New York State Worker Ownership

• Defector – Reflections On Five Years In Worker-Owned Media (2025)
• Columbia Journalism Review – Tom Ley Thinks More People Should Experience Worker-Owned Journalism (2025)
• Reynolds Journalism Institute – At journalism co-operatives, worker-owners take news into their own hands (2025)
• Start.coop – Co-op Case Study: Defector Media (2022)

• Press Forward – From Bike Shops to Bylines: Borrowing Business Models to Rebuild Local News (2025)
• Resilience – How Worker-Owned News Outlets Are Changing the Media Industry (2025)
• Poynter – Why more and more journalists are launching worker-owned outlets (2025)
• Freelance Solidarity Project – Worker Power, Worker Owners: An introduction to worker-owned media coops (2024) video
• WNYC – The Rise of Worker-Owned Journalism (2023) audio
• Fast Company – Why worker-owned publications like Defector and 404 Media are winning (2023)
• Maximum Fun – Interview with Defector (2023)
• Washington Post – Defector.com’s journalistic experiment began with a staff walkout. It might actually be working. (2021)
• NiemanLab – The worker-owned Defector, at a year old, has over 40,000 paying subscribers and $3.2M in revenue (2021)
• Ross Barkan – the Defector Model Works (2021)
• Defector – What Defector Staffers Learned From One Year Of Being Small Business Owners (2021)
• In these Times – The Former Deadspin People Explain How to Launch a Worker-Owned Media Co-op That Might Succeed (2020)
• Business Insider – Defector Media is a case study in how to hit ‘refresh’ and start a progressive new business after feeling burned by your past employer (2020)
• Washington Post – Former Deadspin staffers launch Defector, a new worker-owned media company (2020)