Journalist Newsletters
How individual journalists built bigger audiences than the newspapers that employed them — and why institutions lost their moat when switching costs hit zero.
In 2020, the Washington Post had a million digital subscribers, but their best content wasn't investigative journalism. It was the Daily Briefing, a simple newsletter summarizing news. Readers didn't want endless information. They wanted curation, someone telling them what mattered. Scarcity wasn't information anymore. It was trustworthy filters. Journalists realized they could do this independently. A Times correspondent built Substack with Daily commentary. A financial analyst sent weekly market analysis. City reporters wrote neighborhood newsletters. Each built audience's independent of employers. Publishers panicked and banned Substack. Employees left anyway. The asymmetry was simple.
Watch the full reel free on MoonReelz — moonreelz.com