Digest 9/28/2020

The rise of the Substack model, Trump tax returns, what even is lifestyle, and more.

THE FUTURE OF MEDIA IS…EMAIL

The phenomenon of journalists leaving staff jobs to start solo newsletters — already very much in motion pre-2020 — seems to have hit a new high in recent months, accelerated by the pandemic and pre-existing media industry trends.

I wrote about the trend toward the end of 2018, when I’d noticed an increasing number of writers striking out on their own to self-publish — mostly on Substack, then a year-old newsletter platform that allowed creators to sell their content to paying subscribers. It was quickly overtaking TinyLetter as the newsletter platform du jour due to the possibility of monetization and its capacity for massive subscriber growth, while TinyLetter capped subscriptions at 5,000. Newsletters were transitioning from being a hobby to a mode of work, and maybe even — per some reports — a new hope for the ailing media industry.

Fast-forward to the year of the plague and plague-induced mass layoffs, furloughs, and closures across the industry as media companies suffered from a deep and unexpected loss of ad revenue (here is an almost incomprehensibly long list from Poynter of every outlet impacted). Precarity, already a defining force in the industry, became ubiquitous.

This is, in part, why culture writer Anne Helen Petersen opted to leave her staff position at BuzzFeed to focus full-time on her subscription-driven Substack newsletter Culture Study (a monetized re-launch of a previously free newsletter). 

“The staff positions at BuzzFeed during the pandemic felt very precarious,” Petersen told me, referencing the layoffs and salary cuts many staffers took in order to preserve jobs at the company. The downsizing was also beginning to make her feel constricted — there were fewer editors on hand, for example. It made her think more about the limitations of digital media, and whether one could escape those limitations.

“Digital media was bouncing off of the limits of what it could do,” she said. “If you’re not the New York Times, if you’re not a legacy publication and are still reliant on an advertising model of funding and also reliant on Facebook, what are the limits of this sort of articles you can write, the ambitions you can have? At least that’s what I was feeling, and I think I’m not alone.”

Casey Newton, who recently left his job at The Verge to launch his paid Substack newsletter The Platformer, also referenced the precarity of digital media in our conversation. Although Newton didn’t feel that his job was on the chopping block, he believed that building something on his own could offer a different kind of stability. “I had started to feel the only security in media is being a revenue generator,” he said. “I know that’s not the way we normally talk about journalism, and I don’t think it’s the ideal situation for journalism — I wish that wasn’t the case — but I thought for me personally, if I want to have security, I want to see if I can build something that makes money.”

Substack is encouraging this shift, and behaving very much like a media company in the process — the company is working with writers to help them make the leap into the newsletter business by offering grants, loans, and benefits. The deals vary: Petersen opted to take a grant upfront for her newsletter’s first year and keep only 15% of the year’s subscription dollars, plus receiving access to an editor the company keeps on retainer, for longform pieces, and a healthcare subsidy. Newton chose to forego a grant, instead betting he could accumulate enough paid subscriptions in the first year to fund the enterprise. Through Substack, he has access to a legal defender program and a healthcare subsidy. He said he will still write longform features as a freelancer for other publications, so will not use an editor for Substack.

“They are so eager to have people move over, so they’ll call someone and they’ll be like, ‘What’s stopping you?’” said Petersen. “And then the person will say, ‘Legal services, healthcare, whatever,’ and then in my case, they came back and said, ‘We’ll give you an editor, we’ll give you healthcare, we’ll figure out these things that are stopping you.’”

Of course, the question remains of who can achieve real success on Substack — Petersen and Newton both readily admit that they had built up formidable followings before making the leap, an indication that they would gain a certain amount of paid subscribers. As I found in my 2018 reporting, it is possible to build an audience from scratch, but it can take years (see Helena Fitzgerald’s now-defunct Griefbacon, first on TinyLetter, then on Substack). There are efforts in place to help bolster newcomers. Substack recently offered no-strings-attached grants to those impacted by the pandemic, which went to writers with both large and small followings. Newton will be participating in a mentorship program to help others build their products.

Traditional media companies are starting to seem like incubators for talent and clout, after which individual writers launch their own projects — a trend that has already emerged in video and podcasting. Meanwhile, Substack is starting to look increasingly like…a media company, or a meta-media company. Petersen discussed the possibility of eventually paying other writers to write for her newsletter, basically making her Subtack a “mini-magazine.” Both Petersen and Newton talked about the possibility of bundling subscriptions, which seems an inevitability given the growth of newsletters and the fact readers can only afford so many subscriptions. Newton also floated the idea of eventually hiring an editor to share among other newsletter writers. 

Substack has its own limitations. Discourse Blog, the politics and culture blog launched by the former Splinter staff, has decided to leave the platform and re-launch on its own website, citing a rate of growth the creators feel will make an independent site more beneficial. It may turn out that Substack is its own talent incubator, and that’s not a bad thing. But at what point is a newsletter simply a new digital media publication? At least these, like Defector, are worker-owned and run on paid subscriptions instead of unsustainable venture capital. 

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LONGREAD OF THE WEEK Freelance writer and friend of Study Hall Daisy Alioto self-published a multimedia project — a long essay with an accompanying Instagram account — exploring the concept of lifestyle, its roots in sociological terminology, its relationship to places and memory, and the way lifestyle is often based on objects, i.e. consumerism. “If lifestyle as a pattern of thought and behavior and lifestyle as a matter of consumer taste were once separate, they are now one,” writes Alioto. “The contemporary definition of lifestyle is propped up by the unprecedented visibility of things on social media, making individual consumption more public than ever before.”

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EVERYTHING ELSE

— A massive scoop for the New York Times: the paper got its hands on Trump’s tax records spanning two decades, which show some questionable write-offs and hundreds of millions in debt. The Times has said this is an ongoing project, and it will publish more articles on its findings in the coming weeks.

— The Los Angeles Times published an exhaustive examination of its own history of racism in its past coverage, offering an apology and an explanation of how it plans to move forward and do better, including a commitment to hiring a more diverse staff. 

— Sohla El-Waylly, who departed Bon Appétit during a reckoning over the racist work culture and pay disparities at Condé Nast, now has her own show called Stump Sohla on chef Andrew Rea’s popular Binging with Babish YouTube channel (now renamed the Babish Cinematic Universe). Stump Sohla is designed to showcase El-Waylly’s expertise as a chef, which is a nice change from BA!

— The Tribune Publishing Company, after instituting layoffs, pay cuts, and furloughs during the pandemic, sent out a phishing safety test email telling staffers they were receiving bonuses. Of course, there were no bonuses. Pretty disgusting!

— Some journalistic ethics drama over at NPR: it turns out that Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg was close friends with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a relationship that was never fully disclosed to NPR listeners. Should Totenberg have been more upfront about it, or recused herself?

— In wild merger news, Penske Media (parent company of Variety and Rolling Stone) will now oversee Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Vibe, consolidating its power over entertainment industry reporting. Can’t wait til everything is owned by one single media company.

— Quibi, the streaming service known for short content, has been struggling since its April launch and is now considering the possibility of a sale.

— If you’re not watching Drew Barrymore’s delightfully unhinged talk show, WHY NOT?!