In 2021, The Economist described the Nigerian independent media outlet The Republic as “an example of the new intellectual spaces that have opened up in Africa over the past decade”. At the outset, the Nigerian publication’s temperament, according to The Economist, was “youthful, tech-savvy and decentralized”.
Having started as a student magazine in 2018 to now innovating its own AI-products to support independent journalism, winning design awards and creating a unique space for itself in the African media landscape, The Republic has charted a novel path for new media initiatives, blending a potent product mix of digital publication, events and a slick print magazine.
We spoke with Wale Lawal, Founder and Editor of The Republic, about the moment in Nigerian politics that defined how the publication saw its role in society, how it confronts the challenges to independent media’s sustainability and what’s in the works for The Republic.
Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine says that when a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order. At MDIF we see our clients and partners as small Islands of Integrity that hold the power to shake up the status quo. As the founder of The Republic, could you tell us how you think your newsroom has been an Island of Integrity in the Nigerian public discourse in particular, and the larger African media landscape?
For us, the moment of becoming what I would describe as an ‘island of integrity’ crystallized during Nigeria’s #EndSARS protests in October 2020. At the time, The Republic was still very much a student journal, focused largely on long-form academic and historical analysis of Nigerian and African affairs. The protests fundamentally changed us.
#EndSARS was remarkable not only for its scale, but also for its decentralized nature. There was no single leader or organizing body. Young Nigerians mobilized themselves across cities, online and offline, demanding an end to police brutality and deeper reform of the state. What was equally striking (and concerning) was the initial refusal of much of Nigeria’s traditional media to cover the protests meaningfully. In that vacuum, independent outlets such as The Republic stepped in.
Reporting on #EndSARS clarified our purpose. We realized that rigorous, historically grounded journalism could not sit apart from urgent civic moments. We had a responsibility to document, contextualize and make sense of what Nigerians were living through in real time – this became even more crucial after soldiers killed several protesters and the government denied such killings had happened. That experience enriched our mission and set us firmly on a path towards becoming a mission-oriented newsroom committed to public-interest journalism.
I resonate with Ilya Prigogine’s idea of ‘small islands of coherence’ because that is precisely the role we have tried to play since. In a context marked by economic instability, democratic backsliding and deep social fragmentation, The Republic has focused on helping Nigerians (and Nigeria-curious audiences globally) make sense of the country with clarity and integrity. We prioritize under-represented stories, amplify marginalized voices and resist the pressures of sensationalism or false balance. In doing so, we aim not only to inform, but to guide our audience towards a more representative, thoughtful and progressive Nigerian public discourse and, by extension, to contribute to the wider African media landscape.
The news landscape is replete with predictions of doomsday for the media industry. You had something interesting to say about decentralization and how that could be the way forward for smaller media outlets. Could you elaborate on what you mean by decentralization of media in a literal sense and how that could benefit young media companies.
When I speak about decentralization, I mean it both literally and structurally. Traditional media was built around heavy, centralized institutions: large newsrooms, expensive infrastructure and fixed distribution channels. That model is increasingly unsustainable, particularly in the global South, where costs are rising faster than revenues.
What we are witnessing is an unbundling of media. Newsrooms are shrinking and becoming more agile. There is greater reliance on freelancers, collaborators and distributed contributors. Audiences are fragmented across platforms. While this presents challenges, it also creates opportunity.
For young media companies, decentralization allows the building of modular organizations, where editorial, production, distribution and even revenue generation are flexible rather than fixed. You can work with networks of contributors rather than carrying large payrolls. You can experiment with formats without betting the entire organization on a single product. At The Republic, decentralization has allowed us to evolve from a student journal into a media-tech company, using our learnings from the media to build out media-focused tech solutions without losing editorial focus.
The key point is intentionality. Decentralization should not mean precarity or loss of depth. It should mean a deliberate redesign of how media organizations operate, so that they are resilient, adaptive and aligned with not just how audiences consume journalism today but the rapid pace at which digital technology is evolving (look at what remote tech Zoom has meant for cross-regional collaboration let alone emergent tech like AI!).
What would you say is your biggest challenge right now as a founder with regards to attaining sustainability without compromising your editorial standards? What steps have you taken to strengthen The Republic’s business?
Our biggest challenge, like that of many independent outlets, is building long-term sustainability without eroding trust. Editorial integrity is our most valuable asset. Once that is compromised, everything else collapses.
Grants have been essential to our growth. They have enabled us to invest in ambitious journalism, experiment with formats and build capacity at critical moments. But grants are not the end goal. They are catalytic rather than foundational; ultimately, we have to be able to generate recurring incomes to keep our work sustainable.
To strengthen The Republic’s business, we have pursued a diversified revenue model. This includes reader subscriptions, partnerships aligned with our values, books and special editorial projects, podcasts, live events and, increasingly, product-led initiatives. The guiding principle is simple: revenue must never dictate editorial conclusions, but it must support editorial ambition.
This is an ongoing process and what gives me confidence is that audiences are increasingly willing to pay for credibility, depth and perspective. Particularly when they feel a sense of ownership in the newsroom they support.
There is a deep sense of confusion about what AI will bring to the table for independent media. Do you have an opinion on the role it will play in the future?
AI understandably generates anxiety within the media industry, but I see it primarily as infrastructure and potentially as an equalizer. Used responsibly, it can lower costs, improve efficiency and free journalists to focus on what humans do best: reporting, analysis, judgement and storytelling.
At The Republic, we are particularly interested in how AI can help restore equity in global media. With AI, our tools such as ATLAS, our image-licensing platform, can be designed to protect intellectual property, ensure fair compensation and create sustainable income streams for African photographers whose work has historically been underpaid or extracted without consent.
Additionally, MINM, our AI-powered text-to-speech platform, shows how AI can also augment creativity not by replacing journalists or artists, but by expanding what is possible with limited resources. For independent media in the global South, this matters enormously. The real question is not whether AI will be used, but who controls it and whose interests it serves. Our responsibility is to shape these tools so that they strengthen, rather than hollow out, independent journalism.
You told us about Atlas and what it intends to stand for. Could you share more about the platform and what you’re trying to solve through it?
ATLAS was born from a simple observation: great African storytelling is expensive to produce, but too rarely lucrative for the people who create it, particularly photographers. Weak licensing infrastructure has meant that the very few African images that circulate globally do so with little protection or fair compensation.
ATLAS is an attempt to address that infrastructure gap. By building a modern, transparent licensing platform designed for African contexts, we aim to make high-quality visual storytelling economically viable. When photographers can earn sustainably from their work, they can take greater creative risks, pursue deeper stories and invest in long-term projects. It means newsrooms can tell better and more ambitious stories (or at the very least avoid litigation!).
In that sense, ATLAS operates under the vision that better infrastructure leads to better stories, and that African narratives deserve systems that value them properly. ATLAS was developed through a Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge award.
In our conversation, you shared your thoughts about the role of collaboration between independent outlets. Traditionally media outlets have always seen each other as competition that could eat into each other’s audiences. How would you present your case to someone who looks at collaboration as detrimental to profit?
The idea that media organizations must always see one another as competitors is deeply ingrained and increasingly counterproductive. In markets such as Nigeria, where independent media operates under intense financial and political pressure, this mindset has made quality journalism more expensive, riskier and more fragile than it needs to be.
Collaboration matters on multiple levels: editorial partnerships, shared infrastructure, joint distribution and even commercial cooperation. Pooling resources (whether technology, legal expertise, data or distribution) can significantly lower costs while increasing reach and impact. Yet one of the most under-discussed areas where collaboration is urgently needed is human capital.
Across the media industry, there is a growing skills gap. Educational systems are not designed to produce well-rounded media professionals with strong fundamentals in reporting, editing, ethics, audience thinking and business literacy. Many people enter journalism by accident or as a hobby, often without structured training in its core principles. Every independent newsroom feels this strain: time and resources are spent retraining staff, correcting foundational gaps and trying to build leadership capacity internally.
No single media organization can solve this problem alone. This is where collaboration becomes genuinely transformative. Coordinated workshops, shared internship pipelines, fellowships and training programs – run through networks of credible independent outlets – could raise the baseline quality of talent across the ecosystem. Instead of each newsroom reinventing the wheel, we could collectively train the next generation of journalists, editors, designers and media leaders, exposing them to different editorial cultures while grounding them in shared standards of rigour, ethics and public service.
This kind of collaboration does not weaken competitiveness; it strengthens it. By reducing duplication, lowering risk and investing collectively in skills formation, independent media becomes more resilient. If we continue to treat talent development as a proprietary advantage rather than shared infrastructure, we risk hollowing out the very ecosystem on which we depend.
Lastly, as a founder, do you have any predictions about where the independent media might be heading in terms of the future of media products, business models and challenges?
I am cautiously optimistic about the future of independent media, particularly in Africa. Audiences are becoming more discerning. There is a growing appetite for quality, depth and context, alongside an increasing willingness to pay for media that treats readers with respect.
That said, the challenges are real. The global grants landscape is shifting, especially as funding priorities change in the United States. This makes it even more urgent for the Global South to fund and sustain its own media ecosystems. Reader-generated revenue (subscriptions, memberships and direct support) will be essential to long-term growth.
The future belongs to outlets that combine editorial excellence with operational discipline; that build products as well as stories; and that treat audiences as partners rather than passive consumers. Quality will remain king, but only if we build the systems that allow quality journalism to endure.
This article is a part of our special 30th anniversary coverage.