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Of course things aren’t so simple; Sullivan, like several of the other names on that leaderboard, are, to put it gently, controversial. That he along with other

Of course things aren’t so simple; Sullivan, like several of the other names on that leaderboard, are, to put it gently, controversial. That he along with other lightning-rod writers ended up on Substack is more a matter of where else would they go? While Substack is portrayed as being a good move for writers and journalists (and certainly it is, financially), I don't think this is actually good for journalism as a whole. It often will just mean that successful writers are the most celebrity-like ones: writing controversial things because it gets more traffic and therefore more income. I don't know about you, but I don't want the tactics of Kim Kardashian to be the model of a future journalist.

slibhb 6y ago
> writing controversial things because it gets more traffic and therefore more income. This is a danger but I'd rather have "controversial" than "if you deviate from the politics of the publication that pays your salary, you get fired". Personally, I like Sullivan, Greenwald, Yglesias, Taibbi, etc. I think Sullivan and Yglesias are not drama queens and that Geenwald and Tiabbi are. But I like all 4, I just think the latter two need a responsible editor to rein them in a bit.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  I don't dislike them, I just dislike the idea that becoming a successful journalist will now mean you must also be charismatic, good at attracting attention to yourself, etc.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    To be honest, writing is a kind of art and what you describe has always been important among artistically gifted people. Introverted and shy geniuses tend to be discovered after their deaths, if ever.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      No, that really isn't true at all. Some of the most famous writers and artists throughout history were terrible at self-promotion.
      - inglor_cz 6y ago
        Well we are talking more about financial success, right? Or that was my impression from the debate. Even the original article revolves around $$$.
        ceilingcorner 6y ago
        I'm just concerned that journalists will become more like celebrities. Less concerned with the cold facts and more with giving their take. Frankly a similar thing has already happened in the art world. Banksy, Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst are fantastic marketers, not artists.
        x0x0 6y ago
        Was Ted Koppel really a great journalist?
        ceilingcorner 6y ago
        Not the example I'd use. Kronkite is a better one, IMO. That level of straightforwardness is sorely lacking today.
  - x0x0 6y ago
    The word "now" is doing a lot of work there :) So also successful. Do you think there was really a time that being a really successful journalist didn't require some charisma and a talent for publicity? Maybe the publication handled some of those things, but it doesn't change that they were required.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      Of course. Investigative journalism has little to do with building an audience of paying subscribers. When the newspaper handled the business end, the journalists could focus on the journalism. It wasn't called "loss leader" for nothing.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Newspapers were historically a bundle of only somewhat tangentially related things that you had to take, if not actually read, all together. The foreign bureaus and investigative journalism provided the prestige, sports a lot of readership, and classified ads the money. Of course, the Internet broke that bundle apart to a large degree.
      - x0x0 6y ago
        Someone was doing it on behalf of the journalist. There's no particular difference between the journalist doing it or their publication.
  - obiefernandez 6y ago
    That's what the music world has become. And it fucking sucks.
  - exolymph 6y ago
    It has always meant that.
zpeti 6y ago
My perception of old media is that they are doing exactly this, writing click bait things to get clicks and subs. This is true across the board from CNN to NYT to Fox. At least with substack the incentives are not there for daily churn articles, the journalists have independence to publish when they want to, how they want to, worst case they lost subscribers. I think those incentives make them a lot less likely to make everything about clicks and controversy actually.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Agreed, old media already does this. The question is: does switching to an individual-focused model actually address the underlying issues?
  - carlineng 6y ago
    I would argue that yes, the fundamental incentives are different. Traditional media relied on an advertising-based revenue model, that needed to maximize eyeballs to be attractive to advertisers. Substack relies on subscriptions, which can operate at a much smaller scale. Matthew Yglesias's 10k subscribers is not nearly enough to be attractive for an advertiser, but more than enough to support a single writer's subscription business. Through Substack, writers are incentivized to write things they think that people will pay for, not just things they think people will click on.
- rchaud 6y ago
  > the journalists have independence to publish when they want to, This is the same thing that was said about Youtube creators vs network/cable TV shows that follow a regular schedule. Before too long, it became clear that channels needed to post at least one video per week to keep up with their competition and boost subscriber numbers. I expect the same thing to happen here.
nickysielicki 6y ago
That's a strawman and a half. World-improving journalism follows a Pareto distribution where 90% of non-submarine hard-hitting journalism is done by 10% of the journalists and the rest just exist to peddle influence. The industry has been under pressure for a long time due to the death of print media, and substack just represents the 10% cutting the fat. Good riddance. Learn to code.
snicksnak 6y ago
> I don't want the tactics of Kim Kardashian to be the model of a future journalist. Most mayor news outlets (including NYT) run branded/sponsored content. I doubt that you will see that on substack.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  You absolutely will when people on the cusp of making a living use them to push themselves over that edge. As is pretty common on other content platforms. Here it’s happening already: https://medialyte.substack.com/p/the-curious-emergence-of-the-substack https://medialyte.substack.com/p/the-curious-emergence-of-th...
Dirlewanger 6y ago
Old media and Buzzfeed-esque rags had their chance to write quality journalism in the nascent Internet age. They've failed spectacularly and are tearing society apart. If this is the way forward for the time being, so be it.
bhupy 6y ago
That's what journalism has always been like, save for a few decades in one specific country (the US). The past few decades of supposed "objectivity" and "neutrality" in American journalism were a historical aberration. https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-returning-its-roots/ https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-return...
- slibhb 6y ago
  I watched a classic movie from the 50s recently, Sweet Smell of Success. In the movie columnists are portrayed as almost exclusively venal and engaged in corrupt influence-peddling (except for one guy who refuses to compromise in the face of blackmail). It was an interesting counterpoint to the "journalists used to be objective" stuff.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Anti-discrimination laws, human rights, and democracy are also historical aberrations. But I think they're kind of worth keeping around. Perhaps getting accurate facts about the world is also important?
  - bhupy 6y ago
    > Anti-discrimination laws, human rights, and democracy are also historical aberrations. But I think they're kind of worth keeping around. Nazism was also a historical aberration, but that's certainly not worth keeping around. Just because some "good" things were historical aberrations, doesn't mean that all historical aberrations are "good". > Perhaps getting accurate facts about the world is also important? I don't think anybody disagrees with this. The central question is: is journalism the institution that should be responsible for getting accurate facts about the world? That's almost never been the case, and even today, isn't the case in most countries (including Western Europe). We typically use other institutions to suss out facts, including academia and peer-reviewed research. News articles published by mainstream outlets aren't peer-reviewed, and bias has existed in journalism since time immemorial. That was the point of my original response. Substack isn't "good" or "bad" for the future of journalism, it's "neutral", since it doesn't change the status quo all that much.
pydry 6y ago
>It often will just mean that successful writers are the most celebrity-like ones: writing controversial things because it gets more traffic The opposite seems more the case to me. Convincing readers to get out their wallet encourages more thoughtful, longer form writing. It's the larger media publications that are gradually getting more clickbaity in a desperate bid to gain clicks and ad revenue.
BurningFrog 6y ago
Journalism has always been a business that sells on sensation and controversy. The people who tell you otherwise tend to be journalists. That said, sensation driven journalism can be pretty good at checking the powerful, since it's sensational when they do bad things.
762236 6y ago
You've described NY Times and Fox News in how they write controversial things to get more traffic. They share the same world, yet have quite dissimilar front pages, because they're tailoring controversy for the value systems of their audiences. The authors on Substack don't need to seek controversy: they just need to point out the rules of the orthodoxy, and then the controversy follows them.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Yes, so Substack is just kicking the bucket further down the road. Just another game of musical chairs. I guess it's cool that writers make more money, but I'm not sure this is as revolutionary as it seems.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> While Substack is portrayed as being a good move for writers and journalists (and certainly it is, financially), I don't think this is actually good for journalism Certainly what I've seen from writers on substack is much worse than what I've seen from the same writers in traditional publications. It seems to be a great way of catapulting anyone who has achieved even a bit of name recognition into that “doesn’t have to deal with editors/publishers/etc.” phase of their career that's often the quality downfall as ego takes over for many writers, but which has historically been more available to writers doing long-form work.
tablespoon 6y ago
> I don't know about you, but I don't want the tactics of Kim Kardashian to be the model of a future journalist. I don't think something like Substack could even support journalism. Sure, it could support various kinds of punditry, which is often confused for journalism, but beat journalism is probably too boring and investigative journalism produces on too irregular of a schedule.
jameshart 6y ago
Substack is a great move for a columnist but a terrible move for a reporter. Unfortunately not all journalists are completely clear which of those they are.

slibhb 6y ago

> writing controversial things because it gets more traffic and therefore more income. This is a danger but I'd rather have "controversial" than "if you deviate from the politics of the publication that pays your salary, you get fired". Personally, I like Sullivan, Greenwald, Yglesias, Taibbi, etc. I think Sullivan and Yglesias are not drama queens and that Geenwald and Tiabbi are. But I like all 4, I just think the latter two need a responsible editor to rein them in a bit.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
I don't dislike them, I just dislike the idea that becoming a successful journalist will now mean you must also be charismatic, good at attracting attention to yourself, etc.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  To be honest, writing is a kind of art and what you describe has always been important among artistically gifted people. Introverted and shy geniuses tend to be discovered after their deaths, if ever.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    No, that really isn't true at all. Some of the most famous writers and artists throughout history were terrible at self-promotion.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Well we are talking more about financial success, right? Or that was my impression from the debate. Even the original article revolves around $$$.
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        I'm just concerned that journalists will become more like celebrities. Less concerned with the cold facts and more with giving their take. Frankly a similar thing has already happened in the art world. Banksy, Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst are fantastic marketers, not artists.
        x0x0 6y ago
        Was Ted Koppel really a great journalist?
        ceilingcorner 6y ago
        Not the example I'd use. Kronkite is a better one, IMO. That level of straightforwardness is sorely lacking today.
- x0x0 6y ago
  The word "now" is doing a lot of work there :) So also successful. Do you think there was really a time that being a really successful journalist didn't require some charisma and a talent for publicity? Maybe the publication handled some of those things, but it doesn't change that they were required.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Of course. Investigative journalism has little to do with building an audience of paying subscribers. When the newspaper handled the business end, the journalists could focus on the journalism. It wasn't called "loss leader" for nothing.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Newspapers were historically a bundle of only somewhat tangentially related things that you had to take, if not actually read, all together. The foreign bureaus and investigative journalism provided the prestige, sports a lot of readership, and classified ads the money. Of course, the Internet broke that bundle apart to a large degree.
    - x0x0 6y ago
      Someone was doing it on behalf of the journalist. There's no particular difference between the journalist doing it or their publication.
- obiefernandez 6y ago
  That's what the music world has become. And it fucking sucks.
- exolymph 6y ago
  It has always meant that.

zpeti 6y ago

My perception of old media is that they are doing exactly this, writing click bait things to get clicks and subs. This is true across the board from CNN to NYT to Fox. At least with substack the incentives are not there for daily churn articles, the journalists have independence to publish when they want to, how they want to, worst case they lost subscribers. I think those incentives make them a lot less likely to make everything about clicks and controversy actually.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
Agreed, old media already does this. The question is: does switching to an individual-focused model actually address the underlying issues?
- carlineng 6y ago
  I would argue that yes, the fundamental incentives are different. Traditional media relied on an advertising-based revenue model, that needed to maximize eyeballs to be attractive to advertisers. Substack relies on subscriptions, which can operate at a much smaller scale. Matthew Yglesias's 10k subscribers is not nearly enough to be attractive for an advertiser, but more than enough to support a single writer's subscription business. Through Substack, writers are incentivized to write things they think that people will pay for, not just things they think people will click on.
rchaud 6y ago
> the journalists have independence to publish when they want to, This is the same thing that was said about Youtube creators vs network/cable TV shows that follow a regular schedule. Before too long, it became clear that channels needed to post at least one video per week to keep up with their competition and boost subscriber numbers. I expect the same thing to happen here.

nickysielicki 6y ago

That's a strawman and a half. World-improving journalism follows a Pareto distribution where 90% of non-submarine hard-hitting journalism is done by 10% of the journalists and the rest just exist to peddle influence. The industry has been under pressure for a long time due to the death of print media, and substack just represents the 10% cutting the fat. Good riddance. Learn to code.

snicksnak 6y ago

> I don't want the tactics of Kim Kardashian to be the model of a future journalist. Most mayor news outlets (including NYT) run branded/sponsored content. I doubt that you will see that on substack.

meheleventyone 6y ago
You absolutely will when people on the cusp of making a living use them to push themselves over that edge. As is pretty common on other content platforms. Here it’s happening already: https://medialyte.substack.com/p/the-curious-emergence-of-the-substack https://medialyte.substack.com/p/the-curious-emergence-of-th...

Dirlewanger 6y ago

Old media and Buzzfeed-esque rags had their chance to write quality journalism in the nascent Internet age. They've failed spectacularly and are tearing society apart. If this is the way forward for the time being, so be it.

bhupy 6y ago

That's what journalism has always been like, save for a few decades in one specific country (the US). The past few decades of supposed "objectivity" and "neutrality" in American journalism were a historical aberration. https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-returning-its-roots/ https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-return...

slibhb 6y ago
I watched a classic movie from the 50s recently, Sweet Smell of Success. In the movie columnists are portrayed as almost exclusively venal and engaged in corrupt influence-peddling (except for one guy who refuses to compromise in the face of blackmail). It was an interesting counterpoint to the "journalists used to be objective" stuff.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
Anti-discrimination laws, human rights, and democracy are also historical aberrations. But I think they're kind of worth keeping around. Perhaps getting accurate facts about the world is also important?
- bhupy 6y ago
  > Anti-discrimination laws, human rights, and democracy are also historical aberrations. But I think they're kind of worth keeping around. Nazism was also a historical aberration, but that's certainly not worth keeping around. Just because some "good" things were historical aberrations, doesn't mean that all historical aberrations are "good". > Perhaps getting accurate facts about the world is also important? I don't think anybody disagrees with this. The central question is: is journalism the institution that should be responsible for getting accurate facts about the world? That's almost never been the case, and even today, isn't the case in most countries (including Western Europe). We typically use other institutions to suss out facts, including academia and peer-reviewed research. News articles published by mainstream outlets aren't peer-reviewed, and bias has existed in journalism since time immemorial. That was the point of my original response. Substack isn't "good" or "bad" for the future of journalism, it's "neutral", since it doesn't change the status quo all that much.

pydry 6y ago

>It often will just mean that successful writers are the most celebrity-like ones: writing controversial things because it gets more traffic The opposite seems more the case to me. Convincing readers to get out their wallet encourages more thoughtful, longer form writing. It's the larger media publications that are gradually getting more clickbaity in a desperate bid to gain clicks and ad revenue.

BurningFrog 6y ago

Journalism has always been a business that sells on sensation and controversy. The people who tell you otherwise tend to be journalists. That said, sensation driven journalism can be pretty good at checking the powerful, since it's sensational when they do bad things.

762236 6y ago

You've described NY Times and Fox News in how they write controversial things to get more traffic. They share the same world, yet have quite dissimilar front pages, because they're tailoring controversy for the value systems of their audiences. The authors on Substack don't need to seek controversy: they just need to point out the rules of the orthodoxy, and then the controversy follows them.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
Yes, so Substack is just kicking the bucket further down the road. Just another game of musical chairs. I guess it's cool that writers make more money, but I'm not sure this is as revolutionary as it seems.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> While Substack is portrayed as being a good move for writers and journalists (and certainly it is, financially), I don't think this is actually good for journalism Certainly what I've seen from writers on substack is much worse than what I've seen from the same writers in traditional publications. It seems to be a great way of catapulting anyone who has achieved even a bit of name recognition into that “doesn’t have to deal with editors/publishers/etc.” phase of their career that's often the quality downfall as ego takes over for many writers, but which has historically been more available to writers doing long-form work.

tablespoon 6y ago

> I don't know about you, but I don't want the tactics of Kim Kardashian to be the model of a future journalist. I don't think something like Substack could even support journalism. Sure, it could support various kinds of punditry, which is often confused for journalism, but beat journalism is probably too boring and investigative journalism produces on too irregular of a schedule.

jameshart 6y ago

Substack is a great move for a columnist but a terrible move for a reporter. Unfortunately not all journalists are completely clear which of those they are.