The Lever: “We Just Won Something Huge”

The Lever’s April 2 newsletter celebrates the outlet’s 2023 Izzy Award win. The Lever is one of four recipients for this year’s award “for outstanding achievement in independent media.” Read more about The Lever and the other winners here.

Friends:

We have incredible news to share: Thanks to your support, we just won the 2023 Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media.

To celebrate this achievement, we are offering you a special deal for the next 24 hours: Score a one-month free trial, then get all the benefits of a paid supporting subscription, for less than $5 a month.

The award is especially significant because it is named after the closest thing we have to a patron saint: I.F. “Izzy” Stone, the pioneering investigative journalist who exposed racial discrimination, McCarthyism, and government deception related to the Vietnam War in his influential newsletter I.F. Stone’s Weekly.

As the judges noted, “No news outlet is as thorough and relentless as The Lever in exposing the corrupting influence of corporate power on government and both major parties. From dark money influence on the Supreme Court to Medicare privatization to the dangers of deregulation to other topics, The Lever’s investigative team is on the corruption beat day after day. Led by 2015 Izzy Award winner David Sirota, The Lever is nonpartisan and subscriber funded, just like I.F. Stone’s Weekly.”

In announcing this year’s award, the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College highlighted the work of Lever senior editor Andrew Perez exposing the largest known political donation in U.S. history — Chicago businessman Barre Seid’s $1.6 billion dark money transfer to conservative operative Leonard Leo.

Click below to watch Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman announce the award:

 

It is a notable achievement to win such an auspicious honor less than three years after we launched. It’s true recognition of our unique, independent accountability journalism and its real-world impact. And, as we’ve proved with our recent groundbreaking coverage of the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, we’re just getting started.

As a reader and supporter of The Lever, you helped us achieve this honor. As a gesture of thanks, we’re offering you a very special discount right now: Get a one month free trial of a supporting subscription, with access to all sorts of benefits like exclusive e-books and special posts like You Love To See It, then pay less than $5 a month to continue the service. You will be helping us deliver even more of the reporting that was just honored with the Izzy Award.

If you are not able to become a Lever Leader today, please consider chipping in a few additional dollars using our digital tip jar. All proceeds go towards expanding our reporting efforts.

The Lever, alongside other 2023 Izzy Award winners, will be recognized at an awards ceremony at the Park Center for Independent Media in late April. In the meantime, we hope you take a moment to feel good about what we are building together. We are making real progress in creating an independent media outlet that is so desperately needed.

Rock the boat.