Public Lands Are Under Pressure. This Newsroom Is Paying Attention.

America’s 660 million acres of public land now have a news organization devoted entirely to them. Launched this week by former Outside editor-in-chief Christopher Keyes, RE:PUBLIC plans to deliver independent, in-depth reporting on conservation, access, and the politics shaping public outdoor spaces.

At a time when U.S. public lands face a combination of budget cuts, weakened environmental regulations, and proposals for land transfers or sales, RE:PUBLIC’s stated mission is to increase public awareness of these challenges, give citizens tools to better understand policy changes, and hold decision makers accountable.

In its first year, RE:PUBLIC will partner with established media outlets to distribute its stories while developing its own publishing platform. The website will be funded through grants, memberships, and individual donations.

The newsroom plans to produce long-form investigations, special reports such as the “RE:PUBLIC Endangered List,” and a weekly newsletter. It will also launch a weekly podcast in collaboration with outdoor industry podcast Rock Fight Media.

We talked to Keyes to learn more.

OUTSIDE: What is RE:PUBLIC all about?

Christopher Keyes: RE:PUBLIC is an independent nonprofit newsroom that’s focused entirely on public land—that’s the only issue we’re going to be covering. And we’re set up as a nonprofit so it’s a way for me to try out a new business model after 25 years in commercial media.

Tell me about the need for RE:PUBLIC and why you founded it.

It’s a response to a couple of things. I’ve been in media for 25 years, and I’ve seen so much contraction across the industry. I’ve seen some analysis that said we have 75 percent fewer journalists than we had two decades ago. So I think what we’re seeing is a media industry that is overwhelmed by all of the news and doesn’t know what to cover first. From a national media perspective, public lands issues are just not at the top of the list. They’re maybe number 17 on the list of things that journalists feel the need to be covering right now. I see a real vacuum that needs to be filled, and that’s what RE:PUBLIC is attempting to to fill.

I’d also say that conservation of public lands, and the idea of keeping public lands in public hands, is one of the few remaining bipartisan issues that we have left. That’s all the more reason for us to really want to dedicate our time to this topic. It’s a rare opportunity to speak to both sides of the aisle about something that’s important and that we have consensus around.

Specifically, what kinds of issues will you cover?

The issues around public land change from administration to administration, and without question this administration has presented an unprecedented number of threats, as we saw this summer with Utah Senator Mike Lee proposing massive public land sales. There’s the recission of the Roadless Rule, which protects 58 million acres of national forest from further road development. You have the gutting of environmental regulations that slow down extractive industries on public lands. Everywhere you look the conservation movement is playing defense. Right now, I think that’s going to inform a lot of our coverage: the massive existential policy threats that are out there affecting our public lands. But I see a need for coverage in the space no matter who’s in office and well into the future because these lands dictate so much of how we recreate and how this outdoor industry thrives. I think we’re going to need to be covering stories about access, overcrowding, and how to manage all these lands going forward.

What do you hope to do with RE:PUBLIC as it evolves?

Our first year focus is on assigning, commissioning, and paying for 10 to 12 deeply reported investigative stories about public lands. I’m a big believer that less is more sometimes in reporting, and really aiming for high-impact stories versus the daily drip of information and what is often bad news, which can overwhelm people. I really want to focus on high-impact stories with a real narrative core that is going to draw people into the read and learn something along the way.

That’s going to be our focus in year one, but over time we hope to expand our reporting network so that we have regional reporters covering these issues. Some of these issues are national issues, but a lot of of them are very regional as well in scope. We want a partner with regional and local newspapers on a lot of the coverage, too.

The last thing I would say is whatever my vision is for RE:PUBLIC going forward for the next five years will probably change multiple times. I just know that that’s the nature of startups, so I’m really open to how this will evolve over time. All I know is that I really want to throw energy and resources into this particular space and see what the best methods are for finding an audience for this content.

Can you share a little about the partnership model RE:PUBLIC is embracing?

One of the things that really attracted me to the nonprofit model of journalism is that it’s really built more on partnership than competition. I love the idea that for what we work on, we will be finding partners to publish our big stories. I’m super excited, given that I spent most of my career Outside, that our first big story will be published in Outside as a co-publication in October.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.