In an age of disinformation, doomscrolling and distrust in journalism, one investigative reporter aims to renew the tradition he witnessed as a child: reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee.
Scott Stedman launched The Newsground in March, an online publication with a simple mission: “investigative journalism fueled by coffee and tea.” His subscribers receive regular shipments of their beverage of choice, along with ad-free reading online and in a newsletter.
For about one year prior to his launch, Stedman conducted research for his concept, attempting to find the root causes for the declining trust in journalism and a model for what the industry was like at a time when people still trusted the news.
“I just kept thinking about how my dad would read the news,” he said, describing the ritual as the opposite of doomscrolling on social media. “He always read the news with a cup of coffee in the morning, and one of the broader inspirations is to recreate that feeling of when people did trust the news, and I hope that the journalism that we produce behind it is also indicative of how the news was reported back then.”
Stedman, a certified anti-money laundering specialist, who holds a master’s degree in Investigations from the University of New Haven, produces “in-the-weeds corruption stories.” He hopes to publish several investigations a month, like the August investigation into a Georgian-Russian oligarch with ties to The Trump Organization.
“For the most part, it’s me seeing what gaps are out there in the news and maybe the stories that major outlets aren’t pursuing. And I’m just following the scent of where I think a good story might land,” he said.
The startup, currently based in West Hollywood, California, also includes a part-time editor and a part-time videographer, along with contributors. The Newsground had about 80 subscribers in early August, Stedman said, with new subscribers joining every week.
He said he is giving himself one year since the launch to hit 300 subscribers, the approximate number that would make the publication sustainable. Much of his audience comes from his X/Twitter account, where he has more than 120,000 followers.
Most of The Newsground’s readers are politically engaged adults, over the age of 60, and located on the East Coast, Stedman said. He hopes to grow his younger audience with quicker reads, videos and games. He said he was encouraged by the viewership on recent YouTube videos published in July. A 16-minute video with about 5,500 viewers covered “Jeffrey Epstein’s secret Russian money trail,” and an 11-minute video described Russian code used in the official White House mobile app.
The Newsground’s weekly Doom Detox Quiz features 12 positive global news stories — “a five-minute breather from all that doom and gloom,” Stedman said. Doom Detox is a multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank quiz with international headlines like “Restored stretches of Paris’s hidden ____ river flow again.” He said he has about 40 dedicated people who regularly take the quiz.
Subscribers can support The Newsground through a $5 subscription, making a one-time donation, or signing up for a coffee and tea subscription. They can choose from a variety of roasts and blends, including mushroom coffee and cold brew. Coffee and tea subscriptions range from about $18 to $25, depending on the selection and shipping frequency.
In the future, Stedman hopes to host in-person events and to publish a monthly magazine with a crossword section and cartoons, reminiscent of the Sunday paper.
Alyssa Choiniere is a freelance journalist based in southwestern Pennsylvania. She is currently writing a nonfiction book for Rutgers University Press, “Be Home Before the Streetlights Come On: The Political Hijacking of Child-Trafficking Terror.”
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