Why Independent Media Needs You
Algorithm-driven platforms prioritize engagement over quality. AI-generated content floods search results. Major music publications have shuttered or become clickbait factories.
The Tonearm offers an alternative: human-curated conversations with boundary-pushing artists, thinkers, and cultural figures. No algorithms. No surveillance capitalism. No filler. Just deep, thoughtful journalism about art and ideas that matters.
What Makes The Tonearm Different
Editorial Independence: Editorial consistency, since February 2020. Nearly 300 podcast episodes featuring a diverse array of artists, thinker and innovators, including scores of experimental musicians, academics, and cultural figures you won't find elsewhere, as well as globally-recognized icons and stars.
Ethical Platform Choices: We build relationships directly with our audience whenever possible and bias toward social media platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon, those that that respect privacy and don't optimize for rage.
Human Curation Over Algorithms: Every guest is chosen for what they contribute to art, music, culture, and ideas, not for SEO value or trending status. Our audience comes for discovery, not distraction.
The Ask and The Offer
Become an Underwriter of The Tonearm to support independent journalism while reaching a highly engaged audience of culture enthusiasts, artists, thinkers, and cultural decision-makers.
All we need to get started is up to three lines of italicized, 24-point Times New Roman text. You can provide it for us to edit and approve or we can draft it for your approval. The Tonearm follows public media's underwriter copy guidelines which you can read here.
Interested? View details of what underwriters get here.