Monday 13th May: The graduate journalist with a leading political newsletter

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Are you a publisher with newsletters or podcasts? Then you absolutely must have Wednesday June 12th in your diary. Advance rates for tickets ends this coming Friday!

This is a fascinating read, although I wish it went a bit more into the weeds about the revenue side of things. Gabe Fleisher started his Wake Up To Politics newsletter in 2011 age nine for a lone subscriber - his mother. Now it has 50,000 subscribers and he’s about to take the next step post-graduation at making it his full-time job.

A couple of things are notable here. First is that Fleisher spotted the opportunity in these journalist-led newsletters long before Axios or Substack were a thing. The second is his observation on how publications like his will stand out in the future:

““I think readers more and more in this era expect a level of authenticity from their journalists. They want transparency. They want to see how journalists are arriving at their conclusions,” he said. “When you’re reading bigger news outlets that might start to experiment with AI journalism, the role of independent news outlets, with human voices that audiences trust and know are authentic, is only going to become more important”

✉️ You know the drill…if this story piques your interest, we know you’ll love the Publisher Newsletter Summit, coming to London on June 12th.

Apple is preparing to include an AI-based privacy feature in the Safari browser in the next iOS 18 software update that will remove ads or other unwanted website content. The News Media Association, which represents 900 national, regional and local titles in the UK, has warned that this could put the financial sustainability of journalism at risk.

Last week, the Pulitzers were announced, and in a first, two of the 15 winners disclosed using AI to produce their stories. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened in the past, but it’s the first time the question has been explicitly asked. Machine learning, used for investigative reporting, was the most often cited among the finalists. “We didn’t use AI to replace what would’ve otherwise been done manually. We used AI precisely because it was the type of task that would’ve taken so long to do manually that [it would distract from] other investigative work,” NYT reporter Ishaan Jhaveri said.

If you’re into the business of podcasts (and if you are, see you at the Publisher Podcast Summit!), there are some real gems in here about surprising podcast hit Acquired, hosted by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal. Each episode can run to four or more hours; a “cinematic spectacle” requiring hundreds of hours research. “[The hosts] focus on quality. They embrace scarcity. They want to do less, better,” Ben Cohen writes, explaining how they’ve built the business world’s favourite podcast.

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