I recently heard someone on a podcast cautioning against "commencement-speech morality." I'm a college professor and I've been giving students that advice for years (without using the term). My message to young people (if they ask) is to work hard and take pride in your work, do as much as you can, make a good impression, and generally embrace bourgeois values. Start saving right away (don't spend money frivolously), and if you have any proclivity at all for drinking too much, then don't drink at all.
In higher education, this advice -- so self-evident and simple -- has a remarkable capacity for upsetting people. Students are hearing, instead, that vast structural forces will make it hard for them to succeed, and they should devote themselves to social justice.
Yea, I think that's part of it. The guy who used the phrase is Brandon Warmke, a philosopher at Bowling Green and the co-author of a new book, "Why It's Okay to Mind Your Own Business."
This is such an excellent post. The sad reality is that if you find yourself in an industry in structural decline - which legacy media not named “New York Times” clearly is- you will have to work very very hard to survive, and even that might not be enough. The only alternatives are things like find a partner with money, win the lottery or leave the industry. That’s it. Those are the choices. And yelling about it may feel good but won’t change that reality.
This is really an excellent post and I'm sharing with my writing group. I am retired from a long career in marketing, but I have also been freelancing for fifteen years. My opportunities--like everyone's--have declined over the years. I particularly mourn all the great publications that have died over the years. I worry so much for those who must depend on their work for all their income. When publications lay off full time staff, that's just more competition in the freelance market, and everybody steps down a notch. Thank you for outlining all of this, and also talking about the importance of Substack. I think it is playing a wonderful role, especially with the decline of syndication. And it's so much better than Medium or other similar platforms. Amy Abbott The Raven Lunatic on Substack
Great perspective on the journalism industry. This is a theme I'm reading more about from writers, but it applies to other industries as well.
If I take out a zoomed out, macro view, in 1970, 53% of Gross National Income was composed of employee compensation. In 2022, that same statistic is 43%. Note that i don't believe this includes freelancers, i.e., 1099ers
In 1970, corporate after tax profits were 4.5% Gross National Income and in 2022 8.5%.
There are many factors that go into corporate profits notably including net interest expenses and effective tax rates, both of which are historically low. Bears further digging on my part.
As someone who has worked on electoral campaigns and in government, and now runs advocacy issue campaigns, all 3 areas sorely needed quality comms people.
My advice for under employed journalists is to consider working in one of those settings, assuming values alignment. Working inside a city agency or trying to pass a bill through Congress will give you an invaluabe perspective for when you get the journalistic opportunity you're looking for. These jobs don't grow on trees, but they do exist, are tough to fill, and come with full salary and benefits.
> I don’t love Pearlman’s advice about existing on three or four different platforms. Pick one and excel at it.
I think what he meant was not to *use* these platforms, but indeed, literally just to "exist" on them - that you should *have* a Twitter, an Instagram, a Youtube, etc, even if you don't have anything more on it than a few posts and a link to your main platform. It's just basic coverage - it's like being in the phone book these days. Plus, you might need to reach out to people (and they may reach out to you) on any of these platforms, so you should have a "real" account for that purpose.
There are also very low-investment ways to translate content from one platform into another. Let's say you're posting on Substack as your main platform. (I would myself, but the the time!) After publishing a new post, post on Twitter & Instagram linking your new Substack post. Maybe include a pull quote - and maybe hop on Pexels or HuggingFace, find an appropriate image, and put the pull quote over it.
That is - for something basketball-related, find a free-to-use image of a basketball and paste your basketball-player/coach interview quote over it. Now you have "image content" - this will do much better on most platforms. Make sure to watermark it with your site or a social media handle.
Putting that on Twitter & Instagram is step #1, but then you can also take that image content and post it to Reddit, Imgur, iFunny (if it's funny), and anywhere else you can post images. Don't forget Facebook - and, keep this on the down low, but Tumblr still exists, and it's actually excellent. Nobody would guess it, but Tumblr essentially does everything Substack can do & more, and has similarly liberal administration. It's just that everyone thinks it's a site for teen girls. It was, and is, but a lot of them are grown up now, too.
So that's the lowest-hanging fruit, in terms of using written content to generate more content without really having to turn your brain on. The slightly higher fruit is to generate audio/video content - the easiest thing to do is to record yourself reading anything you write, with or without video. You can post these audio clips as individual mini-podcasts, or you can string a number of them them together into a longer podcast. With or without video, you can post these clips to Youtube. (If it's without video, you can use your basketball-quote image content as a static background.)
So on the basis of one Substack post, you can generate platform-appropriate content for every platform without particularly much more effort. I didn't touch on Tiktok, but I think that's the hardest one to use, because you can't convey much in clips that short. You could certainly upload funny basketball clips, but I don't know if it's worth the time. If you really, really want to have a presence on Tiktok, I would literally just make "post announcement" videos, where you say as fast as possible "JAZZZOW Hey guys new post about the Timberwolves up check it out at www.timberwolfsubstack.com thank you all! Go Timberwolves!" Try to keep it under 5 seconds. People on that platform are kind of addled.
Which brings me to the last thing - there is a great danger, in fact, to having accounts on all these platforms, which is that you might, horror of horrors, start *using* them, and thus waste time that you should be using to write Substack articles. Worse, you might start writing articles about things you saw on those platforms. Don't do that. No one cares what happens on the internet.
The market sucks, and it kills journalism. Being good at standing out is not the same as being a good journalist, never has been, and you've touched on a major weakness of Substack. Everyone is trying to "stand out" like they hope to become the next Spotify hit. Journalism, as you know, takes resources, and is a collaborative effort. Journalism will not be revived until we start pushing for, and achieving, non-market alternatives, like a federal jobs program to revive small city/town and rural reporting. Perhaps the NPC, National Press Corp, like a PBS for print, but more Pro-Publica.
We tried that with NPR. It turned into a solid place to go and hear leftist propaganda. Until you solve the problems with the radicalization of the media at universities (the dramatic turn left of universities) nothing, certainly not federal funds for news orgs, will work to establish trust with customers.
My advice to everyone that I've ever managed is "It's your career, not mine. You have to take ownership of your own career. Right now your job is to help me with my job, but tell me where you want to go and I'll do everything in my power to provide you opportunities to gain the skills to get there. But if you can't articulate what you want, you're probably not going to get beyond where you are right now." It is remarkable how few people take the initiative to make themselves valuable, and then they are surprised when they are treated like a replaceable commodity. This is not just journalists, it's a universal dynamic.
This advice travels beyond journalism. Corporate world is similar - you need to double down and find ways to distinguish yourself. And a balance of luck and skill and the ability to distinguish between the two.
I think the sports analogy is to play your absolute best, don’t worry about the score, and that’s the most you can do. There are only certain things you can control.
I recently heard someone on a podcast cautioning against "commencement-speech morality." I'm a college professor and I've been giving students that advice for years (without using the term). My message to young people (if they ask) is to work hard and take pride in your work, do as much as you can, make a good impression, and generally embrace bourgeois values. Start saving right away (don't spend money frivolously), and if you have any proclivity at all for drinking too much, then don't drink at all.
In higher education, this advice -- so self-evident and simple -- has a remarkable capacity for upsetting people. Students are hearing, instead, that vast structural forces will make it hard for them to succeed, and they should devote themselves to social justice.
By "commence-speech morality," are you talking about do-what-you-love culture?
Yea, I think that's part of it. The guy who used the phrase is Brandon Warmke, a philosopher at Bowling Green and the co-author of a new book, "Why It's Okay to Mind Your Own Business."
This is such an excellent post. The sad reality is that if you find yourself in an industry in structural decline - which legacy media not named “New York Times” clearly is- you will have to work very very hard to survive, and even that might not be enough. The only alternatives are things like find a partner with money, win the lottery or leave the industry. That’s it. Those are the choices. And yelling about it may feel good but won’t change that reality.
This is really an excellent post and I'm sharing with my writing group. I am retired from a long career in marketing, but I have also been freelancing for fifteen years. My opportunities--like everyone's--have declined over the years. I particularly mourn all the great publications that have died over the years. I worry so much for those who must depend on their work for all their income. When publications lay off full time staff, that's just more competition in the freelance market, and everybody steps down a notch. Thank you for outlining all of this, and also talking about the importance of Substack. I think it is playing a wonderful role, especially with the decline of syndication. And it's so much better than Medium or other similar platforms. Amy Abbott The Raven Lunatic on Substack
All. Of. The. Above.
Hi Ross,
Great perspective on the journalism industry. This is a theme I'm reading more about from writers, but it applies to other industries as well.
If I take out a zoomed out, macro view, in 1970, 53% of Gross National Income was composed of employee compensation. In 2022, that same statistic is 43%. Note that i don't believe this includes freelancers, i.e., 1099ers
In 1970, corporate after tax profits were 4.5% Gross National Income and in 2022 8.5%.
There are many factors that go into corporate profits notably including net interest expenses and effective tax rates, both of which are historically low. Bears further digging on my part.
As someone who has worked on electoral campaigns and in government, and now runs advocacy issue campaigns, all 3 areas sorely needed quality comms people.
My advice for under employed journalists is to consider working in one of those settings, assuming values alignment. Working inside a city agency or trying to pass a bill through Congress will give you an invaluabe perspective for when you get the journalistic opportunity you're looking for. These jobs don't grow on trees, but they do exist, are tough to fill, and come with full salary and benefits.
Agree with this!
> I don’t love Pearlman’s advice about existing on three or four different platforms. Pick one and excel at it.
I think what he meant was not to *use* these platforms, but indeed, literally just to "exist" on them - that you should *have* a Twitter, an Instagram, a Youtube, etc, even if you don't have anything more on it than a few posts and a link to your main platform. It's just basic coverage - it's like being in the phone book these days. Plus, you might need to reach out to people (and they may reach out to you) on any of these platforms, so you should have a "real" account for that purpose.
There are also very low-investment ways to translate content from one platform into another. Let's say you're posting on Substack as your main platform. (I would myself, but the the time!) After publishing a new post, post on Twitter & Instagram linking your new Substack post. Maybe include a pull quote - and maybe hop on Pexels or HuggingFace, find an appropriate image, and put the pull quote over it.
That is - for something basketball-related, find a free-to-use image of a basketball and paste your basketball-player/coach interview quote over it. Now you have "image content" - this will do much better on most platforms. Make sure to watermark it with your site or a social media handle.
Putting that on Twitter & Instagram is step #1, but then you can also take that image content and post it to Reddit, Imgur, iFunny (if it's funny), and anywhere else you can post images. Don't forget Facebook - and, keep this on the down low, but Tumblr still exists, and it's actually excellent. Nobody would guess it, but Tumblr essentially does everything Substack can do & more, and has similarly liberal administration. It's just that everyone thinks it's a site for teen girls. It was, and is, but a lot of them are grown up now, too.
So that's the lowest-hanging fruit, in terms of using written content to generate more content without really having to turn your brain on. The slightly higher fruit is to generate audio/video content - the easiest thing to do is to record yourself reading anything you write, with or without video. You can post these audio clips as individual mini-podcasts, or you can string a number of them them together into a longer podcast. With or without video, you can post these clips to Youtube. (If it's without video, you can use your basketball-quote image content as a static background.)
So on the basis of one Substack post, you can generate platform-appropriate content for every platform without particularly much more effort. I didn't touch on Tiktok, but I think that's the hardest one to use, because you can't convey much in clips that short. You could certainly upload funny basketball clips, but I don't know if it's worth the time. If you really, really want to have a presence on Tiktok, I would literally just make "post announcement" videos, where you say as fast as possible "JAZZZOW Hey guys new post about the Timberwolves up check it out at www.timberwolfsubstack.com thank you all! Go Timberwolves!" Try to keep it under 5 seconds. People on that platform are kind of addled.
Which brings me to the last thing - there is a great danger, in fact, to having accounts on all these platforms, which is that you might, horror of horrors, start *using* them, and thus waste time that you should be using to write Substack articles. Worse, you might start writing articles about things you saw on those platforms. Don't do that. No one cares what happens on the internet.
The market sucks, and it kills journalism. Being good at standing out is not the same as being a good journalist, never has been, and you've touched on a major weakness of Substack. Everyone is trying to "stand out" like they hope to become the next Spotify hit. Journalism, as you know, takes resources, and is a collaborative effort. Journalism will not be revived until we start pushing for, and achieving, non-market alternatives, like a federal jobs program to revive small city/town and rural reporting. Perhaps the NPC, National Press Corp, like a PBS for print, but more Pro-Publica.
Yes, I support a federal subsidy for local news
We tried that with NPR. It turned into a solid place to go and hear leftist propaganda. Until you solve the problems with the radicalization of the media at universities (the dramatic turn left of universities) nothing, certainly not federal funds for news orgs, will work to establish trust with customers.
My advice to everyone that I've ever managed is "It's your career, not mine. You have to take ownership of your own career. Right now your job is to help me with my job, but tell me where you want to go and I'll do everything in my power to provide you opportunities to gain the skills to get there. But if you can't articulate what you want, you're probably not going to get beyond where you are right now." It is remarkable how few people take the initiative to make themselves valuable, and then they are surprised when they are treated like a replaceable commodity. This is not just journalists, it's a universal dynamic.
This advice travels beyond journalism. Corporate world is similar - you need to double down and find ways to distinguish yourself. And a balance of luck and skill and the ability to distinguish between the two.
I think the sports analogy is to play your absolute best, don’t worry about the score, and that’s the most you can do. There are only certain things you can control.
In a land of lazy people, the ones who work harder succeed--even if they have less talent.
Pulling for you.