The media has undergone a radical transformation in recent years — and publications covering the outdoors are no exception.
In 2023, the Disney-owned National Geographic fired all of its staff writers, leaving few, if any, full-time writers and editors for the longtime gold standard of outdoor journalism. Outside Magazine slowly grew into a conglomerate of outdoor publications, and then fired so many of its most respected journalists that a coalition of famous writers and photographers penned a letter slamming it for “abandoning” journalism.
This year’s layoffs from Outside included one of the magazine’s top editors: Christopher Reyes. After spending his entire career in journalism, Reyes left the magazine wondering if he should continue in a profession with a failing business model and dwindling career options.
So he spoke with his friend Evan Smith, the founder of the successful nonprofit journalism outlet The Texas Tribune. That helped inspire Reyes to double down on journalism once again. Today, Reyes launches Re:Public, a nonprofit publication aimed at in-depth investigations of issues related to public lands.
As President Trump continues to cut funding from national parks, and U.S. senators propose selling off America’s public lands, there’s never been a greater need for journalism that serves the outdoor community, Reyes told GearJunkie.
“When the threats are more hypothetical, it’s harder for people to get motivated and go protest in the streets,” Reyes said. “But when the threat is so clear and present with public lands, that’s a real fork-in-the-road moment when people feel obligated to use their voice … My bet is that a few of our stories will make a difference.”
A Focus on Nonprofit Journalism
Once upon a time, in-depth investigations were an indispensable part of American journalism. Often, newspapers employed entire teams of writers to pursue a single story with major impacts to the local community.
That was evident in films like Spotlight, which followed the Boston Globe‘s investigation into pedophilia of Catholic priests, or All The President’s Men, a cinematic classic about The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate. Those movies illustrate a classic American perspective of what journalistic integrity should look like.
But many of these specialized newsrooms don’t exist anymore, as the ad-driven business model of old-school journalism was swallowed up in the digital revolution. Re:Public, on the other hand, aims to follow an emerging model that has proven successful for many journalists seeking new ways to tell the country’s most important stories: nonprofit journalism.
By relying only on individual donations or grants from foundations, scrappy publications can focus on just paying reporters, and then publish that work on a website free from pop-up advertisements that often make it difficult to read a 3,000-word story online.
However, Reyes wants to make sure that the work of Re:Public gets in front of as many people as possible. So he’s going to partner with publications, including Outside, that still have a large audience. Each of the nonprofit’s investigations will co-publish with a single partner, elevating public awareness of Re:Public while giving legacy media a chance to share in the social cachet of original reporting.
“When I became editor of Outside in 2007, the conventional wisdom was that attention spans were diminishing,” Reyes said. “I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now. People will read long stories online if you put it in an inviting environment that’s not obliterated with pop-up ads and other distractions. I think there will always be a demand for that.”
First Year? An Investigation a Month
For Re:Public’s first year, Reyes aims to publish one narrative-driven investigation each month. The first will be published this October, in a partnership with Outside. It will detail the work of three reporters sent to three national parks this summer on a mission to uncover just how deeply Trump’s cuts to federal funding have impacted the park system.
In addition, Reyes himself has already begun writing a newsletter, in which he draws on his decades of experience to explain the complex issues surrounding various threats to public lands. Examples of these newsletters, which read like New York Times opinion columns, include “Volunteers Aren’t the Solution to Staffing Cuts,” “The Creeping Politicization of Wildland Firefighting,” and “The Sell-Off Proposal Was Just the Opening Bid.”
Reyes also acknowledged that the average American news reader has become overwhelmed with the options available. Often, the constant deluge of political coverage can make it difficult for readers to care.
“That’s the great challenge of our time,” he said. “In my social circles, I’m constantly talking to people about how they’re managing their news diet. This is why I like to focus on big impact news stories. I think those bigger, thoughtful stories are what cut through. If you hit them over the head every day with what’s coming out of the administration, you’re going to exhaust them.”
Reyes also knows that the media environment is constantly changing. From the anxiety over artificial intelligence to a tumultuous economy, it’s impossible to know what lies ahead, he said. Yet Reyes remains committed to the cause.
For the next year, he’ll rely mostly on freelancers. As Re:Public reaches funding goals, he’ll try to build out a newsroom of full-time writers. He even hopes to hire a full-time reporter covering the U.S. Department of the Interior in D.C.
“In five years, I would like Re:Public to be the most trusted name in public lands journalism,” he said. “I want it to be the thought leader in the space and synonymous with coverage of public lands issues … I’m thrilled and terrified to be getting this thing out into the world.”
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