Journalism: Unplugged

With traditional media declining, journalists are turning to Substack for independence, direct audience engagement and financial stability

- KATHERINE FUNG

JIM ACOSTA, THE FORMER CNN anchor known for antagonizing President Donald Trump during his first term, did not know what Substack was two months ago, when he was suddenly on the outs with the network he had called home for nearly two decades. Today, he has more than 280,000 subscribers on the platform.

"I called him after his last sign off from CNN, and it turned out he did not own his own computer for 18 years. CNN owned his computer," Catherine Valentine, Substack's head of politics, told Newsweek. "But when he left CNN, he had to turn in his computer. He did not know what Substack was, he just knew that there was this opportunity for independence."

Acosta's decision to launch a newsletter on Substack rather than seek another cable news gig reflects a growing consensus among journalists: the traditional media landscape is disintegrating, and it's increasingly every man and woman for themself.

The New, New Media

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss and Vox cofounder Matthew Yglesias are all on Substack. So are FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver, Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer, veteran journalist Dan Rather and Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist who has nearly a million followers on X, formerly Twitter, for his video clips documenting political events from a progressive angle.

"Journalists have lost a lot of faith in Meta, Twitter and Google searches," Valentine said. "They've seen their own work suffer. Unless they text their stories to their friends or do their own PR around this, no one is going to see it. That's forcing publishers, for the first time, to want complete ownership of their work and the complete ability to reach people." "When people come to Substack and they see the power of subscriptions and what it's paying them directly, their eyes just open," she said.