Welcome to American Doom

You are receiving this special edition of American Doom because you’re new here. Welcome! Because you’re a new subscriber, I wanted to introduce myself and tell you why I started American Doom and why I’m an independent journalist — something I believe is critical in this fraught historical moment.

Being independent means I can share the news I feel is most important directly with you every day. It also means I rely entirely on the support of you, the readers of this publication, to continue my work — either via a paid subscription for $6/month, dropping a few dollars into our Doom Coffee Fund to fuel my 24/7 home newsroom or helping spread the word by sharing my work with others.

When I first walked into a newsroom 15 years ago, I felt a jolt of energy. It didn’t matter if there was no one there because it was a Sunday morning or it was packed because all the sports reporters were coming in to file their copy for football games on a Friday night. No matter how full or empty it was, I felt a greater sense of purpose walking across that stained, sacred carpet. I was just pushing 30 and for the first time in my life understanding what it meant to have a purpose in life. I was in love. I wanted to stay in that newsroom forever.

The reporters and editors around me told me that it wasn’t like it used to be five, 10, let alone 20 or 30 years before. There were far fewer staffers than there had ever been before. Over the years, their ranks had been decimated by budget cuts, buyouts and layoffs brought on by shifting corporate ownership structures. What was left of the newspaper, they said, was a shell of itself. They had no idea how bad it could get.

I left the Journal Star in my hometown of Peoria, Illinois in 2012. Since then, the paper has fallen even farther. There are just a handful of reporters left, and in recent years when I’ve gone into the newsroom to check in on friends, the jolt of energy I felt in my first year in journalism is gone.

Since I left newspapers altogether in 2013, after working at small newsrooms in Minnesota and North Dakota, I have made my living as an independent journalist. I’ve spent much of that time roaming the country and reporting on violence, unrest and politics. These travels are the subject of my forthcoming book with the University of Georgia Press, If I am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened. It’s a memoir not just about my work as a journalist, but the troubling path we’ve gone down as a nation. Something Terrible also covers my descent into — and recovery from — alcoholism, which has given me an even greater sense of conviction of the importance of independent journalism in these times.

There is an allegory here: I had to hit bottom before I could turn my life around.

I believe the nation must also find its own bottom before we’re able to come back from the brink at which we find ourselves.

***

Over the last 12 years, I have covered some of the biggest news events and storylines in the country. I have witnessed riots and unrest over fatal police killings of Black Americans in Ferguson, Baltimore, Minneapolis and many other places including through last summer, as well as the Black Lives Matter movement they inspired. I’ve covered the plight of migrants at the southern border, political corruption by members of Congress, mass shootings, serial killers and the ghosts of the racial sins of our past on a remote Georgia sea island. Throughout it all, I have been struck by the contradictions in how American life is portrayed in the media and popular culture, and the reality of what it looks like on the ground.

Last year, as we entered into an election cycle that seemed like a work of fiction, I felt that I could no longer stand by, acting simply as an objective reporter writing for news outlets beholden to their billionaire owners and internet clickbait, and instead needed an outlet to relay the grim realities I’ve witnessed — and the hope that I see from everyday Americans working to turn this doomed vessel around.

That’s right — at its core, American Doom is really about hope and the promise of what we can do together if we pay attention and commit to change. One of my goals here is to offer solutions for that change.

So, I started American Doom with a simple promise: to write with the clarity and immediacy that I feel this moment in time requires, regardless of whether it fits into preconceived notions of journalistic objectivity.

Since then, this newsletter — a writing experiment, really — has grown exponentially. Nearly 8,000 people have signed up to receive American Doom in their inboxes whenever I write a piece of news or analysis, or publish findings of my investigations. Along the way, I’ve broken some important stories that would not have been possible if not for the support of my subscribers. I exposed more than 300 election deniers working as local election officials across the country, and led the charge in explaining to the nation how they and congressional Republicans could overturn your votes.

You can expect more of this thorough and confrontational journalism over the next three years as I work to hold the Trump administration and others accountable for setting the nation on a path toward authoritarianism.

One of the things I cherish most in life is my autonomy — the simple, wholly American promise that I am able to do what I want, when I want to do it without anyone getting in my way. I’m what you might call a freedom-loving American. At American Doom, that looks like reporting and writing things as they are. Saying things plainly, in other words, without concern whether I’ll be accused of political bias. Freedom itself seems to be under threat by some of the very people who purport to hold it in the same regard as I do — people who would also describe themselves as freedom-loving Americans. This is another reason why I feel it’s important to write with clarity and immediacy about the obvious hypocrisies of the American right.

I would love nothing more than to write solely for American Doom, to provide my subscribers with first and exclusive access to all my stories and investigations. But to do that, I need your help. If you support my work here — if you, also, are trying to make sense out of why the nation seems to be in such obvious conflict with its basic ideals — I’m asking you to become a paid subscriber to American Doom.

With Congress abdicating its oversight powers, Democrats failing to come up with a winning strategy, courts trying desperately to hold on to their own powers as the Trump administration ignores judicial orders, I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that at this moment, only the people can save us from our collective doom. That means people like you, and that means people like me. We have to support each other, which is why I’m asking for your support.

- jg

Here’s what you’ll get as a paid subscriber that my free supporters don’t have access to:

• Audio versions of posts so you can listen to my latest story when you’re unable to read (don’t read and drive!).

• Exclusive stories that expose threats to democracy and are paywalled to free subscribers

• All editions of my podcast, featuring journalists and newsmakers who are involved with some of the most important stories of the day

• Access to American Doom’s archives, which serve as a constantly-updated database of election denial officials and right wing extremists who threaten our democracy

• If choose to become a founding member, you’ll get a signed copy of my forthcoming memoir, If I am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened

Other ways to support AD:

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Justin Glawe

Founder of American Doom