Lost Debate Launches Multi-million Dollar Fund for Visionary Storytellers to Combat Polarization
Who we are
Lost Debate is a new non-profit media company. We’re ethically contrarian, meaning we challenge conventional wisdom—not to be different or provocative but to highlight issues underrepresented in traditional media.
We’re a home for political eclectics who hold views that don’t fit neatly into any single political party. This includes independents, the undefined, and the just plain confused. We even welcome those with strong party loyalties who want to escape their echo chambers.
We believe the most important conversations in society happen in the dark corners of the Internet—on platforms dominated by political arsonists, nihilists, and extremists. Our mission is to infuse more empathy, nuance, and objectivity into those conversations.
Our flagship show is The Lost Debate, a twice-weekly YouTube and podcast program that brings you news, ideas, and trends of the day.
But our goal is to launch many more shows. That’s where you come in.
A Fund for new shows and talent
We’re launching with $7 million in funding to find and support talented and visionary storytellers. We’re looking for engaging voices with compelling ideas for new shows—whether they be audio, short-form video, or long-form video.
Though our company is devoted to cutting through polarization in our country, we are open to shows in politics, culture, arts, finance, self-help, and sports. We only require that your idea further our mission in some way. We will leave it up to you to explain how.
We are open-minded about the proposals we will accept, but we do have a few priorities:
Unique perspectives on America’s culture war/polarization. Though we are focused on politics, we are also interested in shows that cover non-political genres—like arts, culture, and sports—with an eye for the hidden politics within those categories. Media on TikTok to engage the next generation on current events and politics, especially those who have a vision for a TikTok news show.
Perspectives on emerging trends and technology, like decentralized finance, AI, machine learning, virtual reality, and whatever else we don’t know about but should
our support
We are looking to support up to five visionary shows for 2022. All we ask is that, in exchange, you sign away your life. Just kidding. We’re a non-profit. But we do expect that shows we fund will become Lost Debate company shows. The upside is that we will fund all reasonable production, operations, and marketing costs. We will also fund salaries or stipends for hosts (depending on the frequency of the shows—see below). We are open to purchasing or licensing existing shows that want to work with us to build a larger audience and/or upgrade their production quality.
Next Steps
It should include the following:
- The core idea.
- The medium (e.g., TikTok, podcast, YouTube)
- Frequency (weekly, daily, biweekly).
- The support you’d need to pull it off. We are especially interested to know the technical support you’d need (e.g., video and audio editing, production, writing, marketing, graphic design). But feel free to include any wild requests, like an RV to travel the country.
- Your background and the background of any additional hosts, including where you are based.
- What you’d need to get paid in salary or stipend to execute this show—and whether you’d envision your work on the show would be full time or part time. If the latter, let us know what other professional commitments you have and how much time you’d expect to devote to the show.
Of course, provide anything else that may be helpful to know.
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