Yesterday,
, the Co-founder of Substack and the company’s Chief Writing wrote this post, Disjointed. He argues that Substack and traditional media can grow together. He cites examples like the Washington Post and C-SPAN publishing things they find on Substack as examples. At the end, he invites traditional media to email him to partner. His inbox, he said, “Is wide open.”+++
Every time I read you Hamish, I’m shocked at how wrong you are.
You’re wrong at the start, “Substack can happily coexist, and even help each other.” Wrong. You’re wrong in the middle, “Substack is not traditional media’s enemy.” Wrong.
Why? Why would traditional media email you to partner? What do you have? They can email people. They offer newsletters. They can, per your examples, find people off their street and pull them on their stage a la Bruce Springsteen and Courtney Cox.
Fortunately, I’m here to help you. You have this all wrong. Because (happy drum roll) you’re thinking too small and being too nice.
You’re almost right when you write, “Traditional media business is in a spot of trouble, but that doesn’t mean it’s doomed.”
Actually, outside the New York Times, it (news-like media) is doomed. The Washington Post is losing money. In a highly contested election year. The LA Times loses money. Gannett just emerged from bankruptcy. And, outside of jettisoning debt the like a college student who works for the government, they have no new strategies.
The fewer and fewer people who still have staff jobs are more concerned with who runs their place and if leadership will let them write what they want more than creating businesses that grow subscribers and make money.
Traditional media is doomed. Because, today’s writers are more substantial than today’s mastheads. Mastheads have agendas. They’re increasingly reliant on AI. They have been overly reliant on ads for far too long. They clutter their sites with ads they show to “traffic” that Google and Facebook deliver to them. When you think of customers as traffic, you’re done. In fact, that traffic and that entire model is done. Per Simon Owens, right here on Notes, “Facebook accounted for 30% of Axios traffic two years ago. It was about 1% in May!”
Just minutes ago, TIME and ChatGPT inked a multiyear deal. Because, TIME wants to “access a younger, more diverse global audience.” ChatGPT will gobble up content that ultimately wipes out the need for TIME in exchange for links that TIME must hope will drive young, diverse readers who use AI to summarize content back to their site as, “traffic” to see ads. Sure. That’s bound to work.
This model just sells out the writers. They’re being monetized by the mastheads they work for. That aribtrage can’t last indefinitely.
Writers… real people who write… are real. They’re not AI, they’re not driven by a masthead’s agenda. Reference: Weiss, Bari. They’re not driven by ads. Which means they are not reliant on search and social traffic. Which means they generate real stories absent clickbait headlines.
When Twitter (X) won’t unfurl Substack links. When LinkedIn suppresses stories from nearly all third-party sites, the media ecosystem is beyond repair.
Readers will read one story about stuff. Let’s say Axios writing about the TIME/ChapGPT deal. We don’t need hundreds of sites like the Hindustani Times re-writing stories to appease ad stack deities. Which means we’re heading back to a small number of outlets. Really, we’re heading back to a large number of writers. The mastheads are immaterial. We are going to return to reading the writers we love. Jimmy Breslin outlived the New York Daily News. To quote Bob Pittman, “Brands win.” Writers are the brands.
Media doesn’t think it needs you. Who cares? They’re doomed. Don’t fall prey to the drowning man who takes you down when you’re trying to save them. I speak from far too much first-hand experience.
You think you need traditional media. You don’t. You’re at the center of a solution. No. You are the solution. Substack is an ecosystem that solves the media problem. Not just companies like Substack… Substack. If you notice, BeeHiiv has abdicated this space. Companies are jumping on their domain, attaching email addresses to lists, and spamming people. There’s no unsubscribe to the unwanted emails they send (me). There’s no search function to find writers there, because there are no writers there.
Tag. You’re it. You are the future of news-like media. Linking real writers with the real readers. Mostly, to date, it’s been long-form. But, like YouTube, I imagine you’re going have a future in short-form too.
Start thinking big. Stop being nice. You got this.