This fits nicely with a few corollary bits about the substackification of media, which seems to largely reward opinion havers and take providers (“analysts”) over what the rest of the media offers, like actual reporting. It’s hard to find a day or a week to do much of that reporting when you don’t have colleagues to put the news out that…
This fits nicely with a few corollary bits about the substackification of media, which seems to largely reward opinion havers and take providers (“analysts”) over what the rest of the media offers, like actual reporting. It’s hard to find a day or a week to do much of that reporting when you don’t have colleagues to put the news out that day.
I mean this less critically than I’m coming off here — I love a good take and subscribe to far too many substacks. Back when Yglesias was getting his start, there was this dream that blogs and new media were going to empower citizen journalists (remember “platypus” reporters??) to rise up and speak truth to power without gate keepers. Two decades later, we’ve mostly got David Brooks or Tom Friedman as a service.
Yes -- though I increasingly think it's not even the substance "takes" that matter so much as the regularity of a particular voice and perspective. At some point my job is probably closer to "YouTuber for Gen X/Elder Millennials" than it is to "reporter" (in the same way that David Brooks and Tom Friedman's job is, more or less, YouTuber for Boomers). I shouldn't say this out loud but siloed individual newsletters/channels/streams is almost certainly a dead end for good reporting -- seems like what would work better is packaging up a lot of reporting with columnizing with criticism in, I don't know, a daily or weekly format, for a subscription fee subsidized by ads. Hmm.
This fits nicely with a few corollary bits about the substackification of media, which seems to largely reward opinion havers and take providers (“analysts”) over what the rest of the media offers, like actual reporting. It’s hard to find a day or a week to do much of that reporting when you don’t have colleagues to put the news out that day.
I mean this less critically than I’m coming off here — I love a good take and subscribe to far too many substacks. Back when Yglesias was getting his start, there was this dream that blogs and new media were going to empower citizen journalists (remember “platypus” reporters??) to rise up and speak truth to power without gate keepers. Two decades later, we’ve mostly got David Brooks or Tom Friedman as a service.
Yes -- though I increasingly think it's not even the substance "takes" that matter so much as the regularity of a particular voice and perspective. At some point my job is probably closer to "YouTuber for Gen X/Elder Millennials" than it is to "reporter" (in the same way that David Brooks and Tom Friedman's job is, more or less, YouTuber for Boomers). I shouldn't say this out loud but siloed individual newsletters/channels/streams is almost certainly a dead end for good reporting -- seems like what would work better is packaging up a lot of reporting with columnizing with criticism in, I don't know, a daily or weekly format, for a subscription fee subsidized by ads. Hmm.