Friday 3rd December: Supporting women in journalism & creating the creator economy

December 03, 2021

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.

If you spend any time in this industry then you'll know that many women journalists face unbelievable amounts of abuse, purely because of their gender. It's not possible to ignore - nor should we turn away from - the fact that a lot of men believe that women shouldn't play a role in holding the powerful to account through their journalism. It's a pathetic mindset held by small-minded little bigots - but simply ignoring it isn't an option.

This episode of the Journalism.co.uk podcast looks at why men must support their women colleagues who are facing torrents of online threats and abuse, sexual harassment and barriers to advance in the industry. As noted in the blurb, it's simply not tenable nor acceptable for us men to assume we don't have a stake in improving things:

"The bottom line is this: women do not expect men to have all the answers, but they do need men to be present and proactive when it counts. After all, our newsrooms are better when we have strong and supported women working on the frontlines and in the boardrooms."

Before Substack, before Stratechery... there was Randy Cassingham. I admit I hadn't heard of him before this article from Simon Owens, but there's a credible argument to be made that this man saw the creator economy and the flight to niche coming way, way before the bigger players.

It's honestly very hard to know who is punching down on whom in this spat, so we'll settle for reporting the facts. After winning her case against the Mail for invasion of privacy, Meghan Markle has called for the reformation of the tabloid industry. That's about as much as I can write before going into an anti-royalty, anti-Dacre screed, so I'll leave it there.

Hey look, it's Kylie Jenner for some reason.

This is an interesting one - almost nobody I've spoken to has understood the rationale between a lot of Forbes' more recent launches, from its network of newsletters to its repositioning in the age of direct payments and subscriptions. And yet...

This week's podcast:

Noema is a magazine looking at some of the biggest issues of the 21st century – AI, the climate crisis, the future of democracy and capitalism. Its Executive Editor Kathleen Miles tells us about the challenges of publishing into a potentially exclusive niche.

We've launched our latest annual report, Media Moments 2021, with our publishing partners What's New In Publishing and sponsor Sovrn. This year we dig into trends in platforms, advertising, subscriptions, eCommerce and more, alongside emerging technologies like the metaverse and NFTs. Download it for free now!