I’m a big fan of any tool that allows freelance journalists/citizen journalists to present their content in as polished of a way as you’d find on a mainstream news site.

That’s why I like Medium, which could be described as a blogging platform, but with more class and potential. It’s easy to use (easier than WP by far), allows you to embed photos and videos and aesthetically, it’s pleasing. (Lots of white space. White space is good.)

Writes Harry McCracken in Time:

Medium is attractive if you only have the yen to say something every so often. It’s about individual pieces of content, not a surging sea of items.

The content you find here feels official, serious and credible. The White House posted the text of Obama’s last state of the union address on Medium first. Medium is where important people (Twitter engineer Leslie Miley) go to explain why they quit their job. There is real journalism here.

Medium also gives you just a little bit of metrics – enough to show you where you should promote your content. Here are some metrics on a story I posted a while back.

The site’s sleek look makes the content feel more reliable, so for independent writers who can’t find a home for a story – or just want to share something quickly but in a polished way, Medium is a good fit.

Bonus: 16 Journalism Tools & Resources to Explore in 2016

Wendi C. Thomas