This moment isn’t normal, but here’s our glimmer of hope

The 51st is D.C.’s first worker-led nonprofit newsroom. But we’re part of a larger system of cooperative organizations working to build a better world.

I got to see what that meant more tangibly this past week, when I spoke on a panel at the 2025 Cooperative IMPACT Conference alongside Jasper Wang. He’s one of the co-founders of Defector, a newsroom our team looked to for inspiration — and advice — before we launched last year.

This conference is the only cross-sector gathering of cooperative businesses, from credit unions to neighborhood grocers, to housing coops. This year, our worker-led and worker-owned newsrooms were present too — in recognition of the surge of new cooperative news organizations around the country we’ve been excited to be a part of.

Over the two days, a theme that kept emerging was the importance of being honest about the times we’re living through. “We can’t afford to act like this is a normal moment,” said Renee Hatcher, a human rights and cooperative lawyer and solidarity economy organizer based in Chicago. 

We’re experiencing the collapse of so many of our systems, and local news is no different. A horrifying stat I return to often is: Over the past 20 years, 77% of newspaper jobs disappeared — the worst job loss of any industry tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local news has fared the worst: 2023 saw the loss of 2.5 local newspapers every week. 

We know here in D.C. that 2025 isn’t normal, but the news crisis predates this administration: Our city lost 46% of our newspapers between 2004 and 2019, making our work covering this moment with the depth and rigor it deserves even more challenging — but no less vital.

But during the panel last week, Jasper and I reflected on something that’s keeping us going: Amid all this loss, there’s room for building something better than before. I think a lot about organizer Mariame Kaba's maxim that “hope is a discipline.” I see the rise in businesses using cooperative models — both across D.C. and within the news industry — both as a discipline and a source of hope. Our dreams for The 51st are part of a larger movement to build more resilient systems to meet our community’s needs, in a moment when the stakes feel incredibly high. If you’re feeling inspired, too, you can join us in the work.

Launching The 51st out of the ashes of DCist with a worker-led model was intentional. We are beholden to our readers and community, not institutions, shareholders, or billionaire owners. We’ve been operating for a full year thanks to the support of people like you — 3,000+ readers who find this work valuable and stepped forward to support it. To celebrate one year of publishing we’ve set a goal of bringing aboard 551 new members to start year two strong. 

Our hope: To continue publishing local news that helps all of us feel engaged in our community — rather than “too depressed to read the headlines.” Will you build a better world with us?

Grateful to be doing the work with all of you,

Maddie