Can Laurene Powell Jobs Save Storytelling?

Over the last few years, Luarene Powell Jobs, an activist, investor and entrepreneur, has been investing in media companies through her social impact firm, Emerson Collective. Buying up a range of unusual properties, she seems to be making an effort to turbocharge storytelling in this fractured digital age. It’s an interesting experiment to watch, because the investments include a panoply of the cool, hip and fresh in a mostly glum content industry. On Nov 27, Emerson announced that it had bought Pop-Up Magazine Productions, which runs innovative and decidedly quirky “live magazine” events across the country and publishes The California Sunday Magazine. Emerson has also sprinkled money all over nonprofit journalism, including at ProPublica, Mother Jones, The Marshall Project, the Committee to Protect Journalists, StoryCorps, Lawfare, Texas Observer and Chalkbeat.