Dear Reader —
If you want to launch a new publication today, in most cases the technical side is remarkably easy: Just go to Substack. But if you’re dedicated to the durable value of print, that isn’t an option. And everything is more complicated when you’re a publication that’s been around for a long time and don’t have the option of starting your publishing systems from scratch.
The New Atlantis is in the midst of an ambitious multi-year project to overhaul our publishing tech stack, some of which still dates back to our founding 20 years ago. The new website that we launched in 2020 was a major achievement of this project. But we have more yet to do.
The details of the next phase of our project are hush-hush, but think: town paper that’s kept up with the digital age, but still has coin-operated racks on street corners and needs something new for its business model to keep up too.
In addition to our queries behind the scenes on this project, we’re sending up the bat signal publicly to ask if any of our readers happen to know of charitable funds or funders who might have escaped our notice and could be interested in sponsoring this project. It could be a private foundation that specializes in infrastructure improvements, or an individual philanthropist who’s particularly interested in targeted projects with defined outcomes. In either case, a funder would get to play a distinctive role in helping a unique media institution level up to the digital-first era.
The total amount we’re working to raise for the project is $75,000, and even a partial sponsorship would be a major help. If you have ideas, I would be grateful if you’d send them my way at editor@thenewatlantis.com.
As ever, thank you for reading.
Yours,
Ari Schulman
Editor
Exhausted by science and tech debates that go nowhere?