One of the arguments I heard repeated several times in the wake of the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” was that the event proved that the Millennial generation was numb to any real political discussion. That either you had the satirical news of Stewart and Colbert, or you had angry people representing their political party on cable television — yelling and screaming their opinions, or spewing baseless facts that hurt the very idea of democratic political discourse.
Jake Horowitz is challenging that very notion of being part of another jaded, politically daft generation, by co-founding the website PolicyMic. The Stanford graduate and his team have already amassed a team of 320 writers in 20 countries in the world, and a full-time team that is sure to grow in the coming months.
In your own words, what exactly is PolicyMic?
PolicyMic is Twitter meets the Economist – a news and politics website for our generation that integrates engaging social and Twitter-like features with high-quality political opinion and analysis. We’re trying to bring together the brightest young political leaders from across the political spectrum to write and debate about the issues of the day. PolicyMic will be the first platform where young people can have meaningful discussion and debate about political issues in a fun way.
How did the idea come about?
We feel like there’s a lack of space on the internet for young smart people who are not full-time journalists to write about politics. Once you graduate, it’s hard to find outlets to remain politically engaged, and the largest publishing platforms (i.e. Huffington Post) by and large are not targeted at young people. We had too many friends doing exciting things like Teach for America or Peace Corps who have expertise but are not given a place to share it.
Second motivation was to transform the vicious dynamic in our media where everything must be partisan to pass as news. We wanted to give a place for both liberals and conservatives to debate one another in a meaningful way, to engage with multiple perspectives beyond the superficial. We think young people don’t buy into the partisan back and forth and are looking for a new kind of platform.
