Sam, thank you for linking to my newsletter. I can't wait to read all the other stories linked above. Which gets me to your point about feeling some optimism—I share some of that. When I read about the decline of journalism, especially local news coverage, I try to square that with the fact I'm reading more quality long-form articles, newsletters, and books than ever before. I also get a great deal of news from the radio (NPR and our local community station). Traditional newspapers need to realize that their online format is incredibly reader un-friendly due to pop-out ads and clickbait. I recently ended my subscription to the Denver Post, for example, because it's so annoying to read, and I get high-quality state news from Colorado Public Radio plus the Colorado Sun, which is an award-winning online paper fully based on a subscriber and foundation revenue model, not ads. I think it's the wave of the future.
Indeed! There's also a foundation/donation model for Berkeley/Oaklandside, who do amazing work. I wonder about the sustainability of this model. It seems like at the local or regional level it works with smaller staffing. While swapping a few emails with Raz from Running Sucks, I also had the realization that there are models that podcasts have adopted that could scale the quality of independent newsletters, by joining into affiliated collectives to help pool resources and elevate visibility/discoverability.
Sam, thank you for linking to my newsletter. I can't wait to read all the other stories linked above. Which gets me to your point about feeling some optimism—I share some of that. When I read about the decline of journalism, especially local news coverage, I try to square that with the fact I'm reading more quality long-form articles, newsletters, and books than ever before. I also get a great deal of news from the radio (NPR and our local community station). Traditional newspapers need to realize that their online format is incredibly reader un-friendly due to pop-out ads and clickbait. I recently ended my subscription to the Denver Post, for example, because it's so annoying to read, and I get high-quality state news from Colorado Public Radio plus the Colorado Sun, which is an award-winning online paper fully based on a subscriber and foundation revenue model, not ads. I think it's the wave of the future.
Indeed! There's also a foundation/donation model for Berkeley/Oaklandside, who do amazing work. I wonder about the sustainability of this model. It seems like at the local or regional level it works with smaller staffing. While swapping a few emails with Raz from Running Sucks, I also had the realization that there are models that podcasts have adopted that could scale the quality of independent newsletters, by joining into affiliated collectives to help pool resources and elevate visibility/discoverability.