We’re a cultural artifact now

I woke up this morning to a delightful email:

To Whom It May Concern:

The United States Library of Congress has selected your website for inclusion in the Library’s web archive focusing on public policy topics. We consider your website to be an important part of this collection and the historical record.

The Library of Congress preserves the Nation’s cultural artifacts and provides enduring access to them. The Library’s traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including websites.

So there it is. I always thought our work was important. Our journalists, readers and patrons certainly have. It’s validating to hear that the Library of Congress believes Latterly is an “important part of the historical record,” as well. That must have something to do with the kinds of stories we tell.

I’ve already started dripping stories from the fall issue onto the website. You can read Lewis Fried’s essay, “An anarchist’s guide to national awakening” and Paolo Cravero’s report on Venezuelan asylum seekers trying to make their way in Brazil’s inhospitable north. (The Cravero story was made possible thanks to a collaboration with the Geneva-based humanitarian NGO Franciscans International. You can sign up to their newsletter here.)

And finally, if you’re interested, here’s a recent essay I wrote about journalism ethics and sexism for Medium.

Get yourself a cultural artifact, and for the sake of posterity… subscribe!

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Ben

PS. We sent the fall issue to the printer. You can ready my intro to it on our homepage here.