Big-name anchors going independent, making money in the Substack era
Hamish McKenzie the co-founder of Substack is suddenly speaking out We are living through the the bulk vital media disruption since the printing press and it explains everything from why you can t stand your neighbor to our current political tumult In the current era he says on his site we live in a more chaotic atmosphere where the narrative frenzy of social media has given rise to political movements that gain power through exploiting attention of any kind positive or negative from moral panics to fulminating podium-thumpers We ve gone from Ask not what your country can do for you to dunk tweets and death-by-emoji HOW DONALD TRUMP DOMINATES THE NEWS BOTH POSITIVELY AND NEGATIVELYObviously it s in McKenzie s interest to portray a media revolution with him as the chief rebel When Substack launched in it was viewed as an intriguing experiment an outlet largely for those who didn t have one But in the Trump era with his constant cable appearances and Truth Social posts there s little question that we re submerged in a toxic surroundings The president gets this which is why he s done a number of podcast interviews He went on Joe Rogan and Kamala uh did not Now with big-name journalists giving up prime television gigs in favor of the site s independence we are living in the Substack Era What was once viewed as the Holy Grail an anchoring or hosting job on a major organization is now dismissed as old-school legacy media with too a multitude of corporate constraints Take my former Fox colleague Chris Wallace He left for CNN genuinely CNN-plus which was euthanized in three weeks and then launched a Saturday talk show But Chris in recent weeks released he s leaving the organization to go independent which undoubtedly includes Substack Another ex-Fox colleague Megyn Kelly had a similar experience Having been dropped by NBC after a bad experience there she started a daily show and video podcast on Sirius XM and now has million subscribers on YouTube MICHELLE OBAMA'S 'IMO' PODCAST RANKS TH ON SPOTIFY PODCASTS CHARTChuck Todd having been eased out of his Meet the Press job was given an online streaming show But not long ago he released he was leaving NBC to go independent When Dan Abrams gave up his NewsNation show after three years he announced As much as I love this show and the mission of this structure I just can t continue to give this show the attention it requirements and deserves with all of my other professional commitments The Mediaite founder later released that he is concentrating on creating a YouTube channel for the site working with other media folks McKenzie s great insight is that he could connect writers and podcasters directly to their audience with Substack taking a cut They can opt for a revenue-sharing agreement Now you might ask what if you re not a famous former anchor or commentator Turns out that niche sites do really well They can work at other jobs at the same time Countless users review a six-figure income This is especially striking in that preponderance Substack people let you read their sites for free or a shortened version with the full column and special features available only for paying subscribers The hope is that specific of the freeloaders will become subscribers over time Not everyone winds up at Substack voluntarily Chris Cillizza the former Washington Post columnist is quite candid in saying he came to Substack after being laid off at CNN He discovered himself with little to do after dropping the kids at school TRUMP EYEING RD TERM KEEPS ATTACKING ELITE INSTITUTIONS AND A MULTITUDE OF ARE CAVING I started this Substack selfishly to help me grapple with my changed life To give me a platform where I could express myself hopefully to an audience about the world of politics yes but also how I was navigating a new reality He has slowly built a following and chats with Todd once a week which is something that Substackers do Casandra Campbell of Really Good Business Ideas analyzed the most of popular Substacks The first two are Letters from an American hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers for political history and Broken Palate Michael Moore was No and the only other names I recognized were former candidate Allen West the Bulwark and ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich The others had names like Dr Mercola s Censored Library DeLa Soul The Pragmatic Engineer and The Cryptonite Weekly Rap Our political civilization now mirrors chaos media values McKenzie says Opponents are not just to be argued against but humiliated Good luck changing that SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST A RIFF ON THE DAY'S HOTTEST STORIESLook I subscribe to several Substack accounts I d like to subscribe to more but with fees ranging from to a month it gets expensive So I read others for free and ponder whether to upgrade I don t agree that this is the biggest deal since the Gutenberg press around but it s having an impact on the media and political way of life Substack is hot and there are competitors mainly because journalists and politicos crave a connection that goes beyond the craziness of the Trump age
