Happy Monday! This morning's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.

How Slovakia’s Denník N hit 65K paying subscribers in 6 years — wan-ifra.org

There's plenty to dig into in this write-up of how Denník N turned profitable based on its 65,000 active subscribers. From the title's formation in response to the oligarch-based press in Slovakia, to how it eschewed advertising revenue as a result. There's even something interesting in how it decides what is and isn't content worth paying, as opposed to the usual nebulous "invest in quality" mantra you hear from many titles.

What's especially interesting, though, is how open Denník N is about its own internal practices for driving those subscriptions: "Every morning, reporters receive an email listing their articles, the ranking and the number of subscriptions they sold. Editors can decide which stories will be retained on the homepage according to the conversion rate of each article."

Its head of digital Tomas Bella admits that sounds "horrifying", but notes that the focus on conversions effectively keeps reporters focused on stories that drive long-term value instead of clickbait. There's plenty more within this relatively short article, including a neat visual breakdown of where conversions typically come from.

Rolling Stone seeks 'thought leaders' willing to pay $2,000 to write for them — amp.theguardian.com

Rolling Stone is offering "thought leaders" - by which they mean people with deep pockets - the opportunity to write for the site for $2,000. The pitch is that it will allow these people to help "shape culture". As Peter points out on our latest episode, it's more likely to be the death of culture instead.

New York Times reportedly cancels contract of editor who tweeted having ‘chills’ on Biden inauguration day — www.mediaite.com

A bad look for the NYT, as it seemingly bows to pressure from the right over one of its editors publicly airing her support for Biden. We've spoken about this countless times before - pretending journalists don't have opinions is no solution to the issue of trust in the media. Bowing to the mob like this only makes it worse.

Magazine covers still have power to capture history being made — www.mediapost.com

Finally, a fun one about the ability of magazines - specifically their covers - to act as a snapshot of a moment in history. There's some great visual examples in the header of how magazines marked the end of Trump's tenure in the White House. Can't wait to see how they mark the UK's return to the EU in a few years...

This week's podcast:

Yahoo Lifestyle Southeast Asia Editor in Chief Reta Lee on identifying emerging content trends — voices.media

This week we hear from Yahoo Lifestyle’s Editor in Chief for Southeast Asia Reta Lee. We talked about her career in media and her work at Yahoo Lifestyle, including spinning up new content pillars and identifying new trends. She also discusses the opportunity for eCommerce in Asia, collaborating with teams in the US and UK, and what opportunities she’s got her eye on over the next few years.

Media Voices Conversations:

Pugpig's Jonny Kaldor discusses the state of the digital publishing market — voices.media

In this new Conversations episode, Peter Houston is joined by Pugpig founder and CEO Jonny Kaldor to discuss what’s been happening in the world of digital publishing, and what to expect from 2021.