Good afternoon and As-Salaam-Alaikum to each of you.
There’s a moment I care deeply about in this work: that’s when you finish reading a story and something finally makes sense. You understand who made the decision, who paid the price, and why the explanation you were given never quite added up. I want The North Star to keep giving you that clarity—and I need your help to make that possible.
I spend hours and hours each day studying, researching, and learning so that I can vet stories and tell you the truth about the world.
And I am only able to do that because of you.
Please become a paid member of The North Star today.
And if you’d prefer to support my work with a one-time contribution, you can do that here through Buy Me a Coffee.
Let me tell you why I’m asking.
For the past 15 years, my mission as a journalist has been to tell stories nobody else is telling, expose corruption and bigotry for what they are, and hold powerful people accountable, no matter what it costs me. Underneath all of that is a conviction I’ve never been willing to give up: people deserve to know what is being done in their name, with their money, and to their neighbors.
You deserve enough information to reach your own conclusions. You deserve context that helps you recognize a pattern instead of seeing every injustice as some isolated incident. And the people living through those injustices deserve sustained attention, even after their suffering stops being a popular subject.
Doing that well requires more than having a strong opinion. It requires reading past the headline, finding the original source, checking what a document actually says, and being willing to change your understanding when the evidence demands it. Sometimes the most useful thing I can do is slow down and explain something carefully when everything around us is moving at a hundred miles an hour.
Your support helps make that time possible.
And it helps preserve the freedom to use it honestly.
I’ve had to reckon with what that freedom means for my own career. When you speak the way I speak, there isn’t a place for you in mainstream media—anywhere in the world. Maintaining that access requires playing by a certain set of rules. I don’t play by those rules.
I cannot let the possibility of an invitation, a job, or somebody’s approval determine whether I ask a necessary question. If someone has power over other people’s lives, their actions deserve scrutiny. Being well connected, wealthy, or politically useful cannot be a free pass.
But I also have to be honest about the practical side of that choice. I live and die by the support of everyday people. People reading on their lunch break. People who forward an article to a friend because it explains something they’ve been trying to put into words. People who care about what happens to families they may never meet.
People like you.
That’s why I’m asking directly today. If you value what you read here, and you have room in your budget, please help sustain it.
Becoming a paid member of The North Star provides ongoing support I can plan around. That matters because the work continues between the stories you see. There is always another question to investigate, another explanation to examine, another piece that needs the time to get it right.
I also know that some of you prefer to give once rather than take on another subscription. I want you to have that option, too. You can make a one-time contribution through my Buy Me a Coffee page. That is another meaningful way to help me keep going.
You don’t need to do both. Choose what works for you.
And if you can’t give right now, please hear me: I’m grateful you’re here. Keep reading and sharing. A thoughtful conversation about a story, or a link sent to somebody who needs to understand it, has value. I’m asking those who can contribute to help sustain a publication that others can turn to as well.
To those already supporting me, thank you. You make it possible for me to sit down and do this work with a community behind me. I take that responsibility seriously. You deserve care, rigor, honesty, and the willingness to keep learning from the journalist you support.
There is plenty I cannot promise you about the world we’re living in. I can tell you what I intend to keep doing: paying attention, following the evidence, explaining what I find, and refusing to treat anybody’s suffering as unworthy of our concern.
If that’s work you want to help continue, join The North Star as a paid member or make a one-time contribution here.
I still have so many stories I want to tell you. Thank you for helping me tell them.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun
