A large group of Harvard alumni has just decided that the world needs more Internet content bashing white privilege, more Bernie Sanders interviews, and more articles about Anne Hathaway’s battle with her own “internalized misogyny.”
The 6,000 Harvard Alumni are part of an independent investment vehicle called The Yard Ventures whose tagline is “private, for-profit, and friendly with Harvard University.”
The investment they’ve recently made is a stake in the millennial news site Mic.com, whose founder, Chris Altchek, received a degree in social studies at Harvard. The company says it reports “From the Front Lines of Social Justice.”
Altchek believes Mic is “an optimistic news brand focused on being relevant and making people smarter.” His definition of relevant is relentlessly liberal, progressive, and totally anti-Trump. The site has a sub-section called “Navigating Trump’s America” in which nearly every article is critical of the Trump Administration or in some way slanted away from the basic concept that some young people in the country might give some credence to at least a few of the ideas coming from The White House.
Ironically, back in 2011, Altchek told Business Insider he’s more right-leaning than his co-founder, Jake Horowitz. In interviews he is earnest and modest about the $52 million dollars he raised so far to produce his site and attract what he says is an audience of 66 million unique visitors per month.
“I think it’s really important for Mic to remain committed to doing journalism that’s fair, and not worry about the traditional ways that newsrooms may be biased left or right,” says Altchek. “If you’re not starting a conversation and building trust with this demographic (young people) now, you risk becoming irrelevant in the future.” Translation: big media person, please pay too much to buy me out.
Right on dude! Though the definition of relevance is relative. Altchek is a product of the Northeastern elite. Which helps with the loosely affiliated Harvard investment club types. Previously, he attended an exclusive private prep school in New York called Horace Mann, where tuition runs $45,000 a year. And according to Gawker, his father has served as the medical director for The Mets. One of the other investors in Mic is Hillary Clinton’s longtime fundraiser, Kenny Lerer, of Lerer- Hippeau Ventures.
Mic and it investors believe the future of news is shallow reporting from worthy kids with a predictable point of view who refuse to acknowledge a whole portion of the country.
To top off its finger-on-the-pulse of America position, Mic has a lovely office on the 82nd floor the new World Trade Center building in NY. The view from the top looks Left.
