Season 1 told the 250-year history of the U.S. Postal Service, but we weren't really talking about mail. We were talking about how ordinary people build public institutions, and how power tries to take them back.

Season 2 is about journalism. The free press and the postal service grew up together.

In 1792, the Post Office Act subsidized newspaper delivery at rates way below cost. Not because it was profitable. Because democracy requires informed citizens. That subsidy created an explosion of diverse media: abolitionist papers, labor papers, Black newspapers, immigrant language papers, alt-weeklies, news that served communities, not shareholders.

What We'll Cover:

• How news distribution was treated as democracy infrastructure for 200 years
• The shift to the 24-hour news cycle and clickbait economics
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