Why we are launching a new kind of news organization this July 4
I have a love-hate relationship with the news. I love it because being informed helps us make better decisions. I dislike it because modern news is engineered to make us feel miserable.
The modern news business is structured to make money from attention, and attention pays best when the reader feels outrage, anger, fear or greed. So those are the feelings the business produces. To create them, news organizations sensationalize, personalize and embellish — framing every story as us versus them, right versus wrong, and preying on our doubts, insecurities and guilt.
Why report every crime in dramatic detail, when a simple map of areas to avoid would serve the reader better? Why publish article after article speculating on a politician’s words, when a plain record of their votes and positions would tell us what we actually need to know?
All of us have the same finite amount of time each day. Every minute spent reading a story you did not need is a minute taken from work that creates value or from love that builds joy. Life is not meant for misery. Life is meant for joy.
There are two kinds of joy. The momentary kind — a sugar high, a hit of validation, a pleasure that fades by morning — and the lasting kind that grows over a lifetime. The lasting kind follows a simple formula:
Lasting Joy = Value Created × Love Created.
The person who creates great value but little love does not reach joy. The person who creates great love but little value does not reach joy either. Joy lives where both are present, and it multiplies as both grow.
Both factors begin with the self, but one usually comes before the other.
The first factor is value.
A person who can create real value for others is self-sufficient. Currency may rise and fall with conditions, but a person’s capability does not. The person who creates real value rather than takes or destroys will always be needed by others, and therefore, by society.
Self-sufficiency shapes what a person brings to every relationship that follows. A person who has built capability brings value to love. This is why the path begins here.
The second factor is love.
Once capability and self-sufficiency are built, love becomes possible. Unfortunately, the dating industry is also broken. Dating businesses make money when more people sign up, so they sell dating to everyone — including the people who are not yet ready for it. The result is volume without readiness, and matches that do not produce lasting joy.
In late 2006, I launched Seeking.com to solve dating for people who have built capability. We serve only those who are ready, and the difference is measurable: by our internal numbers, eligible men on Seeking.com average 40 to 50 dates per year, against the four to 13 typical of mainstream dating apps. [FLAG: verify and source both figures before publishing — see notes]
I know Seeking.com works because I found my own success on it. I met Dana on the site in 2020. Today she is my spouse, my soulmate, my best friend and my co-CEO. From the practice of love between us, love extends to our family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, countrymen and to every other human being.
Why standards?
standards is the second piece of the same idea.
A person needs time and attention to build capability. A person needs a calm mind to love well. The information a person consumes shapes both. And the information most Americans consume today works against both.
standards is built to do what news was originally meant to do: inform people so they can make better decisions. Not sway emotions or pull readers into someone else’s fight. Just give people the facts they need to decide — then give them their time back. That time belongs to their work and to the people they love.
Our Commitments
The news we publish on standards is free. No paywall, no meter, no registration wall — and no plan to add one. Every reader will be able to reach an accurate account of the day at no cost. A free press is only free when every citizen has access.
standards is independent by design. It is being formed as a public benefit corporation under a charter, being adopted now, that no owner, advertiser, or funder — including me — can quietly set aside.
standards is fact-based and methodologically transparent. The way each story is sourced, framed and checked for bias will be visible to the reader. We will publish our own audits, whether they flatter us or not.
standards is a next-generation, AI-assisted, human-run news organization. We use AI to research, surface what is being missed, cross-reference, and balance our sources. When we use AI, we disclose it — and it never writes the story. A person does. Every word we publish is written, reviewed and signed off by humans, so we can confidently stand behind everything we publish.
The Date
We are launching standards on Saturday, July 4, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. The world deserves a source of news that serves its original purpose: to keep citizens informed, help them make decisions, and give every reader their time and attention back — so we can all do more of what truly matters. Create value. Create love. Multiply both into lasting joy.
Read more at standards.com.
Sincerely,
Brandon Wade | Founder & Co-CEO
Seeking.com
