The territory opportunity
UpTrajectory was built on a simple bet: the most important business stories in America aren’t being covered, because they’re not happening in Manhattan or Silicon Valley. They’re happening on Main Street in every city — the operators who quietly built something real over twenty years, the families running a sixty-year-old HVAC shop that now serves three counties, the makers whose first real shop is their second garage.
National coverage can’t see them. Local coverage got defunded. UpTrajectory fills that gap — not by parachuting national reporters in, but by giving local editors a national-grade newsroom.
A territory edition is a local UpTrajectory magazine for a single community: one city, one metro area, one valley. It runs on the same chassis as the national edition — same brand, same editorial standards, same publishing infrastructure — but the reporting, the point of view, and the operators featured are entirely local to that territory.
What UpTrajectory provides
- The UpTrajectory masthead and brand, with a territory-specific imprint.
- A fully managed publishing stack — WordPress, video hosting (HLS with captions and transcripts), RSS, podcast distribution, CDN, security, compliance.
- A working back office: hosting, backups, uptime, paid subscription tooling when you’re ready for it.
- Access to the national editorial team for the structural calls: what’s an interview worth doing, how to frame a story, when to hold and when to publish.
- The syndicated “From the Field” feed, so your territory edition is never empty between original stories.
- An operator playbook and style guide, so you’re not inventing every editorial decision from scratch.
What a territory editor brings
- Deep knowledge of one market. Not curiosity — knowledge. You already know who the twenty operators in your city nobody’s talked to are.
- Editorial judgment. You know the difference between a profile that matters and a profile that flatters.
- Writing and interviewing chops. We’ll teach you our house style, but the sentences have to come from you.
- Willingness to report, not opine. UpTrajectory is a reporting magazine, not a commentary magazine.
- Honesty about your time. You don’t have to be full-time — many territory editors start with two posts a month — but you have to be reliable.
Economics (straightforward)
We don’t monetize on the backs of our editors. Territory editors get a share of the subscription revenue their edition generates plus a flat editorial stipend. Details are negotiated individually because every market is different, but the principle is simple: the people doing the reporting get paid first.
We don’t charge you to become a territory editor. We don’t take ownership of your byline. You always own your work — UpTrajectory gets a non-exclusive license to publish it, and you can take it with you if you ever leave.
How to apply
If this sounds like you — or someone you know — email publisher@uptrajectory.com. Tell us:
- Your city, and the region you’d cover around it.
- The three operators you’d interview first — with a sentence on why each one matters right now.
- One story in your market that the existing local press has missed or gotten wrong.
- Links to anything you’ve written, reported, or produced before — doesn’t have to be journalism.
We read every application. We respond to every application. We’re specifically not looking for “writers” — we’re looking for people who know their market and can report on it with discipline.
— Bob Babcock, Publisher