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Monday 7th November: Newsletter hopes and Twitter dopes
Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.
Here's a really interesting case study about how newsletters can act as the bedroom for a media business. Ankler Media says it has around 32,000 newsletter subscribers, up from 12,000 in January and, while the organisation didn't tell Press Gazette how many subscribers are paying, it did share its price points and subscription ambitions
"Ankler has not disclosed subscription revenue, but said this has increased four times since January and will be in seven figures next year. [CEO Janice] Min says she expects revenues from sponsorship alone to be “into the seven figures” this year."
There's a real opportunity for newsletters to be the core product of a media business. We've seen that with Axios and the Manchester Mill, and countless other media businesses are already investing heavily in the format as their go-to service to audiences.
This year has seen trust in the news fall to an historic low. Despite this bleak picture, there are concrete steps news publishers can take to build and maintain trust in their reporting. One factor that is growing in significance is using data, infographics, maps and charts to add context and help audiences to understand what is going on.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is shuttering Twitter's newsletter service Revue. Look, it's terrible. What Musk is doing to Twitter amounts to vandalism. But it is sort of gratifying to see how terrible a time he's having of it all, with the advertisers on which the platform depends pausing spend and going elsewhere. And instead of plans to fix it, all he has are tantrums and excuses.
Publishing ideas to steal: keeping going, digging into archives, and going to the pub — voices.media
This latest edition of Peter's The Magazine Diaries is as good as ever, but here's my favourite bit: "The Oldham Times, a daily newspaper produced in the Northwest of England, has set up a ‘pop-up newsroom’ in a local pub. Staff took themselves off to the Fox and Pine one Thursday afternoon to talk to drinkers about the stories they’d like to see in the paper." Genius!
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New podcast:
Our seventh episode looks at trust in the media, the growth of news fatigue and avoidance, and the opportunities and dangers in the future, from AI to platforms. Will transparency in reporting help bring round reluctant or sceptical readers, or do we need to do more? Joining us this week to discuss the year in trust is Martha Williams, CEO of World Newsmedia Network.
The importance of data in building trust: in conversation with Reuters’ Scott Malone, Stephanie Burnett and Rob Schack — voices.media
With just days to go until the US midterms, there has never been so much at stake in terms of misinformation and polarisation. In this new Conversations episode, Chris is joined by Reuters News Agency’s Politics Editor Scott Malone, Digital Verification Editor Stephanie Burnett and Director of Emerging Products and Special Events Rob Schack to discuss how data can help build trust in the news. Listen now.