the accountability journalism that corporate media has mostly abandoned. What makes Taibbi essential: he operates with the rigor of a career investigative reporter but without anyone telling him what he can’t cover. Racket includes investigative journalism, satirical commentary, and the America This Week podcast with novelist Walter Kirn. Individual journalists can still move markets and shape national debates, when they’re not constrained by ownership groups protecting their interests.
3. Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald, who helped break the Edward Snowden documents at The Guardian and won a Pulitzer for NSA surveillance reporting, resigned from The Intercept in 2020 after the publication refused to publish his reporting on Hunter Biden without major edits. He rebuilt independently. Greenwald now has over 325,000 subscribers between Substack and his show System Update on Rumble. Since January 2023, his primary focus has been a 90-minute live nightly show, System Update, that airs Monday through Friday at 7pm ET, available freely on Rumble with transcripts for subscribers on Locals. His model, combining written analysis with video represents journalism’s multimedia future. Even journalists with Pulitzer credentials found that institutional affiliation eventually became a cage. Greenwald’s shift demonstrates that editorial independence, not newsroom prestige, determines whether serious reporting reaches people seeking unfiltered analysis.
4. Casey Newton
Casey Newton left The Verge in 2020 to launch Platformer, a newsletter examining how social platforms govern content, moderate speech, and shape what billions see online. His reporting on algorithmic bias, content moderation decisions, and platform economics quickly made Platformer required reading for policymakers and tech executives. What matters about Newton’s work: he explains the invisible systems determining what information reaches people. He breaks down opaque platform decisions into their human consequences. Platformer had grown to over 170,000 subscribers by January 2024, though Newton moved the publication off Substack to Ghost that month in response to platform policy disagreements. His independence allows him to question Meta, Google, and TikTok without advertiser pressure or parent company conflicts. In an era where a handful of platforms control global information flow, Newton has become the most trusted voice covering tech governance, proving audiences will subscribe for specialized expertise delivered with intellectual honesty.
5. Taylor Lorenz
Taylor Lorenz left The Washington Post in October 2024 to launch User Mag, an independent newsletter and podcast covering internet culture and technology. A former New York Times technology reporter whose work defined coverage of YouTube, TikTok, and influencer culture, Lorenz made the leap to independence to reclaim full editorial control. User Mag covers technology from the user side, who has power on the internet and how that power is being wielded. Not corporate earnings calls or VC hype. How people actually use technology. Her reporting style mixes cultural observation with hard journalism, and she’s built a devoted following. Since going independent, she’s moved faster, published more frequently, and covered stories institutional constraints would have slowed or killed. Lorenz’s move signals a decisive shift: top-tier reporters at major publications now see independence as career advancement, not retreat.
6. Oliver Darcy
Oliver Darcy spent nearly seven years at CNN covering media and politics before launching Status in August 2024, an independent newsletter dedicated to the media beat itself. Darcy had been CNN’s lead media reporter and wrote the network’s Reliable Sources newsletter, inheriting it after Brian Stelter’s departure. Status delivers hard-hitting reporting and unflinching analysis on the Fourth Estate, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley with no sugar-coating and no sparing sensitive egos. What distinguishes Status: it covers the industry with insider knowledge and outside independence. Darcy’s analysis of traditional media’s financial crisis and the rise of alternative outlets provides crucial context for understanding why independent journalism is winning. Status is a subscription offering that also seeks advertising support, publishing Sunday through Thursday evenings. Niche expertise, independently published, can outcompete generalist outlets attempting to cover everything superficially.
7. Phil Rosen
Phil Rosen, a former Business Insider finance reporter, co-founded Opening Bell Daily in 2024, a daily finance newsletter reaching over 190,000 subscribers. He left one of the most-read finance newsletters in media to build something independently owned. Rosen’s shift from traditional publication to independent creator represents a crucial trend. Opening Bell Daily’s morning column is syndicated on Inc. Magazine and published to 350,000 Bloomberg Terminals worldwide. He’s pioneering sustainable business models by combining free daily content with premium offerings and partnerships. What matters: he proves that independent finance journalism can serve retail investors better than legacy outlets captured by Wall Street advertising dollars. Opening Bell Daily aims to demystify markets and investing at no cost to readers, building a loyal audience at scale. His reach with engaged readers exceeds many financial publications hiding behind paywalls.
8. Bari Weiss
Bari Weiss, former New York Times opinion editor, founded The Free Press as an independent publication in 2021. In October 2025, Paramount acquired The Free Press for $150 million and named Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News, the most remarkable validation of independent journalism’s credibility and reach in recent memory. The Free Press has 1.5 million total subscribers, with 170,000 paying for content. The publication positioned itself as offering heterodox perspectives outside corporate media consensus, focusing heavily on free speech and civil liberties. What The Free Press demonstrated: independent outlets built on strong editorial vision and audience trust can attract institutional acquisition at valuations that stun the industry. The business case for independence-first journalism isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s been validated with a nine-figure price tag.
9. David Zweig
David Zweig, a journalist who’s written for The Atlantic, Wired, and New York Magazine, has built an independent following with his Substack newsletter Silent Lunch, which has 9,700+ subscribers. He investigates education policy, public health decisions, and institutional accountability. His work challenging extended school closures during COVID-19 exemplifies independent journalism’s strength: holding powerful institutions accountable outside corporate media constraints. Zweig’s reporting on school closure policies and mask mandates questioned prevailing narratives when most mainstream outlets were unwilling to. His forthcoming book, An Abundance of Caution, examines American schools during the pandemic. Zweig publishes investigative pieces combining data, interviews, and analysis, the journalism that takes time and editorial patience increasingly rare in corporate newsrooms. His growing audience demonstrates appetite for thorough, principled investigation unfiltered by institutional politics or advertiser concerns.
Why These Journalists Are Trending Now
The exodus isn’t slowing down. Substack now hosts over 500,000 creators and 40 million subscribers globally. Five million people pay for newsletters. Independent platform submissions grew more than 4x since 2022. Meanwhile, traditional newsrooms cut over 10,500 journalism jobs in 2023 and 2024 combined. Do the math: talented journalists without jobs, audiences distrusting corporate media, and technology enabling direct-to-subscriber publishing. These forces collided to create this moment. These nine journalists are winning because they eliminated the middlemen. No editor approval process. No advertiser appeasement. They’re accountable directly to readers funding their work. That alignment, journalist incentives matched to audience interests, explains everything. When reporters serve readers instead of shareholders, trust follows.
How to Explore the Wider Trend
These nine independent journalists don’t represent the complete picture. They’re proof of concept. They demonstrate what happens when journalists are freed from corporate constraints, given direct relationships with audiences, and trusted to report without interference. Trust and engagement follow. The newsroom exodus isn’t a crisis for journalism. It’s liberation. For readers, it means access to journalists prioritizing analysis over sensationalism, depth over speed, and truth over institutional convenience. Subscribe to the voices that matter to you. Fund the journalism you trust. The future of news isn’t built by algorithms or advertising departments. It’s built by individual journalists and the readers who believe their work matters.
To discover more trusted independent voices in your areas of interest, explore FeedSpot’s continuously updated directory of independent journalists and global news journalists. You’ll find hundreds building loyal audiences through Substack, personal websites, podcasts, and YouTube, all committed to accountability without institutional interference. The complete ranked list of independent journalism voices offers a comprehensive guide to this ecosystem and discovering the next generation reshaping how we understand the world.