About Main Street Independent

A democracy runs on a shared set of facts. We can argue about what to do — and we should, loudly — but only if we are arguing from the same ground. A source of objective truth, anchored to the moral values almost all of us share, is the foundation a free society stands on. For a debate over policy to be legitimate, both sides need a substrate of shared facts beneath their differing points of view. The moment that common ground dissolves, debate stops being a contest of ideas and becomes a collision of separate realities, each side certain the other is lying. A self-governing people cannot make decisions that way. The fundamental purpose of Main Street Independent is to provide that source of unbiased truth — reporting built on a handful of values that are not up for partisan grabs: that human life and dignity matter, that the truth matters, that power should answer for what it does, that people deserve to be treated fairly, and that citizens have a right to know.

That truth is under attack, and has been for a century — by people with enormous resources and a direct interest in keeping you confused. The distortion of shared facts is not an accident or a glitch; it is an industry. The war against that distortion is what our Propaganda desk is for.

Everything we publish builds upward from that factual floor. The News reports what happened, plainly and to accepted journalistic standards. The Analysis goes one level deeper, taking a single story apart to show how it was built. And where the news keeps its distance, the Advocacy and Propaganda desks step into the ring — named columnists who argue from a stated point of view, and a propaganda desk that answers bad-faith persuasion in real time and teaches you to see the trick for yourself. Reporting holds the line. Everything above it is built to defend that line, and to put the tools to defend it in your hands.

How It Works

Main Street Independent is a publishing and distribution platform that also operates a daily news and advocacy publication. It publishes reporting, analysis, columns, editorial cartoons, papers, and books, with stable pages that keep each work connected to its sources, author identity, and publication history.

AI is central to the editorial operation, but the disclosure follows the work instead of making one blanket claim about the whole platform. The general newsfeed and analysis are produced by AI systems working from published instructions. The named Advocacy bylines are disclosed AI heteronyms. The book program distinguishes three kinds of authorship: Lawrence Roberts publishes under his real name, Anatta Phoenix is a private pen name, and Malcolm Little King is a disclosed fictional AI heteronym.

Main Street Independent calls its AI-produced editorial genre realtime heteronym fiction: work that aims at factual truth, exposes its methods and points of view, and asks readers to check any claim that matters. That description applies to the automated editorial publication and its constructed voices. It does not mean that every word on the platform is machine-written or that every named author is fictional.

The publishing program preserves the distinction between an original edition and a new MSI edition. Authorized legacy books are expressly reissued under CC0 1.0 Universal while keeping their original author, imprint, date, and edition history visible. Selected books receive complete online Reader editions. Download files and retail links appear only when the actual files have been released and the store listings have been verified; later external serialization points readers back to the complete MSI edition.

One distinction runs through everything. Reporting that stays inside the shared factual floor is kept structurally separate from writing that argues a point of view. You always know which one you are reading — by where it sits on the site, and by how it is labeled.

What We Publish

Seven sections, one standard of openness.

1 · News

This is the floor. Straight reporting, written to the standards working newsrooms actually use: verify before you publish, attribute every claim, lead with what matters, keep the voice neutral. It stays inside a five-value factual floor — human life and dignity, truthfulness, accountability of power, equality and fairness, informed citizenship — and four governing commitments: truth, harmlessness, fairness, and witness. The news takes no side of its own and runs under the Editorial Board byline.

The method is constrained generation. A story must clear a verification bar before the AI writes it: at least two independent reporting sources or one primary document, stable public identities for named entities, preserved hedges, traceable figures, and no invented fact or quotation. The model selects from and arranges verified material; it does not receive permission to fill gaps with plausible detail.

Human review happens by exception, not by default. It is triggered where the cost of error is highest — including defamation-adjacent claims, vulnerable people, premature identification, thin verification, fair-use boundaries, or a claim that would cross the factual floor. Most articles otherwise publish through the automated process and remain open to line-by-line audit.

→ Read the news

The editorial foundation (CC0 — read or download):

• What News Is For
• The News Article Generator
• The Editorial Board’s Historical Lineage

2 · Analysis

One level deeper than the news, and still no point of view. An analysis takes a single story and shows you the machinery: where its facts came from, which words it chose, what it quietly left out. It describes observable effects without alleging an author’s intent: what a frame emphasizes, suppresses, or makes easier to believe is on the page; an unproved motive is not. Like the news, analysis stays inside the shared factual floor — it explains, it does not argue.

→ Read the analyses

Browse the analytical catalog:

Browse by mental-model lens:

The production framework (CC0 — read or download):

• The Analytical Piece Generator

3 · Advocacy

Here the gloves come off. Op-eds argue hard from a stated point of view, each under a named author. Where the news keeps its distance, advocacy commits — and says so up front. Every author has two pages: their columns, and a biography that lays out who the voice is, the territory it covers, and the convictions it writes from. There is no mystery about where any of them stand.

→ All advocacy

The shared foundation (CC0 — read or download):

• The Editorial Canon
• The Analytical Compendium
• The Analytical Compendium — AI/runtime version
• The People’s Advocates

The authors:

• Hector Rentier — columns · biography
• Barb McGowan — columns · biography
• Mimi Wright-Fubar — columns · biography
• Editorial Board — columns · biography
• Ashley Wagner — columns · biography
• Big Jim Zebedee — columns · biography
• Carla Marks — columns · biography
• Hayzeus L. Salvador — columns · biography
• Joanna Blackwell — columns · biography
• Malcolm Little King — columns · biography
• Mark Paulson — columns · biography
• Mary Magdalena — columns · biography
• Phukher Tarlson — columns · biography
• Prudence Wonk — columns · biography
• Ruth Justice — columns · biography
• Stewart Letterkenski — columns · biography
• Thomas Reynolds — columns · biography
• Wendell Burke — columns · biography
• Diklis Chump — columns · biography
• Judas I Mather — columns · biography
• Sterling A. Varice — columns · biography

4 · Propaganda

Two weapons for one fight. Lies are cheap and the truth is expensive — that asymmetry has protected powerful interests for a hundred years, and this desk is built to turn it around.

Phukher Tarlson’s Analyzer is the shield. Hand it a power-protecting opinion piece and it pulls back the curtain: who actually benefits, the exact techniques in play, the receipts and the omissions, and how to spot the same move next time it shows up wearing a different costume. Malcolm Little King’s Spinner is the spear. Point it at any talking point and it answers the central claim with four graduated responses, from the patient good-faith rebuttal to the in-kind counter-punch. The Analyzer makes you harder to fool. The Spinner puts the firepower in your hands — at the dinner table, in the group chat, wherever the argument finds you.

→ The Propaganda desk · Fighting Propaganda

Propaganda documentation (CC0 — read or download):

• The Political Meme Generator
• Propaganda Analyzer Framework
• Responding to Propaganda Spinner
• The Bad-Faith Techniques Catalogue
• The WSJ Technique Catalogue
• WSJ Inversion Worked Examples

5 · Cartoons

The cartoon wall brings together the Editorial Board’s unsigned, generator-made cartoons and distinct character work from Barb McGowan, Hector Rentier, and Mimi Wright-Fubar. Every cartoon is source-grounded and links back to what it answers.

→ All cartoons · How Editorial Board Cartoons work · Download the Political Meme Generator (.md)

The cartoonists and house generator (CC0 — read or download):

• Editorial Board Cartoons — the public generator in publication use
• Barb McGowan’s Editorial Cartoon Framework
• Hector Rentier’s Editorial Cartoon Framework
• Mimi Wright-Fubar’s Editorial Cartoon Framework

6 · Papers

The deeper documentation: in-depth papers on the analytical techniques behind the publication, and on Ora, the AI system that powers all of it. Each paper lands as a free download in Markdown, PDF, and EPUB the moment it is finished, with links to any paid edition for readers who would rather have one.

→ All papers

7 · Books

Full-length books across a range of subjects — including original fiction — live in one catalog with their covers, descriptions, authors, edition relationships, identifiers, and original publication history. The coordinated launch model pairs selected books with complete online Reader editions and prepares authorized legacy reissues as free CC0 downloads. Download formats appear when their files are released; Amazon or other retail links appear only after the listing has been verified. External serialization, when used later, points back to the complete MSI edition rather than replacing it.

→ All books

The Whole Rulebook Is Public

Nothing about how this works is hidden. This About page is the public map: how the publication chooses what to cover, how it writes and corrects it, where the line falls between reporting and point of view, and the canonical documents behind every section. Read them, challenge them, fork them.

Everything Is Public Domain

Main Street Independent expressly dedicates the work it is authorized to release to the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal. That is a publishing choice, not a claim that AI involvement makes a work incapable of copyright. The dedication covers MSI’s editorial work, public frameworks, and authorized reissues; it lets readers adapt, redistribute, fork, and build on those editions without asking permission.

For a legacy book, CC0 applies to the new MSI reissue. It does not erase the earlier edition or pretend the original author, imprint, date, and rights history never existed. The catalog preserves those facts, then identifies the MSI edition and its express CC0 dedication. Free book and paper formats are linked when the files are released, and paid retail links are optional, verified alternatives. Complete Reader editions remain on MSI; later external serialization points back to that canonical text.

Independence and Funding

Main Street Independent runs without commercial advertisers, without political affiliation, and without undisclosed funding. Every funding source is disclosed. The publisher’s other activities and affiliations are disclosed. Any potential conflict of interest in a story is disclosed in that story.

The work is free, and always will be — but it is not free to make. If you would like to help keep it going, you can support the publication directly through our donation page, which runs on Stripe. Reader support is what keeps Main Street Independent independent, and anything raised this way is disclosed like every other source.

Corrections

AI-generated reporting can get things wrong, and when it does, we fix it in the open. Corrections go up promptly the moment an error is found, the original mistake stays visible alongside the correction note — nothing quietly disappears — and links stay stable so the record holds. Spot an error? Tell us: [email protected].