Hunterbrook Media is an American investigative news outlet, investment firm, and non-profit foundation. It was founded by Sam Koppelman and Nathaniel Horwitz in 2023. Hunterbrook relies on open-source intelligence for its reporting, and uses its journalism to take financial positions on the subjects of its reporting. It relies on open-source intelligence and other publicly available sources of information.
History.
Hunterbrook was launched in 2023 by Koppelman, Horwitz, Fitzann Reid, and Emily Pate. Koppelman and Horwitz met at "The Harvard Crimson", the undergraduate newspaper of Harvard University. The company's name is a portmanteau of Koppelman's middle name, Hunter, and the last name of Horwitz's mother, the author Geraldine Brooks. The company established a media wing, Hunterbrook Media, and an associated investment firm, Hunterbrook Capital. Hunterbrook Capital launched with $100 million dollars and received seed funding from Marc Lasry, David Fialkow, Peter Kolchinsky, and the Emerson Collective. The Hunterbrook Foundation assists in litigation against companies that Hunterbrook Media finds to be acting potentially illegally. Its board of advisors include Paul Steiger, William Cohan, and Daniel Okrent.
Hunterbrook's unique arrangement, in which Hunterbrook Capital shorts or goes long on companies based on Hunterbrook Media's reporting. Hunterbrook Capital pays the media wing for first access to the articles so it can place trades before articles are published, but does not trade on information that is not publicly available. To avoid insider trading, Hunterbrook Media does not rely on inside sources for its reporting. Its first investigation, published when the company launched, focused on alleged fraud at United Wholesale Mortgage.
Reception and controversy.
Hunterbrook's business model has attracted scrutiny, with the Nieman Lab called Hunterbrook "one of the most unusual experiments in media ethics." Critics have argued that blurring the lines between reporting and revenue generation potentially violates longstanding journalistic norms. 
In May 2024, Hunterbrook generated controversy after Semafor revealed that Koppelman is an investor in ZBiotics, a competitor to anti-hangover drink Safety Shot, which Hunterbrook had investigated. Koppelman argued that ZBiotics was not a competitor.