The Long Peak of Newsletters
In October 2022, the New York Times asked, “Are we past peak newsletter?” “After a rush of excitement around the potential for paid email newsletters to transform the media industry,” the paper wrote, “there are indicators that the bubble may be popping”; Meta had just killed a newsletter product, while the newsletter publishing platform Substack was cutting back on the advances it was paying to writers. Recent trends, however, suggest that the format is experiencing renewed momentum. Press Gazette reported, for example, that Substack had, for the first time, entered its ranking of the top fifty news websites in the UK, reaching a larger share of the country’s population than CNN in March. That month, the platform topped Press Gazette’s list for the largest month-over-month increase in both total minutes spent and audience growth.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.