The battle over public knowledge

In a recent Newsjunkie newsletter titled “Mutual aid for the knowledge sector,” publisher Gordon Whiting argued that journalists, archivists, scientists, librarians, researchers, and civic organizations are confronting interconnected threats to public knowledge. In this conversation with Newsjunkie managing editor Peter Landau, Whiting expands on the idea of the “knowledge sector,” the rise of data preservation efforts, the role of Prairie Fire, and why he believes this moment represents both danger and possibility.

In the newsletter, you describe the knowledge sector as something broader than academia or journalism. What made you start thinking about all of these professions as part of one connected ecosystem?

Oh, well, a lot of things, Peter. I have an association with UCLA through my life partner, and I’ve been stunned at how much a single campus—a single university in a larger university system—has research facilities that are quite advanced.

They are not just academic. They cover just about everything you can think of in terms of advancement, from particle physics to cancer research. And you visit any other campus of any scale and find similar things. Then there are private laboratories. Often they’re doing government work, but not always. Big Pharma is a good example.

As we’ve built the subscriber base of our mailing list and the audience for Newsjunkie, we’ve found people reacting to our posts and stories from areas we didn’t realize were following us. We originally started speaking to journalists, editors, publishers, and people involved in the work of democracy—everything from voter activism to First Amendment issues.

I don’t mean “all the way down to” in a dismissive sense. Really, that’s the top. Ground-level work is incredibly important. But what connects all these professions is a certain amount of critical mass of knowledge and specialization.

It’s not the same as scooping ice cream. And we all want that scoop of ice cream. I’m not talking about status. I’m talking about the fact that there is a large part of the employment pie in this country and around the world that does advanced work—work predicated on previous science, research, and specialized knowledge.

That’s the knowledge sector. If your work is built on science, research, and accumulated knowledge, and you’re helping advance or preserve it, then you’re part of the knowledge sector.

You say in the newsletter that “the threats are not separate.” What connections are you seeing between the attacks on science, archives, journalism, education, and public data?

Well, President Trump did us a favor in a strange way by making these attacks selective and visible—the surgical attacks by DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget.

I don’t pretend to fully understand all the motivations behind it. I’m not a political scientist. But some things seem obvious. If you build a political movement around nativism or rage against elites, then universities become targets, regardless of whatever legitimate criticisms people may have of them.

If your movement is backed by fossil fuel interests, then climate science is in the way. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is promoting myths about vaccines while mixing in appealing ideas about healthy eating and wellness, then attacking scientific institutions becomes a way to satisfy that audience too.

So you undermine credibility. You reduce visibility. You remove institutional presence where possible. That’s as far as I can confidently go in analyzing motivations.

Going back to the title of your newsletter, what does “mutual aid for the knowledge sector” actually look like in practice?

Well, there isn’t really anything operating at large scale yet. It’s just emerging.

But first, it means communication. You need places where people can connect with others who feel the same threats or share the same aspirations. You need forums, networks, and spaces where people can organize around both defensive and aspirational goals.

Newsjunkie is trying to do some of that. We want to build more forum-like participation and communication with readers.

Mutual aid starts with solidarity and communication, but it also includes legal defense. Organizations like the Vance Center’s Lawyers for Reporters, the ACLU, and local ACLU chapters are incredibly important.

Many of these organizations can be found through Newsjunkie’s Prairie Fire resource page. The next step is staying connected, communicating regularly, and identifying where the needs are.

In the newsletter, you mention how researchers, activists, librarians, and journalists are stepping up to preserve endangered information. Were you surprised by the scale or speed of those grassroots efforts?

Pleased, definitely.

There are organizations like the Internet Archive that have been preserving data for almost 30 years, including government datasets. Anybody who hasn’t explored the Internet Archive should go there and be amazed.

And then there’s the Data Rescue Project and many others listed through Prairie Fire.

What surprised me was that enough people recognized that this might not simply be politics as usual. This may not be a temporary swing where one administration replaces another and things reset afterward.

Some people clearly grasped that this could be an “off-the-cliff” moment, and they stepped into the fray. I’m very encouraged by that.

You wrote that we may be entering “one of the most fertile periods in human understanding.” Why does this moment feel both threatening and full of possibility?

All I mean is that knowledge compounds.

Since Galileo, scientific understanding has built on previous discoveries, corrections, and refinements. Ptolemy gives way to Copernicus. The Earth revolves around the sun.

Over five-hundred years, that accumulation of knowledge has accelerated enormously. Then came computers, digitization, and the internet. Now the speed of distribution and collaboration is astonishing.

Think about medicine and public health alone. The advances are extraordinary.

And then suddenly here comes the wrecking ball.

We are poised for incredible breakthroughs, but now much of the infrastructure supporting those breakthroughs has to be defended.

I’ll also say that not everything needs defending. There’s bloat. There are excesses. But coming in with a sledgehammer the way DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget did is reckless and foolish. It diminishes us.

You referenced Don Swanson’s idea of “undiscovered public knowledge.” How does that concept relate to the work Newsjunkie is trying to do with Prairie Fire?

Don Swanson, an information scientist at the University of Chicago, came up with the concept of undiscovered public knowledge.

The idea is that information may already exist publicly in separate datasets or archives, but the insight doesn’t emerge until someone connects them. You discover correlations. You uncover relationships that were previously invisible.

That’s especially true now in the digital age.

Newsjunkie is trying to fuse ideas about information flow—including news itself—with principles of information science. Our primary motto is “Who’s Behind the News,” but that doesn’t just mean ownership. It means editors, publishers, writers, reporters—the people producing and shaping information.

The Disappearing Data Project is a good example. We’re helping structure information so people can actually find relationships and patterns within it. Rachel Santarsiero’s work at the National Security Archive is foundational in that regard.

A lot of people outside research or journalism see these issues as abstract. How do you explain why disappearing datasets or weakened archives matter to ordinary people?

It’s actually very practical.

Would you get on a plane if you thought air traffic control systems weren’t reliable? Would you stand on the observation deck of the Empire State Building if someone told you part of the foundation had been removed?

We rely constantly on scientific research, engineering standards, environmental monitoring, medical data, and public records. Most people simply don’t think about it because it’s embedded in daily life.

That’s why Prairie Fire matters. We’re trying to quantify political interference with science, social science, voting rights, and public records while interviewing the people doing the actual groundwork.

Do you think the future of public knowledge will rely less on large institutions and more on networks of smaller organizations and communities?

I think both will continue to exist.

Independent work will rise, but large institutional research won’t disappear either. The challenge is making these systems interrelate better.

This is a major inflection point. The way government research and institutional knowledge systems operate has changed, and the consequences are still unfolding.

The encouraging thing is that we now have much better tools for collaboration, communication, and secure information sharing.

Do you think journalists have a role beyond simply reporting the news?

Journalists have already been disrupted too. A lot of people in the profession have lost their equilibrium.

Good journalists already try to hold power accountable. You don’t really need to lecture them about that.

But what I would say is: think carefully about who you’re speaking to. Envision your community. Think about how your work reaches people and what might move them to act or engage more deeply.

You’re not just sitting in an office building trying to hit a deadline anymore. You’re part of a broader public conversation.

If people want to help, what are some useful first steps they can take?

There are many things people can do.

They can contact Morgan at Newsjunkie, who runs Prairie Fire, and explore the organizations we feature there. Many groups are working on data preservation, legal defense, scientific advocacy, and support for researchers and journalists who’ve lost jobs or faced political pressure.

Organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, the ACLU, and many UN-affiliated groups all need support.

But even beyond that: volunteer, write letters, learn more, support First Amendment groups, support habeas corpus protections, support transparency organizations.

It matters.