Mission

InTheFray is an online magazine for writers and artists to explore global issues and engage readers with personal perspectives and critical analysis.

Goals

• to promote global understanding and equality through the power of journalism and art.
• to function as a nonprofit entity, without relying on commercial interests for support.
• to publish superior writing and artwork in a professional manner, with the help of a large team of committed, volunteer staff.
• to produce a site that is the collective perspective of our many writers, artists, and staff members.
• to cover issues that are of interest to the progressive community (including inequality, race, gender, sexuality, and the environment), but to welcome other perspectives on these issues, so long as they meet our standards of high-quality, honest writing.

A brief history

InTheFray launched on April 9, 2001. An all-volunteer staff founded the magazine with the goal of helping readers better understand the experiences and perspectives of other people through powerful, personal stories on global issues. InTheFray has always featured original reporting — a rarity on the Web — with firsthand accounts and exclusive interviews from around the world, as well as compelling personal essays, photography, artwork, fiction, and poetry by contributors from all walks of life. Over the years, the breadth and ambition of our work have grown. We have published articles from writers and artists on all seven continents, and our content has won national recognition from journalism and advocacy organizations, including an Excellence in Online Journalism Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and nominations from the National Press Photographers Association and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (2005, 2006, and 2007). We hope you will visit often and join the debate.

To see the full list of organizations that have recognized InTheFray’s work, click here. To see the articles selected for our annual Best of InTheFray series, use the following links: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 50th issue retrospective | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001

In light of the remarkable economic and social changes — really upheavals — occurring in the world today, InTheFray's mission can only be called ambitious. The magazine’s dedicated journalists set their sights on the frontlines where identity and community are undergoing tremendous flux, climbing into the trenches to give a voice to often invisible movers and shakers, or just plain strugglers. At a time when nuanced analysis of critical issues suffers in a toxic environment of ideological ranting and corporate coziness, InTheFray provides a forum for genuine informed discussion on the Internet, which has assumed an increasingly significant role in creating a space for dissent. It fulfills the Founding Fathers’ dream, that an inquisitive and engaged journalism must inform the citizens to defend and promote real democracy. I find InTheFray’s articles stimulating and provocative, and deserving of a wide readership.

—William Julius Wilson, Harvard sociologist and National Medal of Science recipient

InTheFray is the best for making the world as one village.

—Daniel Pereira, reader

Your journal has a courageous, vibrant life of its own and for this I commend you. The living soul of your journal has inspired and consoled many hearts and minds, perhaps more than you realize.

—Michigan reader and donor