Newsletters have become a great way for journalists and others to dive deep into less-covered topics and engage directly with their readers in ways not always possible in the mainstream media ecosystem.

The platform Substack is making it easy for them. The subscription-based model offers writers more editorial control and the ability to offer free content and earn a sustainable salary at a time when public trust in media is low, local news is thinning and media content is often driven by social-media algorithms.

We talk about newsletters with people who write them and critique them.

GUESTS:

Heather Cox Richardson - Professor of history at Boston College; she writes the Letters from an American newsletter
Gabe Fleisher - Student at Georgetown University and the author of the Wake Up To Politics newsletter
Isaac Saul - A journalist and the author of the Tangle newsletter
Ben Smith - Media columnist for The New York Times and the founder and former editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News

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Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.

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Are We In The Age Of Peak Newsletter?