Moonshot Press
Reimagining Media for a Thriving Democracy
Hello, Friend.
I’m Shimon Waldfogel, the founder and publisher of Moonshot Press. I’m glad you’re here, and I want to tell you — personally — why this project matters so much to me.
Moonshot Press grew out of a single conviction I’ve carried for a long time: that democracy thrives only when every person, whatever their background, has a genuine chance to reach their fullest potential — and a real voice in the decisions that shape their life. That conviction is the heart of everything we do.
For years I worked as a clinical psychiatrist. That work taught me something I’ve never been able to set aside: people are not fragile in the way we often assume. Given understanding, given the right tools, and given a sense that their effort genuinely matters, ordinary people are remarkably capable of meeting hard challenges together. What breaks people down is not difficulty itself — it’s facing difficulty while feeling powerless and alone. I came to believe that what’s true for a person is also true for a republic.
That insight led me, after years of reflection, to a question I couldn’t put down: What would journalism look like if its purpose were not just to inform citizens, but to equip them? Moonshot Press is my attempt at an answer.
We live in genuinely uncertain times. Polarization is fracturing our communities. Barriers to opportunity remain stubbornly in place. And artificial intelligence is reshaping work and daily life faster than our institutions can adapt. It would be easy to meet all of this with anxiety — and I’ll admit I feel some of it myself. But I’ve come to see this moment not only as a danger, but as an invitation: a chance to finally close the gap between the promise our founders made and the reality too many Americans still live.
That’s why Moonshot Press delves into the issues at the intersection of democracy, health, media, technology, and community life — and why we never stop at naming what’s broken. We build the tools, the frameworks, and the community that let you do something about it. A platform where your voice doesn’t just resonate, but enacts real change.
As we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, I keep returning to the revolutionary idea at the center of it all: that government exists by the consent of the governed — and that we, the people, must continuously breathe life into that promise. The work the founders began isn’t finished. In many ways, it’s only beginning. And it belongs to us now.
I’m honored by your interest, and genuinely hopeful about what we can build together. I invite you to join me at the very start of this journey.
Let’s aim high, stay courageous, and build the democracy our children deserve.
Warm regards,
Shimon Waldfogel
Founder & Publisher, Moonshot Press
What follows is a brief introduction to Moonshot Press, and then a more detailed one for readers who want the fuller picture.
The Unfinished Promise
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These words launched a nation 250 years ago. For too many Americans, they remain unfulfilled.
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, the distance between our founding promise and our lived reality has rarely felt so stark. Polarization fractures communities. Barriers to opportunity stay entrenched. Millions of people feel powerless to shape the systems that govern their lives. And artificial intelligence is now reshaping work and society faster than our institutions can adapt.
Moonshot Press is driven by a simple conviction: the promise of the Declaration of Independence isn’t history — it’s our unfinished work.
A free press has always been the instrument through which a self-governing people holds that promise to account. The republic the founders designed cannot function without citizens who are genuinely informed — and it cannot endure without citizens who are genuinely equipped to act. That is the role we take up.
We’re Building Something Different
Moonshot Press is an ambitious, AI-supported initiative testing whether everyday citizens — given the right tools, insights, and frameworks — can finally make those founding principles real for everyone.
We’re part newsroom, part civic laboratory. We don’t just report on democracy’s failures — we build the infrastructure to fix them. Our journalism doesn’t only inform you. It equips you to complete what 1776 began.
We are independent, non-partisan, and entirely subscriber-supported. We answer to you and to the principles of our shared social contract — not to advertisers, not to algorithms, not to any party.Translating Promise into Action: Three Pillars
The Declaration’s principles — equality, life, and liberty — aren’t abstractions. They’re a blueprint for modern life. We’ve translated each into a concrete commitment.
DEMOCRACY — Make “Created Equal” Real When participation is limited to voting once every few years, equality stays theoretical. We give you the tools to understand and influence the systems that shape your life — turning the promise of an equal voice into daily practice.
OPPORTUNITY — Ensure “Life” Means Flourishing Life isn’t mere existence; it’s the foundation for everything else. We focus on creating real pathways to flourishing through holistic health creation — physical, emotional, and social wellbeing as the infrastructure for human potential.
CITIZENSHIP — Make “Liberty” Active, Not Passive Liberty without the power to shape governance is an empty promise. We provide the roadmaps and the community to transform civic frustration into civic power — making you an architect of freedom, not merely its beneficiary.
Why Now Matters
America’s 250th anniversary isn’t just a milestone — it’s a reckoning.
Geopolitical tension. Social fracture. AI reshaping reality faster than our institutions can keep pace. We can either let these forces widen the gap between founding promise and lived reality, or we can use them as the catalyst that finally bridges it.
The traditional media model — report, rinse, repeat — won’t get us there. Democracy needs journalism that builds citizenship, not journalism that only covers it.
The vision that launched America 250 years ago was audacious. We think it still is.
Aim high. Act boldly. Build the democracy we deserve.
A More Detailed Introduction
What follows is the fuller story — what Moonshot Journalism actually means, what we cover, the tools we put in your hands, and the principles we hold ourselves to.
Why “Moonshot”?
A moonshot is a goal so bold it looks impossible — and gets achieved anyway, through vision, dedication, and collective effort. When President Kennedy committed America to reaching the moon before the decade was out, that ambition organized the energy of an entire generation.
We believe the American experiment itself began as a moonshot. The Declaration of Independence was an assertion of inalienable rights and popular sovereignty every bit as audacious as a rocket to the moon — and just as demanding of sustained, collective commitment.
In 2026, as the country marks 250 years and faces the most consequential technological transformation since the Industrial Revolution, we think the moment calls for journalism equal to it. The AI transition isn’t a future event to brace for. It’s happening now — in office parks, hospitals, logistics centers, and professional firms in communities like ours. The people living inside that change deserve a seat at the table. Moonshot Press exists to give them that seat, and a voice.
What Makes Moonshot Journalism Different
Moonshot Journalism isn’t conventional journalism with loftier ideals bolted on. It’s a different relationship between a newsroom and the people it serves. Five things define it.
1. Political, Not Partisan
We dig into the roots of the issues that shape your life, with rigorous analysis and perspectives drawn from many disciplines. Our aim is a healthy democratic process — not a political agenda. The AI workforce challenge cuts across party lines, and we cover it that way, holding that discipline even when a partisan frame would be easier and spread faster.
2. Solutions, Not Slogans
Identifying a problem is the easy part. A story about AI displacement that ends with the scale of the crisis and no path forward doesn’t inform you — it just adds to the anxiety. So every piece we publish connects its analysis to specific actions you can take, specific resources available to you, and specific decision-makers accountable for the outcome.
3. The Health Standard
We borrow a foundational insight from public health: the most useful question isn’t only “What causes disease?” but “What creates health?” Applied to civic life, that means every story should strengthen three things in the people who read it:
What We Build and What it Means to You
Understanding: Context, causes, and how things actually work — not just what happened. We make complexity navigable without dumbing it down.
Capability: Every problem we raise is connected to tools, pathways, and actions within your reach. We never leave you with a problem and no way to act.
Meaning: We connect local events to a larger purpose, so you can see your stake in the outcome and why your effort is worth making.
4. You’re the Author, Not the Audience
We are not the experts in the room explaining things to children. We’re fellow citizens handing you tools for self-governance. We will never tell you how to vote, what to care about, or what to choose. Instead, we present the strongest version of each side of a contested question, show our reasoning, and trust you to reach your own conclusions.
5. From Your Block to the Nation’s Capital
We cover the through-line from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania all the way to Washington, D.C., because civic actions are connected. Our hyperlocal lab — Thrive in Montco PA — is the living proof of concept: a demonstration that citizen-driven coverage works in a real, specific place with real people, before it scales to communities across the country.
“The primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.” — The Elements of Journalism
How We're Different From Traditional Media
The Citizen Toolbox
Information alone doesn’t create change. You need a method. The Citizen Toolbox turns problems that feel intractable into challenges you can actually take on.
Ecosystem Tools & Tracers — interactive maps that make your political landscape visible
Citizen Briefs — concise, actionable documents that reframe a challenge as a roadmap
Case Presentations — a clinical, diagnostic format applied to societal issues
Deliberative Forums — sustained dialogue among citizens, experts, and policymakers
Checklists — simple steps that demystify civic engagement
What We Cover
Our journalism spans five connected areas — because a resilient society requires systems thinking, not siloed headlines.
Democracy — expanding meaningful participation well beyond the ballot box
Community — showcasing collective action as the antidote to isolation
Health — championing prevention and well-being over reactive, after-the-fact medicine
Technology — ensuring AI serves democratic values rather than eroding them
Media — modeling the kind of responsible journalism democracy actually demands
Our Major Initiatives
🏛️ The People’s Commission on Technology and the American Future Steering Artificial Intelligence Toward Human Flourishing
This is where we’re starting. The People’s Commission is a citizen-led body — workers, families, educators, technologists, healthcare practitioners, and local leaders — deliberating seriously about how to harness AI for the common good while protecting against its real harms. We are not anti-technology. We are pro-democracy and pro-flourishing. AI is already accelerating drug discovery, expanding access for people with disabilities, and giving small businesses tools that used to require a team — and it is simultaneously reshaping work faster than any institution in our democracy is prepared to handle. The Commission exists because the people building this technology are organized, and the people living inside the transition are not.
Two working drafts anchor the Commission’s work right now, and both are open to public deliberation:
The Democracy Stack — the Commission’s analytical framework. A citizen’s map of where power lives in self-government, and where AI is now entering every layer of it. The Stack names both the risks (mass surveillance, algorithmic decision-making without due process, the erosion of local journalism) and the opportunities (better-informed citizens, more accessible public services, stronger tools for civic deliberation itself).
The American Humanity Trust — the Commission’s flagship policy proposal. A framework for directing a meaningful share of the unprecedented wealth AI is generating back to the public from which it emerged: toward worker transition, the First 1,000 Days of human development, AI tools built for the public interest, and the community foundations that make a free society possible.
Read the full introduction to the People’s Commission →
The First 1,000 Days Early childhood isn’t just a family matter — it’s civic infrastructure. From conception through age two, the vast majority of brain architecture is established. So a housing story is an early-childhood story. So is an environmental story, and an economic one. We keep the youngest members of every community visible in the policy decisions that will shape their futures.
The 2026 Election Initiative We’re reframing the midterms as a 250-year checkpoint. By focusing on the fundamentals — inequality, polarization, AI’s impact on the social contract, health justice, and democratic renewal — we help citizens decide what kind of democracy they want for the next quarter-millennium.
Founding Principles: Rituals for Modern Citizens A long-term effort to meet our cultural moment not through legislation but through culture itself — built on the idea that we need not just better policy, but a better shared national story and the non-political rituals to tell it.
Reimagine the Constitution A fearless re-examination of our founding charter for the AI age. How do 18th-century principles meet 21st-century complexity? We ask the hard questions out loud.
Hyperlocal Labs — Thrive in Montco PA Our pilot in Montgomery County, testing how local civic initiatives can scale to the rest of the country.
Informed Opinions & Shrink Notes Sharp commentary that cuts through the noise — including Shrink Notes, a psychologically-informed column on government, health, and the human mind.
A Note on How We Use AI — and How We Don’t
We use AI openly, and we hold it to a strict rule: AI recommends, humans decide. Always.
AI helps us research, synthesize, and sharpen drafts. It never makes the final call on what gets published, how a story is framed, or what we stand for. Every publication that involved AI assistance says so plainly — not buried in fine print, but stated as a civic argument in its own right: that AI, governed transparently and deployed in service of people, can strengthen human flourishing rather than undermine it.
That transparency is the point. We publish the principles that govern how our tools behave, so you can read them, challenge them, and hold us to them.
This Is Your Invitation
Moonshot Press is independent, non-partisan, and entirely subscriber-supported. That means we answer to you and to the principles of our shared social contract — not to advertisers, not to algorithms, not to any party.
By subscribing, you’re not just reading. You’re joining a community testing whether informed, empowered citizens can still bend the arc of history — toward a society where every child has the foundation to flourish, and every citizen has the power to shape our collective future.
How to Get Involved
Moonshot Press is more than a media outlet — it’s a belief in action. Democracy flourishes when its citizens are well-informed and actively involved.
Join Events Zoom webinars and in-person events introducing Moonshot Press, the People’s Commission. These gatherings are the first step into a community dedicated to civic renewal. Mark your calendar for upcoming events including the Children’s Health Commission and “What Do We Owe Future Generations?”
Subscribe Stay informed and inspired with exclusive updates, resources, and calls to action. Subscribing to Moonshot Press on Substack is free and is the primary way to stay connected to the work.
Participate Join deliberative platforms. Your voice and insights are crucial to shaping our initiatives.
Contribute: Help shape our mission by sharing your expertise, writing articles, or proposing projects.
Give Feedback Our greatest strength is our collective intelligence. Let us know what’s working and what needs improvement.
Spread the Word Forward this document, invite a friend to subscribe, or share on social media to grow our community of active citizens.
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson
Show up. Deliberate. Demand. Vote. Repeat.
Moonshot Press: Your Launchpad for a Thriving Democracy
