![]() In a much-discussed Substack post, the journalist and fiction writer Annalee Newitz argued that this policy rendered the platform a “scam.” Specifically, Newitz contends that by secretly providing salaries to certain elite pundits, Substack is effectively scamming less-established journalists into thinking that newsletter writing is more remunerative than it actually is. ![]() It is not clear how many of Substack’s top writers secured similar deals, as the platform does not mandate such disclosure from all the writers it directly finances. ![]() Ultimately, opting for Substack’s star treatment will cost the columnist hundreds of thousands of dollars. In exchange for guaranteeing Yglesias a base salary of $250,000, Substack reportedly required him to let the platform collect 85 percent of the gross subscription revenue his newsletter generated had he declined this offer and accepted the standard terms of service available to all Substack users, the platform would have claimed only 10 percent of such revenue. Rather, what roiled media Twitter was the revelation that Substack poached some of its big-name columnists by providing them with a guaranteed minimum income for their first year on the platform. After all, some digital media companies are already ditching conventional publications for Substack’s “superstar independent contractor” model.īut this was not the focus of last week’s Substack discourse. Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to worry about yet another traditional source of revenue for (perennially unprofitable) accountability journalism becoming uncoupled from such reporting. And there’s presumably a hard limit on how many different paid newsletters the reading public is willing to support. The New York Times isn’t struggling to hire big-name columnists, of course. An ecosystem in which star pundits serve as a major profit center for newspapers, which can then use the revenue generated by their pontificating to cross-subsidize hard reporting, is probably healthier for the Fourth Estate than one in which star pundits reap windfall returns by going it alone. And yet the latter’s work is generally more indispensable to journalism’s civic function. It’s easier for social-media-addicted daily commentators to cultivate loyal fandoms than it is for investigative journalists or state-level political reporters. This is a concerning development in some respects. Unless he’s paying $50,000 a month for his internet connection, his newsletter’s rate of profit dwarfs that of most any major media outlet. ![]() Former Vox columnist Matt Yglesias, for example, is reportedly poised to rake in $860,000 in subscription revenue this year. Combine this reality with the exceptionally low overhead costs of running an email newsletter, and you get a formula for achieving the impossible: a hyperprofitable digital-journalism enterprise. ![]() There are apparently a great many journalism consumers who aren’t willing to pay $5 a month to support the work of dozens of journalists at a single publication but are eager to pay $8 a month to patronize a single blogger. In most cases, this proved to be an astoundingly good business decision. If you aren’t sufficiently broken inside to be an extremely-online journalist - or, worse, a non-journalist who diligently monitors the beefs within the professional posting community - then you probably missed (the latest round of) media Twitter’s brouhaha over Substack.Ī tool for publishing newsletters, Substack grew in prominence over the past year as several well-known opinion journalists abandoned their longtime employers to start their own subscription-based, bespoke punditry shops on the platform. Photo: Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection via The “newspaper” was a bit like what we modern humans know as a Substack, only printed out. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |