This is on the media's midweek podcast. I'm Michael Lohanger.

Last summer I reported a piece about Helgate, a local New York publication,

and Defecter, a national outlet focused on sports and culture.

Two sites that are co-managed and co-owned by their respective writers.

They don't have anyone on a publishing or business or corporate side calling shots.

I spoke with this guy Danny Funt who wrote about the worker-owned model for the Columbia

Journalism review. The journalists are the ones steering the ship. They view kind of the

corporate side of media as just fat that could be trimmed. And as the editor-in-chief

of Defector told me,

when you aren't determined to grow at a rapid pace

and you aren't beholden to those kind of corporate bosses

running a media company really isn't that complicated.

Inspired by Helgate and Defector, more worker-owned outlets have come on the scene,

including 404 media, an especially industrious site known for its mix of fun internet coverage and hard-nosed

investigations. The four co-founders of 404 come from Motherboard, Vices Science and Tech Vertical.

Jason Kebler, the former editor-in-chief of Motherboard,

Samantha Cole and Emmanuel Myberg, who are both editors there,

and Joseph Cox, an investigative reporter.

Now a year in, I called up Samantha Cole

to discuss the challenges she and her team have faced

since they started their own outlet

and what their success can teach us about the future of news.

...