Introducing a new Vox section: The Big Idea

Welcome to The Big Idea, Vox’s new home for scholarly (but never jargon-y) excursions into the most important issues and ideas of our time.

Vox’s core mission is to explain the news, and its fleet of staff writers work hard, day in and day out, to make good on that promise. But The Big Idea is less about the stories that drive today than the policies and philosophies that should drive tomorrow.

This is a place for discussions of whether solar flares threaten modern life, the merits of a universal basic income, the emerging liberal consensus on economics, and whether the economy is rigged not so much by the billionaires at the top but by the local cartels squeezing out economic freedom at the bottom.

It's a place where scholars and intellectuals will argue about the first principles that should shape our public and private lives, and for policymakers and wonks to hash out solutions to pressing problems —whether those involve stalled economic productivity, racial discrimination, or a newly assertive Moscow. Scientists will bring us dispatches on topics ranging from the science of reproduction to the frontiers of space exploration.

At one end of The Big Idea spectrum, we'll publish intelligent riffs and next-day takes on news developments, rooted in expertise (or just unusual insight). Neither tenure nor a pedigreed byline is a requirement. (If you have a good idea, contact us!) But since we’re not bound by 800- to 1,200-word limits imposed by print layouts, The Big Idea will also go longer and deeper, offering the kind of ideas journalism you often hear is being squeezed out of the new media economy.

Vox.com is based in Washington but won’t be constrained by Beltway modes of thinking. We’re as interested in the political philosophy of immigration as in the details of Donald J. Trump’s deportation plans. Public policy is our central theme, but we will make forays into literature, history, and cultural studies. And we will be on the lookout, particularly, for ideas that have not yet obsessed the political mainstream but perhaps should. In Washington, the boundaries of what can be achieved politically seem to have narrowed. It's all the more important that conversation about possibilities be freewheeling.

We welcome contrarianism, but we won't fetishize it. There's no reason that a piece has to upend "everything you thought about X" in order to be great. Nor does The Big Idea have a party line. It will be a home to diverse viewpoints, as well as diverse authors. And it will never feel like homework; we'll be publishing great reads.

The Big Idea has existed in fact if not in name since late June. We’ve run important pieces on the folly of using the phrase "radical Islam" to describe America’s terrorist foes, on the advantage Republicans retain in organizational muscle at the state level, and on how reviving the "public option" could solve the problems of Obamacare.

Over time, we plan to add several regular columnists. Our first is Will Wilkinson, a former US politics correspondent for the Economist and the vice president for policy at the Niskanen Center.

The "soft launch" is over, and now it’s time for the real thing. This week we will be rolling out articles that showcase the range and breadth of the section. It starts today with a piece by Lucianne Walkowicz, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, who explains the science of "space weather" — and its overlooked dangers.

If you’re a regular reader of Vox, you’ll start to see The Big Idea pieces sprinkled among the site’s offerings; or, if you want a straight dose, you can seek us out at vox.com/the-big-idea.

Let us know, on Facebook or Twitter, what you think of these pieces, and of the new section. And if you have a Big Idea yourself, pitch away: [email protected].

Sincerely,
Christopher Shea
Senior Editor, The Big Idea
[email protected]