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Immersive. Mind-expanding. Nourishing. Hidden Compass is a women-founded media company ending the era of junk food media by uniting audiences — like you — with the humans, causes, and possibilities behind award-winning stories and groundbreaking expeditions. 

Our business model isn’t driven by clickbait and selling user data, but instead inspires patrons of journalism and forges an Alliance to pave the way to a new future — one where exploration takes us to the frontiers of understanding. Are you in?

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Winter 2024

Turning Tides

A Note From the Editors

Larger than life forces are at work all around us, and they could change everything in a single moment — or a lifetime, or trillions of lifetimes. In the winter 2024 issue of Hidden Compass, we bring you five stories of Turning Tides. Some tides turn quickly, some slowly — but all have the…

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A five-toed, red and black amphibian leaves footprints in the mud. It is looking out at a towering canopy of trees, plants, and ferns.
A five-toed, red and black amphibian leaves footprints in the mud. It is looking out at a towering canopy of trees, plants, and ferns.
Winter 2024

Turning Tides

A Note from the Editors

Larger than life forces are at work all around us, and they could change everything in a single moment — or a lifetime, or trillions of lifetimes.

In the winter 2024 issue of Hidden Compass, we bring you five stories of Turning Tides. Some tides turn quickly, some slowly — but all have the power to alter our terrain.

Beyond the marquee of a grand vaudeville theater in Astoria, Oregon, “The Vaudevillian Ghosts of Liberty” beckon. Entertainers of old grace the stage, revealing a world of ghosts and glamor, insult and entertainment, bigotry and inclusivity. In this Chasing Demons feature, journalist Melissa Hart ventures into the shifting waters of show business and wrestles with the legacies of those who came before her.

Glimpses of the past also feature in journalist Robin Catalano’s Quest story, illustrated by Henry Sharpe. The piece follows a leading paleontologist off a New Brunswick cliff and into ancient worlds. But the very forces that reveal these hundreds of millions of years of history may also erase them forever — prompting fossil hunters to engage in a high-stakes “Race Against Tide.”

Amid Sea Rangers, scientists, and underwater spectacles, journalist Jayme Moye introduces us to a 600,000-year-old ecosystem. Our Human and Nature feature showcases the Reef Cooperative, a pioneering collaboration that seeks to correct our relationship with Earth’s largest living structure, “The Magnificent Mother of Sea Country.”

In the Aryan Valley of India’s Indus river, ancient villages hold onto their past, and a different battle for preservation is unfolding. The Brokpa culture has deep roots that reach across continents. But as photojournalist Sugato Mukherjee finds in his Time Travel feature, “How Pure Was the Valley,” all is not what it seems.

Along the beach seine fishing communities of Sri Lanka, change is in the air — and the water, the economy, the culture, and the religious landscape. From the shores of Negombo Lagoon to the surprisingly unconventional nature of tradition itself, photojournalist Kang-Chun Cheng’s photo feature is a Portrait of “A Sea Change in Sri Lanka.”

For the readers and storytellers who are turning tides around the world,

 

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders

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Thanks to You, the Future of Journalism is Bright

Every Hidden Compass story is published alongside a fundraising campaign. 50% of proceeds support Hidden Compass, and 50% go directly to each storyteller — on top of their pay. Every dollar brings us closer to a future that recognizes and honors the partnership between journalists, publications, and you. Look how much we’ve raised so far!

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Meet Your Heroes

This Issue’s Featured Journalists and Storytellers
Buckaroo Portrait, Photo by: Kim F. Stone

Find your story.

Choose a Theme to Explore
Journey alongside characters in pursuit of elusive truths. Travel through extreme landscapes, to the far reaches of the planet, and into the unknown.
Get to know extraordinary characters from around the world — individuals, cultures, places, creatures, and even objects.
Investigate the relationship between humankind and the planet. Come face-to-face with Nature as an unpredictable danger, a wise teacher, and a precarious organism.
Delve into the dark and difficult aspects of a place, even when the darkness exists only in the narrator. Investigative pieces, historical exposés, and tales of narrators immersed in danger.
Inhabit the past, present, and future of a place. Unearth layers of ancient legends and traditions; probe the transient nature of the current moment; and venture out into prediction, peril, and possibility.

Photo: Dr. Gilad Fiskus

Photo: Sivani Babu

Photo: Kim F. Stone

Photo: Sivani Babu

Photo: Sugato Mukherjee

Photo: Geraint Rowland

Find your story.

Choose a Theme to Explore

Photo: Sivani Babu

01

Quest

Journey alongside characters in pursuit of elusive truths. Travel through extreme landscapes, to the far reaches of the planet, and into the unknown.

Photo: Sivani Babu

Buckaroo Portrait, Photo by: Kim F. Stone

Get to know extraordinary characters from around the world — individuals, cultures, places, creatures, and even objects.

Photo: Kim F. Stone

Investigate the relationship between humankind and the planet. Come face-to-face with Nature as an unpredictable danger, a wise teacher, and a precarious organism.

Photo: Sivani Babu

Delve into the dark and difficult aspects of a place, even when the darkness exists only in the narrator. Investigative pieces, historical exposés, and tales of narrators immersed in danger.

Photo: Sugato Mukherjee

Inhabit the past, present, and future of a place. Unearth layers of ancient legends and traditions; probe the transient nature of the current moment; and venture out into prediction, peril, and possibility.

Photo: Geraint Rowland