I woke up with many journalism thoughts. Will share two and then I gotta go host brunch, which sounds elitist and is. ONE, I am still thinking about this story on @betterwphoebe and agree it's required reading. (1/x) https://source.opennews.org/articles/exit-interviews-phoebe-gavin/

This "disdain of the audience itself" is real and worrisome. Newsroom leaders of the future (or um now) should do a stint in audience, social or engagement. Not just to understand but also because you will never write/shoot, edit or report the same way again. Or so I hope. (2/x)

I continue to see amazing journos discounted as "just social" or "just producers" and that keeps them from getting top jobs. We still favoring people who write less but use lots of adjectives and scene-setting ledes and say "we wrote that last week" when something trends (3/x)

OK, onto issue 2. Substack, my fave "I told you so" subject (I feel and fear the platform favors individuals/brands over communities/substance). But reading this piece made me think of this in a slightly different way. (4/x) https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-times-responds-to-the-substack-boom-2021-4

A key part of good internet is (was?) the democratization of voices. As in, WHAT is being said matters less than WHO is saying it. These recent recruitment efforts and fat advances seem at odds with that because they singularly focus on the WHO. (5/x)

Discovery of email newsletters is really really hard. So on the one hand, you have Substack with the personality-driven approach. And you have the NYT leveraging current scale and readership and creating niches/verticals. (6/x)

Open question on whether we are supporting new, fresh voices and communities (which have greater potential of virality and organic growth) OR recycling the ones we already know and thus none of this even matters. Anyway, audience folks prolly have the answer. Off to BRUNCH (end)