I read plenty of newsletters, but I don’t subscribe to very many. Often — especially in the case of the personal and quirky, and the less overtly news-pegged — I scroll through the archives of newsletters on the web and read several editions at a time.
It’s great. It’s like reading blogs.
Newsletters seem to have circled around from being the new blogs to being like blogs (but with posts that are emailed to readers). The web interface of any given public Substack is basically that of a blog. You can even set up comments. And there are subscription apps like Stoop that organize newsletters’ content as RSS readers did for blogs.
One reason we might see a resurgence of blogs is the novelty. Tell someone you’re starting a new newsletter and they might complain about how many newsletters (or podcasts) they already subscribe to. But tell them you’re launching a blog and see how that goes: Huh. Really, a blog? In 2020? Wow.
It’s been long enough now that people look back on blogging fondly, but the next generation of blogs will be shaped around the habits and conventions of today’s internet. Internet users are savvier about things like context collapse and control (or lack thereof) over who gets to view their shared content. Decentralization and privacy are other factors. At this moment, while so much communication takes place backstage, in group chats and on Slack, I’d expect new blogs to step in the same ambiguous territory as newsletters have — a venue for material where not everyone is looking, but privacy is neither airtight nor expected.
Blogs offer the potential to broadcast, but not too broadly. We might even see a breakdown where newsletters begin to focus more on individual personal stories and daily digests, while blogs will fill in the gaps of all that might be written about otherwise.
It is genuinely pleasant to scroll through Jason Kottke’s blog when I have no idea where else to click on the internet. It’s pleasant to scroll through the archives of various newsletters too. Such spaces are escape hatches from the horse-race election cycle: People are looking for those escape hatches, and they’re looking to create them too. So why not start a blog?
Joanne McNeil is author of the book Lurking: How a Person Became a User, out next month.
I read plenty of newsletters, but I don’t subscribe to very many. Often — especially in the case of the personal and quirky, and the less overtly news-pegged — I scroll through the archives of newsletters on the web and read several editions at a time.
It’s great. It’s like reading blogs.
Newsletters seem to have circled around from being the new blogs to being like blogs (but with posts that are emailed to readers). The web interface of any given public Substack is basically that of a blog. You can even set up comments. And there are subscription apps like Stoop that organize newsletters’ content as RSS readers did for blogs.
One reason we might see a resurgence of blogs is the novelty. Tell someone you’re starting a new newsletter and they might complain about how many newsletters (or podcasts) they already subscribe to. But tell them you’re launching a blog and see how that goes: Huh. Really, a blog? In 2020? Wow.
It’s been long enough now that people look back on blogging fondly, but the next generation of blogs will be shaped around the habits and conventions of today’s internet. Internet users are savvier about things like context collapse and control (or lack thereof) over who gets to view their shared content. Decentralization and privacy are other factors. At this moment, while so much communication takes place backstage, in group chats and on Slack, I’d expect new blogs to step in the same ambiguous territory as newsletters have — a venue for material where not everyone is looking, but privacy is neither airtight nor expected.
Blogs offer the potential to broadcast, but not too broadly. We might even see a breakdown where newsletters begin to focus more on individual personal stories and daily digests, while blogs will fill in the gaps of all that might be written about otherwise.
It is genuinely pleasant to scroll through Jason Kottke’s blog when I have no idea where else to click on the internet. It’s pleasant to scroll through the archives of various newsletters too. Such spaces are escape hatches from the horse-race election cycle: People are looking for those escape hatches, and they’re looking to create them too. So why not start a blog?
Joanne McNeil is author of the book Lurking: How a Person Became a User, out next month.
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Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
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Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
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Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
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S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
AX Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Mario García Think small (screen)
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
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Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
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