News commentary
America Needs a Working-Class Media
In the seven years Kaia Sand published Street Roots, an outlet that serves unhoused people in Portland, Oregon, she would often find herself unsettled by how more mainstream publications covered the lives of poorer Americans. She’d find herself wondering, for instance, what the “real estate” beat—whose very name offended her—had to do with the daily struggles of those she worked with. The 2024 presidential election underscored for her the need for a more class-aware and class-diverse media.