Why I Took My Voice to Substack

In a World on Fire, This Is Media with a Backbone

Friends,

In a World on Fire, This Is Media with a Backbone. As the Substack announcement today said, A Media future to believe in..

If you don’t understand Substack and have connected with this post via another platform, then you need to go check out Substack for yourself. Why?

Substack just raised $100 million to back independent voices.
Let that sink in.

While legacy media fights for clicks and billionaires shape the news we see, a new media economy is rising one built on direct connection, mutual trust, and the radical idea that truth-telling still matters.

I’m not just here to write.
I’m here to be part of that shift.

Image Credit: Substack

Substack isn’t just a platform it’s a publishing rebellion.
It’s flipping the old business model upside down: no gatekeepers, no ad algorithms, no editorial chains. Just creators and communities. Trust for trust. Truth for truth.

I came to Substack because I needed a space where stories like mine could finally breathe. I joined in May alongside a wave of other Australians and found it perfect for writing long-form giving depth to complex systems and weekly letters to my subscribers.

Curious who's here? Start with some familiar names: Sarah Wilson writes This is Precious from Paris, reflecting on how to live in a collapsing world. John Birmingham runs two newsletters Alien Sideboob for politics and Cheeseburger Gothic for whatever his dog’s done now. Even George Christensen is here with Nation First, one of Australia’s biggest followings (yes, really).

Globally, big names like Paul Krugman, Jim Acosta, Tina Brown, and Heather Cox Richardson (whose Letters from an American reportedly earns over $8 million a year) have all made the leap. Substack isn’t just a platform—it’s a publishing movement.

Go explore. You’ll find your people.

So what do I write: What I write isn’t always comfortable. I talk about betrayal inside systems that were meant to protect us healthcare, workers’ compensation, the law. I write about moral injury, power misuse, and the slow erosion of hope in public life. Not everyone wants those stories told.

But they must be.

I am also increasingly writing about HEALING & HOPE. We must all take time out to Self Care.

Substack gives me a space to do that on my own terms.
And you my readers have given me the reason to keep going.

Every week, your messages remind me why this matters. In my first weeks here I was amazed that people actually valued my voice. I thought I was a lone voice that no one heard but some of you sent money quietly via a subscription to my Substack, Take Back The Frame, with messages that read, “I figured you needed this to keep going.”
That generosity is more than financial. It’s spiritual.

It tells me: You hear me.
You’re with me.
You believe this work should exist.

I’m not alone in this. Substack has become a refuge for journalists once bound by legacy contracts, now liberated to ask the questions no one else will. It’s also home to a remarkable community of healthcare professional doctors, psychologists, and researchers determined to change the narrative from the inside.

I admire their courage deeply. They remind me that telling the story is a form of care.

And care is exactly what the world needs right now.

With geopolitical tensions rising, disinformation spreading, and social trust in collapse, we’re being pulled further into division, despair, and fatigue. The noise is relentless. The grief, unprocessed. The harm, ongoing.

But here’s what I believe deeply:
We can take back the frame.

We can’t use the traditional channels however because they are embodied with the patriarchy fighting for its very survival. But while the patriarchy tries to figure out how they maintain control in their crumbling domains….

We can reconnect. We can rehumanize. We can resist the systems that reduce us to data, diagnoses, or dollar signs.
We can speak truth not to destroy, but to heal.
To warn. To offer hope. To begin again.

Oh, I so believe in HOPE.

Substack just gave us $100 million worth of runway. and HOPE
Not to play safe.
But to fly.

So if you’re here welcome.
You’re not just reading a newsletter.
You’re joining a movement.

Let’s build something fearless. Something nourishing.
Something rooted in integrity, compassion, and a refusal to be silenced.

This is media with a backbone.
And I promise you this voice won’t flinch.

Subscribe. Support. Share. This is how we take back the frame together.

👉 Coming in Monday’s Letter:
How the Social Insurance sector from Workers’ Compensation to the NDIS enables the abuse of women when they are at their most vulnerable. There is a pattern to all of this. See the evidence in Workers’ Compensation.

Become a subscriber to be the first to read it. And to be part of the solution.

Enough.

When women leaders get breast cancer, they deserve care not headlines that strip away their dignity.
When vulnerable women seek help from systems like Workers’ Compensation or the NDIS, they deserve protection not betrayal.

“It’s shocking she has been left in the firing line. She has taken the flak of 56,000 people.” - A petition was set up and 56,000 people signed. The board of the NDIS stayed silent until this week.

This is how abuse hides in plain sight.

This is how power deflects blame.

This is why we take back the frame.

Subscribe. Support. Share.
Because we are done being collateral damage and allowing women to be scapegoated like this.