Amphibian Media is Matt Stroud

For now anyway.

Here's me:

I’m an investigative reporter, an occasionally out-of-work journalism professor, and the author of Thin Blue Lie: The Failure of High-Tech Policing.

I’ve spent the last twenty-plus years reporting for places like The New York Times, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Esquire, The Verge, and a long list of other outlets—many of them based in or connected to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is where I’m from and where I still seem to end up.

This site is a place for reporting, essays, and commentary about journalism and storytelling—how the work actually gets done, how it changes, how it fails, and how power shapes the stories we end up telling (and the ones we don’t). Some posts revisit past reporting. Others look forward. Others exist because I got curious about something and followed it longer than was strictly necessary.

Policing appears here often, but as a long-running case study, not the thesis. I like music a lot, too, so that will probably come up. Fair warning.

Subscribing supports this work and makes it possible to publish independently.

Ok, but what did you mean by “for now anyway”?

Right. Now it's just me.

And! Gavin Patrone, who's reporting for Amphibian this semester while he helms The Globe, Point Park University's student newspaper. Here's Gavin:

Over time, I hope to bring in other reporters and storytellers—people doing serious work who are trying to figure out what journalism looks like next. It's why I didn't decide to call this site Matt Stroud Media or something. (I see you Michael Bloomberg.) Also it hasn't always just been me.

What do you mean? Amphibian used to be something else?

It’s always been a few things at once. Amphibian started as a way to work on ambitious investigative projects—especially podcasts—without having to rebuild a company every time a new collaboration came along. Over the years, it’s been a production company, an investigative shop, and a home base for projects that needed flexibility more than permanence.

Some of those projects did very well. Some reached the top of podcast charts. Some won awards. Some were optioned for film or television. And then the podcast world changed. Quickly.

Changed how?

Hollywood adaptations slowed. Venture capital dried up. Everything tilted toward weekly personality shows, audiobooks, or formats that rewarded speed over depth. Long, complicated investigative work became harder to fund inside institutions that were already shrinking.

So this site is what Amphibian looks like now: a publishing home where reporting, essays, and ideas can exist without being forced into a specific format, platform, or risk tolerance.

Is this a personal brand thing?

I suppose it is—if for no other reason than nearly every concept, news item, fact, theory, whatever that seems to go viral does so because someone waged their personal brand on it. Personal brands are how attention is shared. So the answer to your question is "yes" because I'm not sure if anything isn't (or isn't part of) a personal brand right now.

Hmm. Interesting.

Lemme rephrase: This is a reluctant acknowledgment that journalism has become more personality-forward whether we like it or not. This is me trying to do that part honestly, without pretending I woke up one day wanting to be a “creator.”

And the “for now anyway” part?

Right, yeah. That’s the hopeful part. Amphibian starts as one voice because I've gotta re-start somewhere. A lot of us in journalism do. My goal is for Amphibian Media to become a place where other reporters and storytellers can publish, experiment, and figure out what their work looks like next—without pretending the old paths still exist.

For now, though, it’s me. Writing. Reporting. Trying things.

Let's keep talking.

matt AT amphibian DOT media