Leaflet · a snapshot, not an Issue
What might the supply to Grok be worth?
An illustrative companion to Issue 03 — putting rough numbers on what the progressive-media cohort feeds AI, and a demonstration of what a properly resourced version could become.
⚠ Illustrative model — recognized methods, bullish stated assumptions. Not a quote, not an appraisal.
What this is
Issue 03 makes a structural claim — that the progressive-media cohort (the 159 active US outlets Issue 02 mapped: independent and nonprofit newsrooms, think tanks and policy analysts, and individual journalists producing original work) is a load-bearing, unpaid supplier to Grok's grounding moat — and deliberately puts no dollar figure on any single outlet, because that number is held privately by xAI. This leaflet does something lighter: it asks what a defensible model produces under stated assumptions, using methods banks and investors actually use. A back-of-envelope built carefully, not a valuation — the kind of thing a developer with real data access could turn into something rigorous.
The honest version
This leaflet was assembled quickly, from real methodological parts, to illustrate a point — like a model built from a kit. It holds together because the methods are real. It is bullish because its assumptions are. A developer with access to the right data — real per-outlet traffic and revenue, the actual citation-graph centrality, sourced comparable rates, and low/base/high sensitivity bands — could build this into something genuinely useful. This is the snapshot that shows it is worth building.
The model, in brief
Three recognized methods, combined. Comparable transactions set a base annual licensing value by revenue tier, anchored to disclosed AI–publisher deals, multiplied by a citation-band premium — the network-centrality factor. An income approach capitalizes the back-catalog. And a grounding-utility index (1–100) measures how load-bearing an outlet is for keeping a model accurate — expressed as an index, never as dollars.
Annual license
—
comparables × band premium
3-yr collective
—
rate + partial archive
Grounding index
—
1–100, relative
⚠ Illustrative — recognized methods, bullish assumptions, not a quote
The valuation registry
Open the 159-entity valuation registry →
The full version behind this leaflet: all three pathways, the member-return/rebate model, and the full entity table. Same caveats, more depth.
The valuation registry opens in a new tab, so this page stays open behind it to return to.
Why a leaflet, not an Issue
Open Issues' standard for an Issue is that every claim resolves to a source a reader can examine. This model can't meet that bar — its inputs are assumptions, not receipts. Calling it a leaflet is the honest label: lighter, exploratory, clearly marked as a snapshot. It earns its place by making Issue 03's argument tangible and by being transparent about exactly what it is and isn't.
A note on this leaflet
Produced through substantial AI-assisted analysis under sole-author editorial direction; the model used is Anthropic's Claude — the same disclosure standard applied across Open Issues. The interactive figures are illustrative model output, not appraisals.
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