Chris Cillizza’s pivot: From CNN to newsletter powerhouse

This is part of an ongoing series of profiles of independent journalism creators because who better to learn from than the folks actually out there doing it?

When Chris Cillizza left CNN in 2022, he wasn’t sure what would come next. What he did know is that he didn’t do downtime well, so in January 2023 he launched So What, his now 27K-subscriber-strong Substack, where he single-handedly produces an astonishing amount of content each day in the form of newsletters, notes and videos – both on Substack and YouTube.

Full disclosure: I’ve known Cillizza for (OMG) 20 years. We both launched two of The Washington Post’s first blogs in 2005 and quickly found our daily posts outpacing content produced by The Post’s more traditional newsroom staffers, many of whom were skeptical of the digital space and blogging at the time. Mine, Celebritology, was a WaPo POV take on celebrity news and his, The Fix, was a daily must-read for anyone who wanted to understand inside-the-Beltway maneuvering. With The Fix, Cillizza developed his signature approach to making politics and elections understandable and reader-friendly.

It’s Cillizza’s early start as a blogger that set him up for his current success as an independent creator-model journalist. He has the metabolism to produce original content at volume, but also knows how to engage with his audience. His posts and videos are short and digestible, getting to the point quickly. He turns up in the comments threads, hosts live text-based chats (another skill he honed years ago at The Post), and has built a strong, direct relationship with his readers.

“The thing I have always been able to do is make lots of, I hope, quality content,” Cillizza told me. “And that skill has become more important now that I am off on my own — having to build audience based on the power of my thinking, talking and writing.”

Cillizza says about 4,000 of his subscribers are paying. At $6 or $60/year, that puts his Substack revenue into a respectable range – between $240K-$288K a year. He’s also an advisor with business consultancy the DGA Group, on the paid speaker circuit and hosting a show that takes politicians out of their offices and onto sports fields – all of which puts him in a comfortable position financially and is proof positive, by the way, that you don’t need hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers to make meaningful income in the newsletter space.

On the roadmap for Cillizza this year: Growing his audience on YouTube and breaking into brand deals to diversify his revenue sources.

His biggest advice for journalists making the transition to the solo path?

“The field for independent journalists — especially ones writing about politics is VERY crowded,” said Cillizza.” If you are jumping in, you need to think hard about what distinguishes you — and how to make that case to potential readers or viewers.”

Good advice for any topic area.

the latest

• beehiiv announced the inaugural members of the new beehiiv Media Collective last week (more here). Pre-existing beehiivers Oliver Darcy and Ryan Broderick were joined by a cohort of folks who are migrating, or recently migrated from, newsrooms. Among them: Seamus Hughes on federal courts; Kyle Tharp on news, politics and media influence; Catherine Herridge on national security and intelligence; Kat Tenbarge on technology and culture, and Jeff Benjamin on K-Pop.

• If you’re following the case of Bryan Schott, the independent journalist who sued the Utah Legislature for a press pass he was denied, an update: In a court hearing last week, a judge denied Schott’s request. “They’re complaining that because I don’t have an editor, I’m not legitimate,” said Schott last week when we spoke ahead of the hearing. “I don’t have an editor, but I’m extremely careful. I follow the same reporting standards I’ve used my entire career. This isn’t a blog. This isn’t stream-of-consciousness. This is journalism.”

  

know things

• Newsrooms, this one’s for you: As part of their ongoing work into local newsroom + influencer partnerships, API published this guide to mapping your local influencer landscape.

• ICYMI: Here’s the recording of last week’s Pew Research video call America’s News influencers.

• If you don’t follow Phillip Smith on LinkedIn, you really should. Smith directs Google’s GNI Journalistic Creators Lab and GNI Pre-launch Lab where he not only has helped scores of entrepreneurial journalists find their path to success, but has created tons of resources available to all. This week, I’m digging the Revenue Modeling Tool, which will help anyone building a biz plan calculate your 24-month goals.

project c on the road

I’ll be popping up at conferences this spring and hope to run into you:

• Catch me next week in Miami where I’ll moderate a panel about creator-model journalists at Knight Media Forum. I’ll be joined by an incredible group – Trusting News’ Joy Mayer, Washington Post CCO Kathy Baird, Pew Research’s Katerina Eva Matsa and independent content creator Becca Farsace.

• In March, I’ll be joining a panel at ISOJ in Austin on the same topic moderated by CNTI’s Amy Mitchell and joined by Status newsletter writer Oliver Darcy and Ben Reininga, Nieman Berkman-Klein Fellow of Journalism Innovation at Harvard University and former global head of editorial, Snapchat.

• In April, I’ll be leading a very abbreviated version of the Going Solo workshop at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.

GOING SOLO WAITLIST: The response to Going Solo, the 6-week workshop for aspiring creator-model journalists, has been incredible. We filled every spot in just a week and a half. Because demand was so high, we’ve opened a waitlist for the next cohort, which we’re planning for April.