Welcome to Walking Duck — Better News for a New Era

Today, I’m proud to announce along with my co-founding colleagues Audra Wilke and Mark Halperin a new information, news and media company — Walking Duck.

Journalism, in many ways, is broken. We watch, read, comment on, retweet and engage with reporting we either wholeheartedly agree with or absorb what we find shocking. There’s a better, middle ground. If you’re a regular MSNBC viewer, I don’t expect you to go watch Fox News for two hours a day or vice versa, but there is good reporting done every day on stories that you need to know about. We all just need to find them.

With the end of the Trump Era, we’re left looking back at the damage the president and the media themselves have done to the reputation of journalism: “Fake news!”, “Lamestream media!” and cries of partisan bias or agendas on both sides of the political spectrum.

Add to the mix a crippling pandemic that has seen the size of newsroom budgets slashed, and we’re left both with challenges and opportunities that the news industry has to address head-on for 2021.

That’s where Walking Duck comes walking in.

Before the pandemic was a dark glimmer in our eyes, I had a fortuitous lunch meeting with Mark Halperin. Over murgh makhani, naan and Old Monk and Coke, we discussed a lot of topics that are relevant to why you’re reading this. We talked about the state of news today, the state of politics — and how we thought things could be improved. We also talked about our favorite Elvis Costello tracks. And we cleared some air about part of Mark’s past.

What emerged from that meeting was a clear vision of what Walking Duck should be, and a shared sense of what was needed to make this happen.

So what is that?

Walking Duck is a news platform consisting of a website, a newsletter, a broadcast production operation and a business platform all designed to deliver information and “news you need now” rather than “news you can use.” Walking Duck merges news aggregation, fresh journalistic content, and impartial political insight to create a reliable and informative news platform for consumers of media content that covers every topic that is capturing public attention in every news cycle.

• WalkingDuck.com: Our website is where you can go to get the news stories you should be following right now. It’s part analysis, part human-curated content designed to quickly and accurately provide you with the news you need now. It’s the human-curation aspect that we think is very important. We will only post those stories that are credible (we are fact checking and eliminating left/right bias) and informative. We’re not providing clickbait, nor will we put a story on Walking Duck for the sole purpose of generating views. If it’s news you need to know now, you’ll find it on Walking Duck, along with our efforts to highlight and annotate the best stories, videos, podcasts, tweets, and stuff to watch on TV. Always with an emphasis on what happens next, as opposed to what already happened.

• Mark Halperin’s Wide World of News (read and subscribe here): You may already be familiar with Mark’s morning newsletter. We’re proud to bring the newsletter under the Walking Duck umbrella, as it’s a great “first read” of the day, enjoyed already by many of the country’s leading figures in business, media, government, and politics. Mark brings his informative take on the latest news with a dose of humor and rigorous impartiality.

• Walking Duck Productions: In April 2020, we commenced filming and editing videos for Wide World of News; since then we’ve also been a full video production company that also produces a weekly network TV show, Mark Halperin’s Focus Group, for Newsmax. We will continue to produce valuable visual news content, podcasts and webinars.

• Walking Duck B2B/B2C: The news media isn’t the money maker it used to be, so we’ve decided to bring our relevant skill set to the B2B and B2C world. Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve learned that video communications is not only a great way to connect with your employees, but it’s also a fantastic way to engage and better understand your customers. With Walking Duck B2B/B2C productions, we develop content that can be used internally, shared with media or provide invaluable intel for your business.

How are we different from the other content that is out there and which you consume already? Most news coverage relies on lazy tropes, tediously repetitive invective, and assumptions not backed by legitimate data. We see an opportunity to use the latest in online and video platform technology and a true 24/7 orientation to feed the discerning media consumers’ hunger for the most up-to-date information in general news, politics, sports, tech, business, and entertainment.

And who the hell are we? We are a small, scrappy team of journalists, researchers, communications experts and news junkies. Audra, Mark and I brought the Duck into the world: I’m a former (and again) journalist, communications specialist and founder/CEO of Upright Position Communications and Mark is a the multi-hyphenated journalist/political analyst/author (Game Change, How to Beat Trump) and co-creator of Showtime’s The Circus. Audra is the true brains behind the operation, as executive producer of the Focus Group and head of business operations. We are combining our decades of collective journalistic experience, political insight, and marketing and communications expertise to give birth to our Walking Duck, to fill the gaps that are not being addressed by broadcast, online, or print media outlets today. Our small staff of people (and growing!) are committed to keeping content fresh and relevant.

This is a long way of saying that we’re here for you and look forward to connecting.

Our commitment to you: Each day we will look at the stories making news, not stories that have already happened and make sense of the information that’s out there. You deserve that. We all do.

Keep on Duckin’!