About

"All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat."Eugène Ionesco, Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros Media is an independent investigative publication for Lansing and mid-Michigan. We document local power: campaign finance, corporate registries, nonprofit filings, lobbying disclosures, property chains, and the connections between them. The name comes from Ionesco's play, in which a town slowly turns into rhinoceroses and accepts it. Staying clear-eyed about how local power actually moves is the work of refusing that transformation, one filing at a time.

How we work

A Rhinoceros brief is not a post. It is a production that ships across multiple formats in parallel. The written investigation is one output among several, not the master format the others are derived from. The same evidence becomes data visualizations, podcast episodes, infographic posters, printed zines, public installations, walking tours, and translated versions where the work needs to reach audiences a single format can't.

The work happens at local-outlet scale, on local civic-power subjects. Investigation, visualization, audio, print, and installation ship in parallel, each format reinforcing the others across different audiences. We are inspired by the lineage of investigative nonprofit and cooperative media; our shape is our own.

What we believe

"The most radical thing we can do is build something we actually own."The Worker-Owned Co-op Handbook · The Fledge · Project 2026

Rhinoceros Media is building toward a worker-owned cooperative. Full incorporation comes when a committed founding cohort coheres around the work, not before. The values are non-negotiable from day one:

• Living wages. Every worker and every contributor, including artist and musician residencies, is paid as a professional. The minimum wage is not the living wage; we know the difference and pay the latter.
• No exploitation. Sources are not data. Subjects are not content. Communities are not markets to strip-mine. Every person the work touches is treated as a whole human being.
• Democratic governance. One worker, one vote (not one dollar, one vote). As the cooperative forms, every worker-owner has equal voice in how it runs.
• Transparency. Every factual claim links to its source. Every commercial relationship is disclosed in a public conflicts register. Open books inside the cooperative. Secrets are how power concentrates; transparency is how it stays shared.
• Community benefit. Value stays in the neighborhood that built the work. Local printers, local translators, local artists, local audiences. Touring productions extend reach without extending extraction.

The four bottom lines

Most businesses measure success one way: profit. We measure it four ways, and all four matter equally.

• People. Are workers, sources, and subjects treated with dignity? Are wages fair? Is the work psychologically and physically safe?
• Planet. Are we responsible stewards of materials, distribution, and energy? Where do our printed runs come from? What waste do we produce?
• Profit. Is the publication financially sustainable? Profit is not a dirty word; it is what keeps the mission alive and builds member wealth over time.
• Ownership. Are worker-owners genuinely governing this organization? Are decisions being made democratically? Is power staying distributed, or starting to concentrate?

What we cover

Subjects local. Productions statewide. We cover Lansing and mid-Michigan power directly: councils, commissions, school boards, utility boards, donor networks, nonprofit complexes, property chains. The investigations themselves can travel. An installation that opens at a Lansing venue may tour to regional galleries and partner spaces statewide. The work is rooted here. The audience is wherever the work reaches.

Sources

Each investigation is built from hundreds of primary records. Sources include:

• Michigan campaign finance filings (MiTN)
• IRS Form 990 nonprofit returns (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer)
• IRS Form 8872 political organization disclosures
• LARA corporate registry filings
• City council and planning commission meeting packets (CivicClerk)
• Federal and state court records (PACER, MiCOURT)
• Federal lobbying disclosures (Senate LDA)
• HUD and local property records (Ingham County Register of Deeds)
• Public meetings, public hearings, and public art

Standards

This site accepts no advertising, sponsorship, or payment from any entity that could reasonably become an investigation subject. We set no cookies, run no third-party tracking pixels, and use no behavioral profiling. No investigation is ever placed behind a paywall, in any format. Paid memberships buy extras (process content, physical goods, events, early access), never access to the primary work.

Corrections are published in place with a note at the top of the affected article and propagated across every format the original claim appeared in. The complete editorial framework, including sourcing, disclosure, the conflicts register, and subject-depiction rules, is at Ethics.

The cooperative ecosystem

Rhinoceros Media is one node in a Lansing-rooted cooperative network. Other co-ops, credit unions, community land trusts, faith communities, neighborhood associations, and trusted-messenger partners share the work of keeping value local. When co-ops refer to each other, the whole network grows stronger.

Tip line

Have information about Lansing or mid-Michigan power? We accept confidential tips through two end-to-end encrypted channels: Proton Mail and Signal. We do not run a web form and do not accept tips at named-person email addresses. Full details, addresses, and source-protection guidance →

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