Thoughtful and diplomatic as always. It’s not just the business model that is broken with traditional media, it’s trust. Once you lose trust, it’s hard to regain.
Substack has filled the gap with independent voices who readers trust. Different formats allow for creative experimentation that spark joy. Substack is a pure meritocratic marketplace of ideas, where quality is rewarded directly without any manipulation by unseen algorithms, editors, and censors.
you make a huge assumption that disillusionsed readers of traditional media now trust the content on these platforms...why? what evidence do you have that the content on these platforms is any more reliable?
The trusted sources said the vaccines were "safe and effective." The untrusted sources said they were not. Who was right?
The trusted sources said Hunter Biden's laptop content was produced by Russia intelligence agents. Who was right?
If we go back in time, the trusted news sources said Saddam Hussein definitely had weapons of mass destruction and was going to use them against American citizens. Were these people and organizations - and leaders in our own government - right?
I could write 20,000 words providing evidence or examples where the MSM narrative was a complete lie.
IMO, that's why Substack is so important. It allows at least some citizens to reach the conclusion that our trusted experts and authorities might be trafficking in whoppers.
Thanks for clarifying. They are more "trustworthy" because the evidence they cite is far more convincing. FWIW, nobody asks: Why do we keep trusting officials who have been proven wrong so many times?
"Whose standards do we measure their reliability?" These "standards" are often subjective. It's whatever standard for truth you think is most important or convincing.
What "standard" do we use in gauging the "reliability" of, say, some pronouncement from the CDC, Anthony Fauci or a State Department spokesperson? Is this standard: "These people are officials, so they MUST be right?" (the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy).
I'd argue this is not a good or definitive standard - especially for proven liars.
Short of doing our own medical research, the only way to have confidence in 'the science' is to consider ALL sources. And get the information as directly from the researcher as possible, undiluted and unpolluted by politically motivated 'journalists' and bureaucracies. Only a fool thinks that Washington DC is an unbiased arbiter of the 'truth'.
I frequently say, before you listen to what a person is saying, determine why they're telling you. Determine what they're leaving out. It's possible to completely mislead, without ever telling a lie. Ask where you are being led to, and why they want you to go there. It frequently benefits them far more than it benefits you.
As you allude to, Fauci has been proven a liar. The CDC has twisted the truth beyond recognition. And the MSM, in their efforts to form a united front and freeze out contradictory information, has demonstrated that they are of the same ilk as the propaganda machines of Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
As the say, fool me once, shame on you, lie to me incessantly and I'll find more reliable sources. OK, nobody actually said that. But I'm saying that now.
Good question. You can tell a lot about an article and 'news source' by now well they follow the topic to the source. MSM says "some people say" or "safe and effective" but don't use footnotes or quote the science that proves their point. Gretta Thunberg is another example. While she is very passionate about what she speaks on, she is not science. She was an emotional person to deliver a pre-caned message. It wasn't her words but someone else's. School shootings they have traumatized victims tell why guns should be illegal, not someone who can site statistics or address the topic of gun free zones being known targets. "When seconds matter, the police are only minutes away". What stops a shooting is a gun arriving on the scene. As I said in my comment above, there are eight psyops going on right now and MSM is pushing all of them.
Substack articles have comments where a debate on the topic can ensue after a person has made their statement. MSM, Facebook, 'Fact Checkers' can never be questioned. That is a big red flag in the 'who is telling the truth' question. It is the missing 'idea' in the comments that can expose a bad article for what it really is.
One of the biggest tells. I hate websites that don't allow feedback... one of the greatest things about the Internet was/is feedback. Government websites, of course, never allow it thus cutting themselves off at the knees.
And these platforms don’t allow readers to read, unless they pay… Just like traditional platforms… So as I said, why would I believe anybody’s research here more than I believe the research offered on traditional news sources?
huge assumption that readers trust any of these independent platforms more than we trust traditional media – even with All of the problems that it reflects as everybody tries to grab the attention of readers on the Internet… again I ask, why would I trust these platforms anymore than I trust those… I just can’t… I come to these platforms to write about writing – and I’m mostly writing to writers because that’s what these platforms are filled with, writers looking for followers😎
"Our media institutions ... remain committed to a set of values that are dear to my heart and important to society: quality writing, rigorous reporting, strong editing, deep research, dogged investigations, and coverage of unglamorous areas."
Do you really believe traditional media is committed to "rigorous reporting and ... dogged investigations?"
The legacy or establishment press is committed to blocking such investigations, which are off-limits. That's why they are Dead Man Walking right now. That's also why Substack grew so rapidly when Covid hit - the only place readers COULD find dogged investigations was on Substack.
Hamish's article cites Your Local Epidemiologist (Katelyn Jetelina) as an example of an encouraging partnership between the Washington Post and Substack. The author of this Substack was the subject of a glowing feature story that Substack emailed me a while back. My thought was that Substack has never run a Q&A or glowing feature story on the huge roster of Substack All-Stars who reject everything this author writes.
Basically, her posts support the Anthony Fauci or "authorized" "expert" response to Covid. (This is also The Washington Post sacrosanct point of view)
Hundreds of Substack authors debunk her points every day and these writers have huge followings (aka a great "market.") In fact, Substack might not exist today if these "contrarian" citizen journalists had not populated Substack in such vast numbers.
Is Substack embarrassed by the views put forth by these dissenters? Why not promote and publicize this class of writers?
The Washington Post will never run a guest op-ed of Steve Kirsch, Igor Chudov, Dr. Meryl Nass or ... Bill Rice, Jr.
The WSJ editorial section sometimes publishes pieces I think "speak truth to power" or question the authorized narratives. But the paper's "news section" almost never does this. Just look at the paper's news coverage of Covid topics. All the points I've tried to develop for four years are taboo at the WSJ. For example, I've saved numerous emails with a WSJ reporter who said she was interested in my evidence of "early spread" of the novel coronavirus. At one time, this journalist gave me the impression she and the paper WERE going to follow-up on some of my original stories.
She or the paper never did and this reporter now never responds to my emails.
Another "Covid" example, one of hundreds: Has the WSJ news staff written ONE story about excess deaths or vaccine injuries and deaths?
All the MSM "news organizations" are captured. The groupthink in newsrooms is 100 percent. That groupthink does NOT exist on Substack - which is WHY this platform now has more than 35 million subscribers.
This article was already losing me, it was making zero sense. Then I hit the sentence you refer to and couldn't read any further. Cynical as I am, I never would have dreamed a co-founder and "chief writing officer", whatever that is, of Substack could write this. If substack is our friend, as I had thought, we better have other friends to count on or we're in for some major disappointments. I have no hope anyone affiliated with any "establishment" institution would display any worthwhile human quality, whatsoever. I did, however, think Substack was different. Past tense.
The legacy media will resist repairs and reorientation just as long as they remain latched to the government $$$ teat.
I fear for Substack after reading about crossposting Sub articles to MSM pubs: The greater audience Sub gains will include some folks who like to report uncomfortable opinions to the SPLC et al, and thus draw the attention of the federal government's speech-code agencies. And those agencies can, and do, jail dissidents and bankrupt them. The recent anti-First Amendment SCOTUS decision is of no help whatsoever.
Substack is an idea whose time has come. I am on the cusp of starting my 79th year on this planet. Throughout my life as a lawyer, I wanted to write Satire. The late Mr. Art Buchwald was my hero. When Substack presented me the opportunity, I jumped and took it. Now, I regularly publish my work under the banner “laugh 2 live”
Thank you for starting this wonderful medium for homeless writers!!
I was really surprised to see the new C-SPAN series. Not sure if I were supposed to be but I was. As someone who lives and works in Finland where basically none has heard about Substack (but we have 13 people in our Substack content group, yay!) I cannot but be amazed about the work you've done to push this platform into the limelight. Very refreshing indeed! Thank you!
Love that the Post is republishing essays that first appeared on Substack. I've done this twice with The Chronicle of Higher Education (though they've now gone dark on me), but have found many other outlets resistant to publishing anything that wasn't written uniquely for them. It seems so obvious that the readerships don't overlap. The number of readers who would have already seen my essay before it appeared (hypothetically) in the NY Times would be tiny -- nearly everyone would be seeing it for the first time. Plus, there's typically some alteration that goes on through the editing process that would make any piece novel under a different banner. This kind of arbitrary gatekeeping is not helpful. Traditional media already offers quite a lot of exclusive content -- hopefully the collaborative trend continues.
I see why Substack would like to partner with MSM, but it would be detrimental in the long run. Substack became popular because MSM is so heavily censored. Trying to grow Substack authors that MSM will cover is only helping the government propaganda efforts and the false narratives. In other words, Substack is a place you can currently tell the truth. Why would you promote lies and distortions and disguise them as 'reaching out' to the opposition and saying we can be friends?
One of my subscriptions, "The Vigilant Fox' posts regular articles of 10 things that MSM failed to report on. These are all solid articles that any good journalist should be covering.
You commented on "The Free Press" as one of the "operations that would otherwise be considered traditional media". As a current subscriber to The Free Press who regrets his subscription and can't wait for it to end, they are not quality journalism. I was tricked into subscribing by a couple of good posts and foolishly thought it was worth a year subscription (as many Substacks are). In truth, The Free Press has an agenda and publishes stories that benefit that agenda, not both sides of the issue. The Israel coverage is a big part of that. Both sides can be evil and both sides deserve to live. Conflating Israel government/military and Israelis and Jews world wide as victims while calling all Palestinians Hamas, and worthy of extermination is biased reporting.
Matt Taibbi on the other hand is one of the best journalists on Substack if not worldwide. Seymour Hersh another.
With the recent supreme court 'punt' and refusal to address the issues, we are back to likely more aggressive censorship by MSM. This is a time for Substack to shine and become known as the place to find the truth and articles that MSM refused to post. Much of your post eluded to the idea that MSM and Substack are just slightly different spins on available news. In reality they are two different worlds. I count no less than eight major PsyOps going on right now.
What MSM reports on is a completely different virtual reality that doesn't exist. This is the reality that our government both produces and uses as a guide to react to. If they want to bomb a country, they invent a story about it, have it published, then rush in and fix the fictitious problem that they told the world about. They are not held accountable by anyone (except maybe some Substack authors that you failed to mention). “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - Be on the side of truth, not government propaganda. Just look at CNN ratings at a 30 year low. People are searching for the truth, not more lies.
The excellent Reader Comments that Substack allows probably explains why no MSM news organization is ever going to seriously "partner" with Substack or support this platform.
These "news" organizations moderate their own Reader Comments sections ... if they even offer them. Very few opportunities exist for citizens to challenge or debunk the reporting of these news organizations.
Also, these Substack comments often include supporting links to important under-seen articles or studies. Allowing readers to make comments - and include taboo links - would increase the odds important commentary or news might "go viral." The primary goal of the Censorship Industrial Complex is to prevent compelling dissenting views from ever "going viral."
Great piece, thank you. It seems there’s room for an ecosystem of solos, teams, and the big players too, even if we haven’t seen all the possible configurations yet. Any new business model will need to support and embrace the “going solo” potential of any star. Ideally, this happens in a complementary way: growing the individual and the collective should be genuine, constructive relationships. I expect we will see more rooting for each other instead of fiery exits.
Substack lets writers and audiences move between options with such ease that all models will need to be places the audience or creator genuinely want to be part of. It should provide a compelling alternative to the risk of looting past media companies—if they can manage to pivot without stumbling.
The other big question to me is just how many subscriptions the audience will tolerate. I won’t be surprised if I see more market pressure for a group approach when folks start juggling 100+ subscriptions.
Let's do a thought exercise on the reliability of the MSM's reporting ... or "dogged investigations" journalists did NOT perform ...
Hamish could tell us how many people have started Substack newsletters in the past four years. I don't know the answer, but my guess is this figure must be at least 10,000 people in the world.
It wouldn't be that hard - via a poll or some clever research - to find out how many of these 10,000 random citizens - of all ages - died "from Covid" in the last four years.
The official narrative on this virus is/was that is it very dangerous and contagious, that "everyone" was at risk of dying.
If this is true, certainly a fair number of Substack authors must have died from Covid by now. How many have died? 50? 100? 340? Maybe ... zero?
If the Covid Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) is the same as the flu IFR (0.1 percent) that would mean that 10 Covid authors who had a case of Covid have now died. This would be 1 death in every 1,000 confirmed "cases" among Substack authors.
Well, is this true? The IFR for Covid - per the experts - is supposed to be something like 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent (down from 3.4 percent at one time, per the experts).
Have 30 (IFR = 0.3 percent) or 50 (IFR = 0.5 percent) Substack authors died from Covid?
My point is that the mainstream media could actually investigate a question like this and give us a credible answer or plausible estimate. The reason they won't do this is that the answer is probably between 0 and 10 deaths - which would mean this disease is less lethal than the flu.
That's the type reporting or analysis The Washington Post, NY Times or the AP won't perform.
... But I can make this contrarian point on Substack - which is why this platform is so important.
Not to pick on Your Local Epedmiologist (but since she's cited as a great source, let's pick on her).
Per my research, YLE has approximately 250,000 Substack subscribers. If we assume that 90 percent of the population has contracted Covid at least once by now, that would mean approximately 225,000 of her subscribers have been "infected" by Covid by now.
My question: How many of these 225,000 have died "from" Covid? If YLE now says the Covid IFR is 0.3 percent - 3 deaths for every 1,000 cases - that would mean that almost 700 of her subscribers have now died from Covid (3 deaths in every 225,000 subscribers = 675 deaths).
Your Local Epidemiogist could do a poll of her readers and get an answer to this question. (I guess dead subscribers couldn't respond so maybe she could ask for the number of deaths among spouses of her subscribers have occurred).
My strong hunch is that only a handful of spouses of her readers actually died from Covid - certainly fewer than 220 (which would be 1 death every 1,000 subscribers - the flu IFR. Even if 220 died, that would make the Covid IFR the same as the flu IFR.
Maybe YLE is reading this and can take me up on my scientific challenge.
P.S. I have 6,100 subscribers. I can't remember one post from a subscriber who said their spouse or one of their children died from Covid. So it seems the Covid IFR of my subscribers is 0-in-6,100 or (0.0000 percent).
I'd note that Facebook bans, "shadow bans" or de-amplifies any post I make on that site that includes a link to one of my Substack articles (especially the non-authorized pieces on taboo Covid subjects). In fact, this is the reason I started a Substack newsletter in the first place. None (or very few) of my 1,500 followers were seeing my "free speech."
Still, I have managed to post a few Substack articles on Facebook. These are articles that get 4,000 to 73,000 "reads" at my Substack and generate hundreds of "likes" and Reader Comments. In other words, these articles have been "test-marketed" on Substack. I know people like them or the topic resonated with people who think like I do.
But on Facebook - where probably half of my "friends and followers" also think like I do (people who probably like me and aren't mortified that I would share an opinion) - these posts often generate zero "likes." It's like I'm handing out pamphlets in the desert.
My hunch: If I was posting articles that echo points routinely made at The Washington Post, I think I'd have much higher readership levels on Facebook.
I scrolled through the comments and see Hamish, the author, has "liked" many comments. I made more comments on this thread than anyone ... and I didn't get one "like" from the founder of Substack. Interesting ... and noted.
It has dawned on me how the Atlantic, a publication most prone to smearing substack, has a CEO who is an ardent believer in paid subscriptions. They have struggled mightily to become profitable.
I don't believe the future of media can rely on traditional devices like paid subscriptions or digital advertising revenue.
I actually think the future of media depends on inventing new ways to monetize and build community. Shying away from media and news into some cultural backwater or edgy cult of personality cloning or amplification is not the solution.
We have to be and do more in order to be sustainable.
Michael writes, "We have to be and do more in order to be sustainable."
So much of media analysis focuses on tactics, platforms and strategies etc. Everybody is struggling to find some angle with which to advance their own position. There's nothing wrong with this. Except that it's hyper predictable, and thus boring.
Me, me, me and me me me, squawking out from almost every publication. Look at me, vote for me, pay attention to me, validate me, be impressed by me, hire me, buy my stuff, subscribe to me, pay me etc etc. Again, there is moral crime here. But it's so incredibly predictable that we can hardly blame readers for tuning most of it out.
We have to be more? What if we were to write about some agenda other than ourselves?
We need to do more? Why don't we try to make the world a better place?
Are you tired of this sermon? Ok, good! So let's move from the talking of the talk towards the walking of the walk. Let's make the talk real. Something like this:
The quote "The only pleasure almost as great as enjoying art is talking about art" is attributed to the American art critic and historian, Clement Greenberg. HE was a highly influential figure in the mid-20th century art world, known for his advocacy of abstract expressionism and his critical writings on modern art. As for substack , not sure how I would have survived without it during the virus debacle with all the censorship , covering up of data, and screaming media messages all in lockstep with wonderful incentives provided by the government to dole out the same message ad nauseum. Were you aware of the Trusted News Initiative and how that was instituted ? I did not find that information on main stream media . I think there was a lot of trust regarding MSM news destroyed and that's something , at least for me, will not be easily forgiven with the usual suspects still in positions of power to determine what we are "allowed " to see in print .
I get that your goal is to grow your business, but please keep in mind—this will once again totally screw over independent journalists. I got about ... 250 paid subs in about a year. Any mildly popular post would generate one or more paid subs. And then it just plateaued. I'm guessing because so many people, many more prominent than me, flooded Substack and there's only so many paid subs people are willing to get. Now, I'm in a kind of shitty position where it's enough money that I feel compelled to continue, but nowhere near enough. If Substack is then flooded with content from mainstream media? No offense but you're not dispelling the cliche of the VC that promises the resurgence of independent journalism only to prioritize making money at the expense of content creators. I guess maybe from a business angle consider that your brand is "guy who truly cares about journalism."
Thoughtful and diplomatic as always. It’s not just the business model that is broken with traditional media, it’s trust. Once you lose trust, it’s hard to regain.
Substack has filled the gap with independent voices who readers trust. Different formats allow for creative experimentation that spark joy. Substack is a pure meritocratic marketplace of ideas, where quality is rewarded directly without any manipulation by unseen algorithms, editors, and censors.
you make a huge assumption that disillusionsed readers of traditional media now trust the content on these platforms...why? what evidence do you have that the content on these platforms is any more reliable?
The trusted sources said the vaccines were "safe and effective." The untrusted sources said they were not. Who was right?
The trusted sources said Hunter Biden's laptop content was produced by Russia intelligence agents. Who was right?
If we go back in time, the trusted news sources said Saddam Hussein definitely had weapons of mass destruction and was going to use them against American citizens. Were these people and organizations - and leaders in our own government - right?
I could write 20,000 words providing evidence or examples where the MSM narrative was a complete lie.
IMO, that's why Substack is so important. It allows at least some citizens to reach the conclusion that our trusted experts and authorities might be trafficking in whoppers.
that's not what i'm asking...why are these independent sources more trustworthy? by whose standards do we measure their reliability?
Thanks for clarifying. They are more "trustworthy" because the evidence they cite is far more convincing. FWIW, nobody asks: Why do we keep trusting officials who have been proven wrong so many times?
"Whose standards do we measure their reliability?" These "standards" are often subjective. It's whatever standard for truth you think is most important or convincing.
What "standard" do we use in gauging the "reliability" of, say, some pronouncement from the CDC, Anthony Fauci or a State Department spokesperson? Is this standard: "These people are officials, so they MUST be right?" (the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy).
I'd argue this is not a good or definitive standard - especially for proven liars.
Short of doing our own medical research, the only way to have confidence in 'the science' is to consider ALL sources. And get the information as directly from the researcher as possible, undiluted and unpolluted by politically motivated 'journalists' and bureaucracies. Only a fool thinks that Washington DC is an unbiased arbiter of the 'truth'.
I frequently say, before you listen to what a person is saying, determine why they're telling you. Determine what they're leaving out. It's possible to completely mislead, without ever telling a lie. Ask where you are being led to, and why they want you to go there. It frequently benefits them far more than it benefits you.
As you allude to, Fauci has been proven a liar. The CDC has twisted the truth beyond recognition. And the MSM, in their efforts to form a united front and freeze out contradictory information, has demonstrated that they are of the same ilk as the propaganda machines of Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
As the say, fool me once, shame on you, lie to me incessantly and I'll find more reliable sources. OK, nobody actually said that. But I'm saying that now.
and this content above is why I ask these questions....
Good question. You can tell a lot about an article and 'news source' by now well they follow the topic to the source. MSM says "some people say" or "safe and effective" but don't use footnotes or quote the science that proves their point. Gretta Thunberg is another example. While she is very passionate about what she speaks on, she is not science. She was an emotional person to deliver a pre-caned message. It wasn't her words but someone else's. School shootings they have traumatized victims tell why guns should be illegal, not someone who can site statistics or address the topic of gun free zones being known targets. "When seconds matter, the police are only minutes away". What stops a shooting is a gun arriving on the scene. As I said in my comment above, there are eight psyops going on right now and MSM is pushing all of them.
https://mikemyhre.substack.com/p/one-planet-two-worlds
Substack articles have comments where a debate on the topic can ensue after a person has made their statement. MSM, Facebook, 'Fact Checkers' can never be questioned. That is a big red flag in the 'who is telling the truth' question. It is the missing 'idea' in the comments that can expose a bad article for what it really is.
Those fact-check websites never allow Reader Comments. That's a big tell.
One of the biggest tells. I hate websites that don't allow feedback... one of the greatest things about the Internet was/is feedback. Government websites, of course, never allow it thus cutting themselves off at the knees.
And these platforms don’t allow readers to read, unless they pay… Just like traditional platforms… So as I said, why would I believe anybody’s research here more than I believe the research offered on traditional news sources?
Good points
huge assumption that readers trust any of these independent platforms more than we trust traditional media – even with All of the problems that it reflects as everybody tries to grab the attention of readers on the Internet… again I ask, why would I trust these platforms anymore than I trust those… I just can’t… I come to these platforms to write about writing – and I’m mostly writing to writers because that’s what these platforms are filled with, writers looking for followers😎
Again, not true.
"Our media institutions ... remain committed to a set of values that are dear to my heart and important to society: quality writing, rigorous reporting, strong editing, deep research, dogged investigations, and coverage of unglamorous areas."
Do you really believe traditional media is committed to "rigorous reporting and ... dogged investigations?"
The legacy or establishment press is committed to blocking such investigations, which are off-limits. That's why they are Dead Man Walking right now. That's also why Substack grew so rapidly when Covid hit - the only place readers COULD find dogged investigations was on Substack.
Hamish's article cites Your Local Epidemiologist (Katelyn Jetelina) as an example of an encouraging partnership between the Washington Post and Substack. The author of this Substack was the subject of a glowing feature story that Substack emailed me a while back. My thought was that Substack has never run a Q&A or glowing feature story on the huge roster of Substack All-Stars who reject everything this author writes.
Basically, her posts support the Anthony Fauci or "authorized" "expert" response to Covid. (This is also The Washington Post sacrosanct point of view)
Hundreds of Substack authors debunk her points every day and these writers have huge followings (aka a great "market.") In fact, Substack might not exist today if these "contrarian" citizen journalists had not populated Substack in such vast numbers.
Is Substack embarrassed by the views put forth by these dissenters? Why not promote and publicize this class of writers?
The Washington Post will never run a guest op-ed of Steve Kirsch, Igor Chudov, Dr. Meryl Nass or ... Bill Rice, Jr.
Which doesn't bode well for substack.
Why would you kill the "golden goose?" Maybe it's because you don't want to get on the bad side of the world's 900-pound gorilla?
I agree. The only MSM I read is the Wall Street Journal and while I don’t always agree with their opinions, I believe their reporting is fair.
The WSJ editorial section sometimes publishes pieces I think "speak truth to power" or question the authorized narratives. But the paper's "news section" almost never does this. Just look at the paper's news coverage of Covid topics. All the points I've tried to develop for four years are taboo at the WSJ. For example, I've saved numerous emails with a WSJ reporter who said she was interested in my evidence of "early spread" of the novel coronavirus. At one time, this journalist gave me the impression she and the paper WERE going to follow-up on some of my original stories.
She or the paper never did and this reporter now never responds to my emails.
Another "Covid" example, one of hundreds: Has the WSJ news staff written ONE story about excess deaths or vaccine injuries and deaths?
All the MSM "news organizations" are captured. The groupthink in newsrooms is 100 percent. That groupthink does NOT exist on Substack - which is WHY this platform now has more than 35 million subscribers.
This article was already losing me, it was making zero sense. Then I hit the sentence you refer to and couldn't read any further. Cynical as I am, I never would have dreamed a co-founder and "chief writing officer", whatever that is, of Substack could write this. If substack is our friend, as I had thought, we better have other friends to count on or we're in for some major disappointments. I have no hope anyone affiliated with any "establishment" institution would display any worthwhile human quality, whatsoever. I did, however, think Substack was different. Past tense.
Yup. I'm already looking elsewhere.
The legacy media will resist repairs and reorientation just as long as they remain latched to the government $$$ teat.
I fear for Substack after reading about crossposting Sub articles to MSM pubs: The greater audience Sub gains will include some folks who like to report uncomfortable opinions to the SPLC et al, and thus draw the attention of the federal government's speech-code agencies. And those agencies can, and do, jail dissidents and bankrupt them. The recent anti-First Amendment SCOTUS decision is of no help whatsoever.
Substack is an idea whose time has come. I am on the cusp of starting my 79th year on this planet. Throughout my life as a lawyer, I wanted to write Satire. The late Mr. Art Buchwald was my hero. When Substack presented me the opportunity, I jumped and took it. Now, I regularly publish my work under the banner “laugh 2 live”
Thank you for starting this wonderful medium for homeless writers!!
I was really surprised to see the new C-SPAN series. Not sure if I were supposed to be but I was. As someone who lives and works in Finland where basically none has heard about Substack (but we have 13 people in our Substack content group, yay!) I cannot but be amazed about the work you've done to push this platform into the limelight. Very refreshing indeed! Thank you!
Hi from a fellow Finn on Substack 😁
How wonderful!! Hiiii 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼
Yay! Hi! 🤗🤗
Love that the Post is republishing essays that first appeared on Substack. I've done this twice with The Chronicle of Higher Education (though they've now gone dark on me), but have found many other outlets resistant to publishing anything that wasn't written uniquely for them. It seems so obvious that the readerships don't overlap. The number of readers who would have already seen my essay before it appeared (hypothetically) in the NY Times would be tiny -- nearly everyone would be seeing it for the first time. Plus, there's typically some alteration that goes on through the editing process that would make any piece novel under a different banner. This kind of arbitrary gatekeeping is not helpful. Traditional media already offers quite a lot of exclusive content -- hopefully the collaborative trend continues.
I see why Substack would like to partner with MSM, but it would be detrimental in the long run. Substack became popular because MSM is so heavily censored. Trying to grow Substack authors that MSM will cover is only helping the government propaganda efforts and the false narratives. In other words, Substack is a place you can currently tell the truth. Why would you promote lies and distortions and disguise them as 'reaching out' to the opposition and saying we can be friends?
One of my subscriptions, "The Vigilant Fox' posts regular articles of 10 things that MSM failed to report on. These are all solid articles that any good journalist should be covering.
You commented on "The Free Press" as one of the "operations that would otherwise be considered traditional media". As a current subscriber to The Free Press who regrets his subscription and can't wait for it to end, they are not quality journalism. I was tricked into subscribing by a couple of good posts and foolishly thought it was worth a year subscription (as many Substacks are). In truth, The Free Press has an agenda and publishes stories that benefit that agenda, not both sides of the issue. The Israel coverage is a big part of that. Both sides can be evil and both sides deserve to live. Conflating Israel government/military and Israelis and Jews world wide as victims while calling all Palestinians Hamas, and worthy of extermination is biased reporting.
Matt Taibbi on the other hand is one of the best journalists on Substack if not worldwide. Seymour Hersh another.
With the recent supreme court 'punt' and refusal to address the issues, we are back to likely more aggressive censorship by MSM. This is a time for Substack to shine and become known as the place to find the truth and articles that MSM refused to post. Much of your post eluded to the idea that MSM and Substack are just slightly different spins on available news. In reality they are two different worlds. I count no less than eight major PsyOps going on right now.
https://mikemyhre.substack.com/p/one-planet-two-worlds
What MSM reports on is a completely different virtual reality that doesn't exist. This is the reality that our government both produces and uses as a guide to react to. If they want to bomb a country, they invent a story about it, have it published, then rush in and fix the fictitious problem that they told the world about. They are not held accountable by anyone (except maybe some Substack authors that you failed to mention). “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - Be on the side of truth, not government propaganda. Just look at CNN ratings at a 30 year low. People are searching for the truth, not more lies.
The excellent Reader Comments that Substack allows probably explains why no MSM news organization is ever going to seriously "partner" with Substack or support this platform.
These "news" organizations moderate their own Reader Comments sections ... if they even offer them. Very few opportunities exist for citizens to challenge or debunk the reporting of these news organizations.
Also, these Substack comments often include supporting links to important under-seen articles or studies. Allowing readers to make comments - and include taboo links - would increase the odds important commentary or news might "go viral." The primary goal of the Censorship Industrial Complex is to prevent compelling dissenting views from ever "going viral."
Nice olive branch (and Hamlet reference.) Am also sending you an email on a different topic.
Great piece, thank you. It seems there’s room for an ecosystem of solos, teams, and the big players too, even if we haven’t seen all the possible configurations yet. Any new business model will need to support and embrace the “going solo” potential of any star. Ideally, this happens in a complementary way: growing the individual and the collective should be genuine, constructive relationships. I expect we will see more rooting for each other instead of fiery exits.
Substack lets writers and audiences move between options with such ease that all models will need to be places the audience or creator genuinely want to be part of. It should provide a compelling alternative to the risk of looting past media companies—if they can manage to pivot without stumbling.
The other big question to me is just how many subscriptions the audience will tolerate. I won’t be surprised if I see more market pressure for a group approach when folks start juggling 100+ subscriptions.
Thanks for bringing some rain to dc
Perhaps the future rests in these surprising collaborations. Innovation mixes with tradition to craft a livelier media landscape.
Let's do a thought exercise on the reliability of the MSM's reporting ... or "dogged investigations" journalists did NOT perform ...
Hamish could tell us how many people have started Substack newsletters in the past four years. I don't know the answer, but my guess is this figure must be at least 10,000 people in the world.
It wouldn't be that hard - via a poll or some clever research - to find out how many of these 10,000 random citizens - of all ages - died "from Covid" in the last four years.
The official narrative on this virus is/was that is it very dangerous and contagious, that "everyone" was at risk of dying.
If this is true, certainly a fair number of Substack authors must have died from Covid by now. How many have died? 50? 100? 340? Maybe ... zero?
If the Covid Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) is the same as the flu IFR (0.1 percent) that would mean that 10 Covid authors who had a case of Covid have now died. This would be 1 death in every 1,000 confirmed "cases" among Substack authors.
Well, is this true? The IFR for Covid - per the experts - is supposed to be something like 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent (down from 3.4 percent at one time, per the experts).
Have 30 (IFR = 0.3 percent) or 50 (IFR = 0.5 percent) Substack authors died from Covid?
My point is that the mainstream media could actually investigate a question like this and give us a credible answer or plausible estimate. The reason they won't do this is that the answer is probably between 0 and 10 deaths - which would mean this disease is less lethal than the flu.
That's the type reporting or analysis The Washington Post, NY Times or the AP won't perform.
... But I can make this contrarian point on Substack - which is why this platform is so important.
Not to pick on Your Local Epedmiologist (but since she's cited as a great source, let's pick on her).
Per my research, YLE has approximately 250,000 Substack subscribers. If we assume that 90 percent of the population has contracted Covid at least once by now, that would mean approximately 225,000 of her subscribers have been "infected" by Covid by now.
My question: How many of these 225,000 have died "from" Covid? If YLE now says the Covid IFR is 0.3 percent - 3 deaths for every 1,000 cases - that would mean that almost 700 of her subscribers have now died from Covid (3 deaths in every 225,000 subscribers = 675 deaths).
Your Local Epidemiogist could do a poll of her readers and get an answer to this question. (I guess dead subscribers couldn't respond so maybe she could ask for the number of deaths among spouses of her subscribers have occurred).
My strong hunch is that only a handful of spouses of her readers actually died from Covid - certainly fewer than 220 (which would be 1 death every 1,000 subscribers - the flu IFR. Even if 220 died, that would make the Covid IFR the same as the flu IFR.
Maybe YLE is reading this and can take me up on my scientific challenge.
P.S. I have 6,100 subscribers. I can't remember one post from a subscriber who said their spouse or one of their children died from Covid. So it seems the Covid IFR of my subscribers is 0-in-6,100 or (0.0000 percent).
I'd note that Facebook bans, "shadow bans" or de-amplifies any post I make on that site that includes a link to one of my Substack articles (especially the non-authorized pieces on taboo Covid subjects). In fact, this is the reason I started a Substack newsletter in the first place. None (or very few) of my 1,500 followers were seeing my "free speech."
Still, I have managed to post a few Substack articles on Facebook. These are articles that get 4,000 to 73,000 "reads" at my Substack and generate hundreds of "likes" and Reader Comments. In other words, these articles have been "test-marketed" on Substack. I know people like them or the topic resonated with people who think like I do.
But on Facebook - where probably half of my "friends and followers" also think like I do (people who probably like me and aren't mortified that I would share an opinion) - these posts often generate zero "likes." It's like I'm handing out pamphlets in the desert.
My hunch: If I was posting articles that echo points routinely made at The Washington Post, I think I'd have much higher readership levels on Facebook.
Let 'em have it, Bill.
I scrolled through the comments and see Hamish, the author, has "liked" many comments. I made more comments on this thread than anyone ... and I didn't get one "like" from the founder of Substack. Interesting ... and noted.
It has dawned on me how the Atlantic, a publication most prone to smearing substack, has a CEO who is an ardent believer in paid subscriptions. They have struggled mightily to become profitable.
I don't believe the future of media can rely on traditional devices like paid subscriptions or digital advertising revenue.
I actually think the future of media depends on inventing new ways to monetize and build community. Shying away from media and news into some cultural backwater or edgy cult of personality cloning or amplification is not the solution.
We have to be and do more in order to be sustainable.
Michael writes, "We have to be and do more in order to be sustainable."
So much of media analysis focuses on tactics, platforms and strategies etc. Everybody is struggling to find some angle with which to advance their own position. There's nothing wrong with this. Except that it's hyper predictable, and thus boring.
Me, me, me and me me me, squawking out from almost every publication. Look at me, vote for me, pay attention to me, validate me, be impressed by me, hire me, buy my stuff, subscribe to me, pay me etc etc. Again, there is moral crime here. But it's so incredibly predictable that we can hardly blame readers for tuning most of it out.
We have to be more? What if we were to write about some agenda other than ourselves?
We need to do more? Why don't we try to make the world a better place?
Are you tired of this sermon? Ok, good! So let's move from the talking of the talk towards the walking of the walk. Let's make the talk real. Something like this:
https://writers-as-heroes.org/p/writers-as-heroes-64d
The quote "The only pleasure almost as great as enjoying art is talking about art" is attributed to the American art critic and historian, Clement Greenberg. HE was a highly influential figure in the mid-20th century art world, known for his advocacy of abstract expressionism and his critical writings on modern art. As for substack , not sure how I would have survived without it during the virus debacle with all the censorship , covering up of data, and screaming media messages all in lockstep with wonderful incentives provided by the government to dole out the same message ad nauseum. Were you aware of the Trusted News Initiative and how that was instituted ? I did not find that information on main stream media . I think there was a lot of trust regarding MSM news destroyed and that's something , at least for me, will not be easily forgiven with the usual suspects still in positions of power to determine what we are "allowed " to see in print .
I get that your goal is to grow your business, but please keep in mind—this will once again totally screw over independent journalists. I got about ... 250 paid subs in about a year. Any mildly popular post would generate one or more paid subs. And then it just plateaued. I'm guessing because so many people, many more prominent than me, flooded Substack and there's only so many paid subs people are willing to get. Now, I'm in a kind of shitty position where it's enough money that I feel compelled to continue, but nowhere near enough. If Substack is then flooded with content from mainstream media? No offense but you're not dispelling the cliche of the VC that promises the resurgence of independent journalism only to prioritize making money at the expense of content creators. I guess maybe from a business angle consider that your brand is "guy who truly cares about journalism."