Thank you for an excellent first month!

Reader response has exceeded our expectations. We're grateful for your support.

A hiking trail through a subalpine forest on federal public land. Photo by Roque Planas.

Dear Public Domain readers, 

This publication is now officially one month old. We had no idea what to expect when the three of us teamed up to produce investigative reporting on public lands, wildlife and resources. But we knew that the stakes have never been higher for those who care about the future of our public heritage. 

We're astounded at the warm welcome we've enjoyed. Our back-of-the-napkin math showed the project would become financially viable if we reached 3,000 paid subscribers. One month later, we’ve made a solid first stride toward that goal — with no advertising or marketing beyond social media and word of mouth, and without establishing a paywall. The response has been humbling and only further cemented our commitment to what we’ve started here.

We're equally excited about our accomplishments. We launched with a scoop from Jimmy Tobias revealing Tyler Hassen, an oil executive from Texas, as the head of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency within the Interior Department. That reporting was later followed or cited by ProPublica, The New York Times, Politico, and the Sacramento Bee. 

Jimmy has built upon that reporting with a series of scoops on Interior, making Public Domain the first to reveal the list of political appointees that are reshaping the department. Chris D'Angelo's analysis of Montana Republicans' flirtation with the land transfer movement, which added new reporting to previous campaign scoops, is our most widely read and shared piece to date. And Roque Planas revealed disturbing new details about a sprawling investigation into live deer trafficking in Texas that has undermined the state's ability to contain an outbreak of chronic wasting disease in breeder facilities that pen-raise animals for paying hunters to shoot.

We’ve also covered and are diving deeper into the GOP’s multi-pronged attack on federal public lands, the Trump administration’s myriad ties to extractive industries and turmoil across federal land management agencies. We are working hard to build sources within government agencies and pry public records loose.

We're also proud of how our work has been received by our colleagues. Jimmy appeared on the Center for Western Priorities' podcast, The Landscape, to discuss Musk's dismantling of the Interior Department. Mother Jones and The Intercept have both syndicated our work. Our reporting has been read and shared by some of the most knowledgeable people in our fields, including many writers, policymakers and advocates whose expertise far exceeds our own. We are truly grateful for everyone's support. 

We've got a lot more reporting to do. We're asking you to please help us by spreading the word. We're thrilled to have attracted nearly 1,000 total subscribers spread across 48 states and 13 countries, but we also know the number of people who care deeply about the things we cover easily reaches into the millions. If you know someone who might be interested in the work that we're doing, please tell them about us and send them a link. 

And for those with the means, we would deeply appreciate it if you could upgrade to a paid membership. News reporting is expensive, especially for those who dig deep. Paid subscriptions are what allow this project to exist, guarantee our independence and keep us working on journalism rather than fundraising. 

Thank you all again for a great first month. We look forward to continuing to bring you more important reporting that you will only find here. 

Sincerely, 

Chris D'Angelo, Jimmy Tobias and Roque Planas