As the founder and executive director of RE:PUBLIC, Chris Keyes runs a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering stories about America’s public lands. He was previously the editor in chief of Outside magazine, where his leadership helped bring about five National Magazine Awards for General Excellence nominations (including one win in 2013.) Chris lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he recreates daily on public land.
We chat with Chris about the genesis of RE:PUBLIC, the advantages of a nonprofit newsroom model, and what he’s most excited about nine months into this new venture.
“We want RE:PUBLIC to be a durable, mission-driven newsroom with the capacity to report deeply and consistently on public lands.”
What is RE:PUBLIC, who is it for, and why should people be tuning in?
RE:PUBLIC is an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on public lands and the people and communities shaped by them. We produce reporting, essays, analysis, and investigations that connect policy decisions to real-world consequences.
Our site is for anyone who cares about how land decisions get made—which should be all Americans, because we are the owners of this unique and incredible 660-million-acre trust. People should tune in because important policy decisions affecting the long-term health of these lands are happening constantly, often with little scrutiny, and they shape everything from local livelihoods to national climate policy.
How did the idea come about, and how did you turn it into a reality?
I came up with RE:PUBLIC shortly after I left Outside, a place that really defined my career. I was looking for something to throw my passion into, and the notion of this newsroom grew out of a simple but urgent realization: with local and regional newsrooms on a two-decade decline, coverage of public lands and natural-resource governance is disappearing with all the shuttered newspapers and other media sites. The issues aren’t any less important—if anything, they are more consequential—but the reporting capacity in this arena has eroded. The idea was to build a newsroom specifically designed to fill that gap.
For me, turning this idea into a reality required facing a huge learning curve. I’d never worked in a nonprofit before, and that alone required a lot of research and networking to understand the difference and learn everything I could about fundraising and seeking philanthropic support. It’s been an iterative process, and it continues to evolve.
“Public lands are ultimately a story about people—who gets access, who makes decisions that affect these places in the long run, and who benefits from those choices. Journalism has a role to play in making those dynamics visible.
RE:PUBLIC exists to do that work, and it’s one of our central goals to do it in a way that invites people in rather than sorting them into sides.”
Why did you decide to go the nonprofit route?
The nonprofit model aligns with the mission. Public lands reporting often requires time, expertise, and sustained attention, but it doesn’t always fit neatly into commercial media incentives. Being reader- and donor-supported allows us to prioritize public-interest journalism over clicks or ad revenue.
The advantages are independence, focus, and the ability to pursue complex stories that might otherwise go unreported. The tradeoff is that achieving business-side sustainability requires constant relationship-building with readers, funders, and partners. It’s freeing—but no less demanding than commercial media.
What is the long-term goal for building the RE:PUBLIC team?
We want RE:PUBLIC to be a durable, mission-driven newsroom with the capacity to report deeply and consistently on public lands. In the near future, that means expanding editorial expertise and creating roles that support distribution, engagement, and investigative work.
But we’re not trying to grow for growth’s sake. The aim is to build a team with enough capacity to cover critical stories and regions while staying nimble and collaborative. We want this idea to have legs, so we don’t want to move and invest too quickly out of the gate.
What are you most excited about in the year ahead?
Every day I wake up excited to go to work. It reminds me of how I felt early in my tenure at Outside, when I had the privilege of becoming editor-in-chief. We have an incredible opportunity to report in greater depth and reach more people. But nine months in, I have learned how unpredictable the start-up world can be. So there’s not something specific I’m excited about. I’m just excited to see what happens next and where this journey will take us.
How can people support the work that RE:PUBLIC is doing?
The most important thing is to read, share, and engage with our reporting—and that starts by signing up for our newsletter. Independent journalism grows through community. Readers can subscribe, follow along through our publishing partners and channels, and, if they appreciate the work we’re doing, support it directly through donations. Every bit of participation helps sustain coverage that might not exist without it.