Hey there - my name is Isaac Saul. I’m the founder of Tangle, pictured below hanging out at my home away from home in West Texas. I have bad news and good news.
The bad news: The media ecosystem is in big trouble. Trust in media is at an all-time low. Many news outlets are offering opinion and commentary disguised as fact, and are only playing to a liberal or conservative audience. Not many Republicans read The New York Times. Not many Democrats watch Fox News. We’re all in information silos that are getting worse thanks to social media algorithms. At the same time, the business side of the news industry is in free fall. Local and national outlets alike are closing down, while mega-rich individuals buy up media institutions at a fraction of their value and then bend them toward their liking. The truth is: it’s a tough time to be a journalist or writer.
The good news: Thanks to accessible publishing tools and a free internet, a lot of independent publications like ours are thriving. In 2019, I started Tangle because I wanted to build a news organization that my liberal, conservative, and independent friends and family could all trust. I had a simple idea: I’d share the basic facts on a story, the left’s arguments, the right’s arguments, and my take — then let readers make up their minds. Then I went out and hired the smartest people I could find to help me, but ensured that they came from diverse backgrounds with diverse political views, too. And, with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, it worked. Our newsletter audience is over 500,000 people strong. I have more than a dozen employees. We have thriving channels on social media, YouTube, and in the podcast space. And according to the big media bias watchdogs, we are as balanced, fair, and ideologically diverse as you can be.
- Tangle is rated as "center" bias and highly credible by AllSides, by AdFontes, and Media Bias / Fact Check.
- Our audience is 40% liberal, 30% conservative, and 30% independent or "other" — so we are bringing a diverse audience under one roof.
- More than 95% of all our readers, regardless of their political affiliation, say they trust Tangle to deliver balanced news.
But we’ve still got a long way to go. Hundreds of thousands of people read our work, but millions consume the mainstream news that is poisoning our discourse and making us angrier, less-informed, and more divided than ever.
The reason Tangle has worked is that we have stayed 100% independent. I own 100% of the business and we have zero investors. Better yet: This project is reader supported. 90% of all the revenue we make comes directly from readers, listeners, and viewers who become members to support our work.
So, while you can read or watch a lot of our content for free, I’m here — humbly — asking for your support in this project. As a new reader, I’m offering you a special, one-time, 20% discount on a Tangle membership. The cost of a newsletter membership is just $47/year with the membership, cheaper than almost all of our competitors in the space. That’s $3.90/month for your first year — about as much as a cup of coffee at most cafes these days.
If you subscribe right now, that membership gets you the following:
- 100% ad-free newsletters
- Subscribers-only Friday editions
- Sunday editions with comics, reader essays, and round-up
- Access to the comments section
- Transcribed interviews, deep dives, access to our partners' content, and full access to our archives, with over 2,000 posts on controversial topics
- New benefits as we roll them out
Thank you for reading, for supporting our work, and for trying to change the way we consume the news. Don’t be shy about writing in, and don’t forget to spread the word to your friends, too.
Best,
Isaac Saul
Founder and Executive Editor