By Jess Miller
In the last decade, the rise of social media and digital publishing services such as Substack have made it easier than ever for journalists to go independent. Today, many independent journalists are thriving in a media landscape defined by a loss of local news outlets and declining trust in traditional news media.
“The business model for mainstream media we can see is just crumbling,” said Katherine Reynolds Lewis, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who in 2022 founded the Institute for Independent Journalists to promote financial and emotional sustainability among independent journalists, particularly BIPOC journalists.
“I think it’s a golden age for independent journalism,” Lewis said.
But working as an independent journalist presents its own ethical challenges. There are no set ethical guidelines or anyone but the journalist to enforce them. Commercial interests, from which reporters at traditional news organizations are often shielded, are also a crucial consideration.
Dan Shafer has experienced these challenges firsthand.
For over 15 years – with the exception of a yearlong sojourn in Seattle – Shafer has written about Milwaukee and Wisconsin, establishing a reputation for deep, nuanced coverage of state and local politics and urban development. He’s written for newspapers, magazines and websites. But in 2019, Shafer took a leap of faith. He started working for himself.
Shafer’s Substack, The Recombobulation Area, began more or less as a pet project. “This thing I was doing while my daughter was napping” in Shafer’s words. But in just five years, it amassed thousands of free and paid subscribers and over a dozen Milwaukee Press Club awards.
In August 2024, The Recombobulation Area was acquired by Madison-based media company Civic Media. But before that, writing, editing and managing the column was Shafer’s full-time job. His experience offers a case study in how to navigate many of independent journalism’s ethical pitfalls, and a glimpse at how the nature of ethics – both in independent journalism and traditional newsrooms – is changing.
The rise of The Recombobulation Area
With a career spanning the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, Shafer learned early on to embrace trends in the journalism industry. As an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh in the mid-2000s, he became the first ever digital editor for the school’s newspaper, the Advance-Titan. After college, Shafer hopped around various Milwaukee publications before landing a job as an assistant editor at Milwaukee Magazine in 2014. The next year, he inaugurated the digital editor position there. By the end of 2018, Shafer and his wife had added a daughter to their family. He was freelancing part-time for several of his former employers and some national publications, but feeling restless.
“I was a stay at home dad, and I kind of got tired,” Shafer said. “Freelancing was just not a great fit for me.”
When Shafer created The Recombobulation Area in July 2019, the independent journalism scene that’s flourished today was still in its infancy. Substack – now the industry-standard independent publishing platform – was only founded in 2017. But Shafer’s timing was fortuitous. Independent journalism boomed during the pandemic, due largely to a downturn in the traditional media industry. Over 30,000 journalists and media professionals lost their jobs in 2020. But it was ultimately Shafer’s deep-seated interest in state and local politics that grew The Recombobulation Area into a permanent gig.
“I initially started Recombobulation Area [writing about] the Midwest at large,” Shafer said. “And whenever I’d write something specific about Milwaukee or Wisconsin, that was the stuff that really gained some traction.”
In 2021, Shafer wrote “Expanding the Divide,” a four-part series about a proposed expansion of I-94 in Milwaukee. According to Shafer, the series “really changed the conversation around what was happening with that particular project” and bolstered The Recombobulation Area’s burgeoning audience. “Expanding the Divide” would go on to win three Milwaukee Press Club awards. And within a year, Shafer said, his column “had enough subscribers to sign my daughter up for childcare.” He started an LLC and began managing the column full-time.
“One subscriber at a time” – balancing growth and ethics
Making good money is one of the biggest challenges for any journalist, but independent journalists especially.
“A lot of folks are terrific journalists and terrible business people,” Lewis said.
Part of the difficulty comes from balancing a desire to build a following with the desire to maintain journalistic integrity. Shafer admitted “it would be a lot easier to gain a bigger following if I did that type of journalism where you’re just cheerleading for your team.” While Shafer isn’t shy about his progressive stance, The Recombobulation Area is far from one-note. “Expanding the Divide” was highly critical of the I-94 expansion that Gov. Tony Evers championed. And Shafer said the administration was “not thrilled” with the series.
When it came to deciding what to cover and how to cover it, Shafer’s own curiosity – not commercial interests or the opinions of his readers – guided his writing.
“Nobody’s asking me to write a series on a highway project in Milwaukee,” Shafer said. “I want to do that because I think somebody needs to be doing that type of journalism. I’m not doing it to get clicks and subscribers.” Shafer said this more intentional approach to journalism allowed him to build a more invested, more loyal following, “one subscriber at a time.”
“You should be reading more than you’re writing” – establishing personal ethics
Another major challenge of working as an independent journalist, Lewis said, is isolation. Making editorial choices alone can be a daunting task. Though the Institute for Independent Journalists doesn’t prescribe a code of ethics, Lewis said she and other organization members “have a lot of conversations about the lines for everyone.”
Shafer took a similar approach with The Recombobulation Area. For especially in-depth or involved pieces, he had a group of what he calls “shadow editors,” colleagues from his time working in traditional journalism whom he could call on for advice and support.
Still, the lack of a newsroom was a drawback. To establish trust, Shafer had to be “obsessive” about getting facts right. Vetting his own sources, quoting them heavily and including links to other reporting and expert analysis are just a few of the tactics he used to maintain credibility. Maybe the most important, though, was simply staying informed.
“One of my cornerstone beliefs in journalism is that you should be reading more than you’re writing,” Shafer said. “I try to read everything, everywhere, all the time, from all corners of the ideological spectrum.”
And at the end of the day, Shafer said, there’s no substitute for hard work.
“There is a reporting element to [The Recombobulation Area] that I think even people who disagree with me have recognized ‘you’re not just being unfair to people,’” Shafer said. “You just have to kind of outwork everybody and go the extra mile.”
The move to Civic Media
Late last year, the challenges of providing balanced, nuanced coverage and scaling up to meet the demands of a growing audience came to a head for Shafer.
“I was in this kind of difficult spot where The Recombobulation Area had been getting too big for me to manage on my own. And it wasn’t big enough where I could start hiring people,” Shafer said. At the same time, he was becoming a familiar face (or voice) at Civic Media, a Madison-based, statewide radio network founded in 2022 with the goal of revitalizing local journalism and injecting a rare progressive flavor into the traditionally-conservative world of talk radio. It was a chemistry Shafer couldn’t ignore.
In August 2024, Civic Media acquired The Recombobulation Area and hired Shafer under the title of political editor. He still manages and writes the online column. But now he also hosts a Civic Media show (also titled The Recombobulation Area) and contributes other political content to the organization.
Throughout the transition, Shafer’s kept a fair amount of control over The Recombobulation Area. He reports to the Civic Media’s content director, but describes the leadership team (of which he’s also a part) as a “confederacy,” all working toward the same goal. With the company still in its developing phases, Shafer is involved in a lot of strategy conversations.
“There’s a lot of meetings when you work at a company,” Shafer said. “I didn’t have those when I was by myself.” But where ethics are concerned, his experience hasn’t changed much with the move.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Because ethics, Lewis said, is becoming an increasingly personal topic for both independent journalists and in traditional newsrooms.
“Our newsrooms are imperfect,” Lewis said. “We as humans are imperfect.”
Lewis emphasized that ethics codes in traditional newsrooms have often been written from a white, male perspective – one that politicizes certain issues and not others. Today, many members of the media, both independent and in traditional news, have “moved past the myth of objectivity,” Lewis said. “Everyone is coming at some story from their own lived experience.”
If Shafer’s lived experience has shown him anything, it’s that the future of state and local journalism – both for independent journalists and those working in traditional news – is promising. The important thing is intention, “and not just chasing the outrage of the day,” Shafer said. “I remain optimistic despite all evidence.”
Jess Miller is a 2024-25 fellow at the Center for Journalism Ethics and a graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The Center for Journalism Ethics encourages the highest standards in journalism ethics worldwide. We foster vigorous debate about ethical practices in journalism and provide a resource for producers, consumers and students of journalism.