Wednesday 8th September: Hot Pod acquired by Vox Media

September 08, 2021

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Vox Media is acquiring Hot Pod, the independent news outlet focused on the podcasting industry, as part of a bid to expand offerings from its technology site, The Verge. Founder Nicholas Quah will become a podcast critic for Vox Media's Vulture, while senior Verge reporter Ashley Carman will step into Quah's Hot Pod spot.

Hot Pod will become the first paid subscription product offered by The Verge. That in itself is worth watching, but what is really interesting about this deal is that the solo journalist / publisher dance is coming full circle. The Verge lost Casey Newton last year to his own paid newsletter project, which was just one of a number of high-profile exits of journalists from their parent companies to go it alone.

Although there's big money to be made in a solo gig, there's also an awful lot to juggle. As Hot Pod has grown, Quah has been "eager" to turn it over to another party that can scale up things like classified ads, subscriptions and events. This won't be the last time we see a high-profile Substacker turn over their carefully-grown audiences to a publisher in order to take advantage of the resources available.

Reach PLC has announced its intentions to have 30% of its board and senior management be women by 2023. Its sign-up to the 30% Club, which aims to make that percentage the bare minimum for companies, makes it the first UK news publisher to explicitly have the target built in. Chris Sutcliffe looks at what's behind the commitment, and whether others in the industry could follow suit.

Yet another piece of evidence that the world's largest social network has turned into a steaming garbage dump. Facebook has responded to the study's findings by saying that the report measures the number of people who engage with content, but not the number of people that actually see it. Which means far, far more people see misinformation even if they don't click on it.

Ten Black newspapers have joined forces to create Word In Black, a platform to “amplify the Black experience by reporting, collecting and sharing stories about real people in communities across our country.” The initiative is part of the Fund for Black Journalism, and will consist of a newsletter and website publishing content from the ten participating newspapers. The idea is that collaboration will help a smoother transition to digital-first processes.

Podcast throwback:

Well after that lead story, I had to throw back to this special podumentary episode we did last year featuring a number of solo journalists talking about the realities of what it takes to go it alone. Big wins if your audience is large enough, but otherwise, it can be a long, slow grind.

GOOD NEWS! We're starting to pull together some budget to commission writers to help us build out the opinion and analysis section on the Media Voices website. We're looking to pay about £120 for 1,000 words so if you've got any brilliant media or publishing stories to tell, pitch us.