The Substack model has no shortage of skeptics. As Will Oremus writes in Slate, commentators have historically acted as subsidies for the more expensive and less glamorous work of local reporting — and, I would add for news operations like this one, international coverage. “The Times’s digital success has been built partly on a major expansion of its opinion section; magazines such as The Atlantic and Mother Jones have relied on their best-known columnists to support their originally reported features and investigations,” Oremus writes. “It’s those personalities that Substack is going after and poaching.”As a result, the paid subscription newsletter business is likely to favor writers who already have a national platform. The intention is declarative — you, too, can make it on Substack.

Source: International New York Times July 08, 2021 21:56 UTC