Paul Krugman's new chapter (will be written on Substack)

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Paul Krugman, independent creator

Paul Krugman’s recent decision to leave The New York Times and launch an independent newsletter on Substack is the latest signal that even the most established voices in journalism are rethinking traditional models. One of the NYT’s marquee names, Krugman tells Columbia Journalism Review he’s trading the editorial constraints of a legacy outlet for the freedom of direct audience engagement. (Prediction: He won’t be the last NYT writer to go solo this year.)

On Substack, where he’s already amassed 134K subscribers as of this writing, Krugman writes that most of his daily content will be free, but he is introducing a paid tier he’s calling akin to a “tip jar” ($7 mo/$70 year) that will get “additional stuff.”

Krugman’s transition is a valuable cautionary tale for publishers struggling to retain top talent. Some of the reasons journalists most often cite for making the leap to solo-preneurship include editorial misalignment with legacy brands and a lack of economic incentives to stay with a brand that is benefiting from their work without giving them a proportionate share in profits. By leveraging his established NYT reputation, Krugman can monetize his expertise and make his own editorial decisions, which is a powerful reminder of the shifting dynamics in the media landscape. As more high-profile journalists embrace independence, it challenges traditional publishers to rethink how they support, compensate and empower their talent to remain competitive and relevant.

the latest

• Joss Fong and Adam Cole talk to NiemanLab’s Neel Dhanesha about what they’ve learned in the first several months of producing their YouTube channel, Howtown. TL;DR: They’re not raking in big bucks at this point, but their advertising policy is sterling.

• Substack on Friday announced a $20M creator fund targeting existing creators with paid audiences on other platforms. The announcement promises folks who move won’t lose any revenue in the hop to Substack and name-checks V Spehar and Aaron Parnas as two news-y creators who are joining the cohort. (Existing Substackers who bootstrapped it up to this point are not qualified to apply, which has led to some consternation online.)

• The Wall Street Journal talks to a handful of news newsletter writers, including Casey Lewis (After School), Emily Sundberg (Feed Me) and Alex Kantrowitz (Big Technology), about the wild west of advertising.

• Taylor Lorenz (along with Carole Cadwalladr and Grace Blakeley) have signed on as contributors to Mehdi Hasan’s Substack startup Zeteo.

• Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb sits down with Hasan Minhaj to talk about why he’s embracing a future for journalism that includes creators – because, says Cobb, “that’s what the future of media is and we want to be a player in shaping what that landscape looks like – whether you’re in a traditional newsroom or whether you are a one-man or one-woman show.” 👏

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know things

• Henry Winslow, creator of the Tricycle Day psychedelics news newsletter, talks to Creator Spotlight about, among other things, his most successful audience acquisition tool: spending about $5K a month on Meta ads.

• Simon Owens (a good follow if you’re not already) talks to Tim Huelskamp about growing the 1440 to 4 million subscribers and a thriving business now expanding into explainer content:

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