Kogod School of Business
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Freedom Media Innovation Lab

Empowering Journalists to
Become Media Entrepreneurs  

We set out to help current and former Voice of America (VOA) and U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) journalists launch entrepreneurial, mission-driven media ventures. Nine ventures and $420,000 later, we have.

Over four weeks of bootcamp and a two-day pitch competition, the Freedom Media Innovation Lab provided training, mentorship, and startup funding to journalists building fact-based, English-language and non-English-language media businesses. Our inaugural cohort turned reporting instincts into venture plans. The result is nine new media companies serving audiences from Bangladesh to the Global South to the Tibetan diaspora, each one built to be credible and sustainable.

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What to Expect

Press freedom, meet business model 

The Freedom Media Innovation Lab, run by American University's Kogod School of Business, supports current and former VOA and USAGM journalists in launching mission-driven media ventures through training, mentorship, and startup funding. The goal is simple to state and hard to do: build media outlets that are both credible and self-sustaining, in places where democratic values are under threat.

We are located in Washington, DC, which happens to be where many of these journalists already were, and where the expertise to help them, from entrepreneurship faculty to tax policy scholars to a university president who has spent a career in public service and private investment, lives down the hall.

Three phases, one summer

Phase 1: Entrepreneurship & AI Bootcamp. Four Thursday evenings in July at AU's Don Myers Technology and Innovation Building. Participants learned the Lean Startup method and built a Business Model Canvas (Danielle Vogel, Veloric Center for Entrepreneurship); put AI tools to work on content, audience insight, and operations (Shawn Janzen); built a 12-month financial model and got a crash course in small-business tax (Susan Apgood and Caroline Bruckner, Kogod Tax Policy Center); and learned to pitch a media brand (Dina Inverso, School of Communication). AU President Dave Marchick moderated a panel on entrepreneurship in new media.

Phase 2: Venture Competition. On August 18 and 19, bootcamp graduates pitched to judges from journalism, business, and investment. Twelve minutes to present, eight to defend. Ventures were scored on impact, market need, sustainability, and team strength.

Phase 3: Incubation. Funded teams receive between $35,000 and $50,000 each, plus access to AU facilities, mentorship, and the university's media community through the end of 2026.

Meet Cohort 1

Nine ventures. Nine underserved audiences. $420,000 to get started.

Tiny Mighty News

Millions of people across the Global South have no trusted local news, which makes it harder to hold officials accountable or get timely information in an emergency. Tiny Mighty News is an AI-powered platform that turns community members into contributors, with AI agents under human oversight writing, verifying, and distributing each story.

Ardently

An app-first magazine for community-minded Gen Z and millennial readers who want to expand their taste in culture, fashion, food, and travel without the doomscroll. Ardently pairs voice-driven journalism and vertical video with community features, delivering fewer, better recommendations that connect culture with sustainability, ethics, and real-life follow-through.

UNMUTED

Honest, informed conversation for women ages 25–55 on the issues shaping their lives, connecting lived experience with balanced journalism, research, and expert insight. Selected content will reach Russian-speaking audiences, including in countries where women's rights face significant challenges. UNMUTED aims to build a global community of women who feel heard, informed, and equipped to drive change.

Free Post

Bangladesh has 170 million people, 60 percent of them under 35, and a generation losing trust in traditional media. Free Post is an AI-powered bilingual newsroom: Bangla interviews and explainers shaped by audience questions for Bangladeshi youth, and a premium English newsletter delivering trusted on-the-ground analysis for U.S. policymakers, businesses, researchers, and the diaspora.

Veridia | Beyond Headlines

Most people see U.S.–China relations through a single language and media ecosystem, and context gets lost. Veridia brings together experts from English- and Chinese-speaking communities to examine how the same events are understood in each, giving professionals, students, journalists, and policymakers the context to form their own views and helping fill the gap left by the contraction of VOA's China coverage.

Asia Forward

Southeast Asia is one of the world's fastest-growing regions, and most U.S. audiences know little about its markets. Asia Forward is an English-language video podcast featuring regional and global leaders, built for U.S. executives, investors, policymakers, and researchers, and for Southeast Asian leaders who want to build relationships with U.S. companies.

Agasaro Media Network (The Bridge Conversation)

Founded by former Radio Free Asia Senior Editor Dorjee Damdul, The Bridge Conversation serves Tibetans inside Tibet and across the diaspora, along with policymakers, researchers, and journalists seeking credible information about Tibet and China. It fills the vacuum left by the closure of RFA and VOA Tibetan-language services with breaking news, interviews, documentaries, and analysis.

Pulso

Young Latin American and diaspora audiences get their news on TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and WhatsApp, and disinformation reaches them faster than fact-checks do. Pulso uses an AI-assisted, human-controlled newsroom workflow to detect viral claims, verify them, and turn them into clear, social-first video explainers at the speed disinformation spreads.

Uyghur Rights Monitor

A watchdog initiative founded in 2023 that produces focused policy briefs and investigative reports on the systems and perpetrators behind repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in the Uyghur Region. URM equips activists, human rights defenders, and policymakers with timely data, critical analysis, and actionable insights to expose abuses and hold officials accountable.

Stay in the loop

The inaugural cohort is in incubation at American University through December 2026, and we'll share their milestones as they happen. Want to hear how the ventures are doing, or be first to know if the Lab runs again? Leave us your email. We promise to use it sparingly and only for good.

Ready to Apply?
Apply Here →

Program contact

Susan Apgood
Program Lead
Freedom Media Innovation Lab
Email Susan Apgood
Biography

Susan Matthews Apgood is the founder of News Generation, a premier media relations firm which she launched in 1997, and sold to 4media group in April of 2020. In August of 2025, she became a full-time professor at American University in the Kogod School of Business.
In 2016, Apgood became an adjunct professor in the Kogod School of Business at American University teaching Women in Organizational Leadership, Business Ethics and Introduction to Business. In August of 2022, she a colleague won the Ann Ferren Curriculum Design Award for best course design of their class Women in Organizational Leadership. The leadership course became a permanent course on AU’s curriculum in October of 2023. Apgood received recognition with an Adjunct Award from the Management Department in April of 2024. In August of 2025, Apgood became a full-time professor in the Kogod School of Business.
Apgood is on the board of the International Women’s Forum in Washington DC and served as the vice president of communications in 2024 and 2025; and in 2026, is vice president of communications. She serves on the board of the Catholic Business Network of Montgomery County as treasurer and chaired the annual gala in 2025. She is also the co-chair of the Georgetown Preparatory Parents’ Club.
Apgood is active in a number of public relations associations, including Washington Women in Public Relations. She was on the board for eight years total, most recently serving as treasurer from January 2019 to 2022, and now serves on WWPR’s Advisory Board. Apgood was a finalist for WWPR’s Woman of the Year in 2023. She is also active in the Public Relations Society of America, National Capital Chapter, and was on the board of directors for 13 years. In November of 2022, she was inducted into the PRSA-NCC Hall of Fame.
Apgood earned her MBA in finance from American University and BA in economics from George Washington University. For fun, she does yoga and plays golf. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and three sons.

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Co-Sponsored by the Veloric Center for Entrepreneurship, the Kogod School of Business, and the School of Communication.