We’re lazy! Self-obsessed! A generation of idle trophy kids!

A quick scan of media headlines about millennials — Americans ages 18-34 — paints a depressing picture of a generation that’s primed for failure. They say we’re too selfie-obsessed to care about the world, that our attention spans are too short to read about serious news and that we’re too lost in the depths of Facebook to be politically active and civically engaged.

This caricature might make for great sound bites, but it couldn’t be further from reality. Nowhere in these stereotypes do we hear that young people represent the most-educated generation in American history, and we vote in higher numbers than any other generation of young people in recent history.

We started PolicyMic with a desire to empower young people to have smart conversations about important topics. We offer incisive news and analysis to an audience of millennials who are too often ignored and mischaracterized by other media outlets. As we approach our third anniversary, and after growing to 19 million monthly unique visitors, I want to share some insights about the lessons we’ve learned and our plan for continued growth.

News needs a perspective and a clear voice.

Gone are the days of cut-and-dried wire stories reprinted in newspapers around the country. To succeed in the crowded digital space, news outlets need to distinguish themselves with a distinct, consistent voice. A clear understanding of who your audience is, and how to talk to them, sets you apart from the many outlets cluttering readers’ social media feeds.

In PolicyMic’s case, that means being relentlessly committed to young people. The single question that drives our editorial approach is, “Would you feel proud to share this story with friends at dinner?” We know who we’re writing for, and our readers drive everything we do. The stories our generation discusses at dinner are very different from those we would share with our parents.

At PolicyMic, we’re also focused on delivering unique angles on important stories. We propel conversations taking place on social media or offline among our peers. Our editors and writers share a healthy skepticism for conventional wisdom and proudly offer our readers different ways of examining the world.

Resist the temptation for empty calories.

A common misconception surrounding millennials is that we’ll only read about serious issues if the stories lack substance. But our readers have shown that the opposite is true.

PolicyMic stories about foreign affairs, science and domestic policy have sparked interesting conversations both on and offline. We’ve taken a hard line against celebrity-focused gossip; our generation is tired of that. By incorporating text, photos, charts and other multimedia, we can effectively engage young people with substantive topics.

It’s all about social and mobile.

Until recently, it had never been possible to reach millions of people with a single story, or for a tweet to go global in a matter of minutes. If there’s one thing the New York Times Innovation Report made clear, it’s that homepage traffic is falling rapidly.

The explosion of Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms and the rise of smartphones means users are now reading news on their phones many times per day. Sixty percent of PolicyMic’s readership, accesses our stories through social platforms, and 60 percent reads it on mobile devices.

These numbers underscore why we are excruciatingly strategic about how we distribute our stories. From article design to packaging to headlining stories and embedding multimedia, how our stories look and feel matter deeply to our readers. As editor-in-chief, I ensure all of our stories are thoroughly fact checked and edited to meet high-quality standards. But I also focus on publishing stories optimized for social and mobile. We have an entire team that programs our stories for social media, and we continue to invest in skilled engineers who can adapt our site’s infrastructure to the changing digital landscape.

Moving forward

Perhaps the biggest lesson of all has been to experiment. As a startup, we pivot, shift and adapt our strategy as needed. We have built a newsroom around creativity and experimentation. And we use a combination of data and intuition to take informed risks.

PolicyMic will be hiring dozens of staff members over the next year and doubling down on our commitment to producing the types of stories our readers expect. We believe that while the right packaging might earn us a click, quality storytelling with accurate information is the only way to build a sustainable media company.