Solid piece Ross. I find the criticism also to be mostly jealousy, and mostly coming from those whose credentials haven’t somehow elevated them above the proletariat.
One of the problems with the culture of institutional journalism/media is the desire of many participants to pull rank and/or secure other species of external validation. “Pandering” is often a confession masquerading as an accusation.
I’d wager that if more members tilted more towards “I try to meet my own standards, external response is very much secondary” we’d get better and more interesting output.
Great piece. Same thing happens on TikTok when writers start making content there, assuming their reputation has preceded them, or that their credentials mean anything. “Don’t you know who I am?” We don’t! Show us!
I like much of the writing I find on Substack (a fair amount recommended by you). My main criticism of Substack is how it's a sea of thousands of individual authors, when what I want is for writers to "Build Big Things." So I subscribe to a few Substack writers, but I'm more inclined to subscribe to a collective project. A few dollars a month to The Lever News, for instance, gets me top notch reporting and excellent ad-free podcasts. It's the same with Jacobin, with 75,000 print subscribers and some wonderful podcasts and a website viewed by millions each month. I even send Ralph Nader's Capital Hill Citizen $5 when they have a new issue (the only way to get it). A few days later a unique and substantial newspaper arrives in a brown envelope, highly recommended. I know that with Substack, the reader is supposed to build their own custom news source, but the process is alienating.
I would like Substack to experiment with allowing editors to easily create collective projects, like magazines, or Jacobin or Lever style websites. A reader could subscribe to the project, and would be able to read all the writing published within. Writers would likely get much less money per reader, but potentially they might get more readers, and they could still have their independent Substack feeds. The world needs more editing!
I agree. Or, a simpler solution, perhaps, would be for Substack to put their readers in charge, and let us bundle the subscriptions we want to carry at a discount. "Buy two, get one free" or some such.
PS if you read Andrew Sullivan's "Weekly Dish," he has an "In the Stacks" section that draws attention to recently published, good or noteworthy Substack essays. It's a curated list I usually click through.
Good idea. Tbh it's intimidating how much more ambitious you have to be, and your own PR person etc. on Substack. It'd be nice to have the half-fame - if not the full-fame born of being a singularly spectacular "wears many hats" impresario - of being affiliated with an institution or collective project.
Substack is great, but the major downside I see is everyone is a columnist or editorialist. Very little gets written that isn’t speculative ruminations.
"There are no quips about Substackers living in mom’s basement."
Actually, in the Rothstein piece Kahn was responding to, she basically makes that quip.
"the 'substack model'— in which a bunch of rogue losers write their little screeds and send them off into the world"
I agree with your points, but I think there is something else going on. The woke had just about completed their long match through the legacy media when Substack emerged and ruined it all. That is clearly also driving the fury.
It is. Some are dismayed by mainstream media outlets and institutions being more culturally progressive than the indie upstarts. History tells us it's not supposed to be this way.
That is a great read. I had no idea that Barney struck a friendship with Britt through Substack because she left a comment on a Substack piece he wrote about Cormac McCarthy. That's good fortune for Barney to get to the story.
I’m a retired academic with a number of books to my name. I just started writing on Substack. I’m excited by the prospect. Because, well, I like a challenge, and I like to write.
Facebook just wasn’t doing it for me, and I think I was starting to annoy my (actual) friends.
I have no ambition to monetize my postings,
nor to move into the world of magazine publishing. But I have noticed, as you suggest, that there is a tremendous amount of excellent writing and analysis here. (There’s also a fair amount of crap.)
Mostly, I believe posting here will help me up my game.
Technology marching on is certainly a factor... but traditional media also suffers an entirely preventable and self-inflicted wound.
Once upon a time, bloggers and self-publishers were stigmatized as less-qualified because legacy publishers used to prioritize *quality* and, in the news media, *objectivity*. Self-published authors were assumed to be so because they either had an unmarketable niche interest, or did not produce the quality work to make the cut in traditional publishing -- hence the stigma.
In recent years, the old legacy priorities of quality and objectivity gave way to other priorities such as pushing a specific viewpoint, and cancelling the "wrong" viewpoints. Audiences aren't dumb, they figured out that *quality work* was no longer the priority with the legacy media, and therefore *quality work* was something that could be found in blogs and self-published authors.
There's also a comical lack of object permanency with regards to the fate of writers who were "cancelled" and blacklisted from legacy media, but went on to successful independent careers. "How scandalous! Those people we isolated and ostracized were supposed to just disappear, somehow! Not become successful on their own without us! :( Their integrity no matter the reputational cost, proves they were always just grifters :( "
Much of Substack is great, especially the paying creators part. Some parts worry me, though: It seems to be a key part of the increasing paywall-ization of culture. It tends to promote the op-ed over institutional reportage (though the best substacks are far deeper than most op-eds). Opinion -- informed and otherwise -- is steadily crowding out investigation overall. And -- as with newspaper op-ed columns -- it seems to prod otherwise fascinating and thoughtful people into lowering their own standards to produce sub-par material in order to feed the beast, meet promised or implied output quotas.
I agree with most of this. One of the most common delusions among writers is that they think their work should be getting more attention or praise than it receives.
But I think the huge amount of mediocre writing here presents a problem. It takes a considerable amount of time, in the form of skimming and scrolling, to find the best writing here. And that's not just "wasted time." It's worse. Too much information grazing takes a toll on our brains. It saps our attention spans, and it can be mentally fatiguing.
A lot of writers here, including the ones I like and follow, have a tendency to write "long." They could use an editor. I don't what the solution is. Maybe Substack could offer editing services.
Solid piece Ross. I find the criticism also to be mostly jealousy, and mostly coming from those whose credentials haven’t somehow elevated them above the proletariat.
One of the problems with the culture of institutional journalism/media is the desire of many participants to pull rank and/or secure other species of external validation. “Pandering” is often a confession masquerading as an accusation.
I’d wager that if more members tilted more towards “I try to meet my own standards, external response is very much secondary” we’d get better and more interesting output.
Likely. It’s why I write.
Great piece Ross. This is trimer than what I wrote, and really gets to the heart of it.
It's only shorter because you made most of the good arguments already!
Great piece. Same thing happens on TikTok when writers start making content there, assuming their reputation has preceded them, or that their credentials mean anything. “Don’t you know who I am?” We don’t! Show us!
I like much of the writing I find on Substack (a fair amount recommended by you). My main criticism of Substack is how it's a sea of thousands of individual authors, when what I want is for writers to "Build Big Things." So I subscribe to a few Substack writers, but I'm more inclined to subscribe to a collective project. A few dollars a month to The Lever News, for instance, gets me top notch reporting and excellent ad-free podcasts. It's the same with Jacobin, with 75,000 print subscribers and some wonderful podcasts and a website viewed by millions each month. I even send Ralph Nader's Capital Hill Citizen $5 when they have a new issue (the only way to get it). A few days later a unique and substantial newspaper arrives in a brown envelope, highly recommended. I know that with Substack, the reader is supposed to build their own custom news source, but the process is alienating.
I would like Substack to experiment with allowing editors to easily create collective projects, like magazines, or Jacobin or Lever style websites. A reader could subscribe to the project, and would be able to read all the writing published within. Writers would likely get much less money per reader, but potentially they might get more readers, and they could still have their independent Substack feeds. The world needs more editing!
I am starting a publication called The Metropolitan Review that you might like. More TK soon!
You have the right thinking. Great ideas!
I agree. Or, a simpler solution, perhaps, would be for Substack to put their readers in charge, and let us bundle the subscriptions we want to carry at a discount. "Buy two, get one free" or some such.
PS if you read Andrew Sullivan's "Weekly Dish," he has an "In the Stacks" section that draws attention to recently published, good or noteworthy Substack essays. It's a curated list I usually click through.
Good idea. Tbh it's intimidating how much more ambitious you have to be, and your own PR person etc. on Substack. It'd be nice to have the half-fame - if not the full-fame born of being a singularly spectacular "wears many hats" impresario - of being affiliated with an institution or collective project.
Thank you Ross. A fine read.
So I should stop calling my Substack a blog?
At least on Substack I know the agenda of the author is their own.
Substack is great, but the major downside I see is everyone is a columnist or editorialist. Very little gets written that isn’t speculative ruminations.
"There are no quips about Substackers living in mom’s basement."
Actually, in the Rothstein piece Kahn was responding to, she basically makes that quip.
"the 'substack model'— in which a bunch of rogue losers write their little screeds and send them off into the world"
I agree with your points, but I think there is something else going on. The woke had just about completed their long match through the legacy media when Substack emerged and ruined it all. That is clearly also driving the fury.
It is. Some are dismayed by mainstream media outlets and institutions being more culturally progressive than the indie upstarts. History tells us it's not supposed to be this way.
That is a great read. I had no idea that Barney struck a friendship with Britt through Substack because she left a comment on a Substack piece he wrote about Cormac McCarthy. That's good fortune for Barney to get to the story.
Thanks.
I’m a retired academic with a number of books to my name. I just started writing on Substack. I’m excited by the prospect. Because, well, I like a challenge, and I like to write.
Facebook just wasn’t doing it for me, and I think I was starting to annoy my (actual) friends.
I have no ambition to monetize my postings,
nor to move into the world of magazine publishing. But I have noticed, as you suggest, that there is a tremendous amount of excellent writing and analysis here. (There’s also a fair amount of crap.)
Mostly, I believe posting here will help me up my game.
Technology marching on is certainly a factor... but traditional media also suffers an entirely preventable and self-inflicted wound.
Once upon a time, bloggers and self-publishers were stigmatized as less-qualified because legacy publishers used to prioritize *quality* and, in the news media, *objectivity*. Self-published authors were assumed to be so because they either had an unmarketable niche interest, or did not produce the quality work to make the cut in traditional publishing -- hence the stigma.
In recent years, the old legacy priorities of quality and objectivity gave way to other priorities such as pushing a specific viewpoint, and cancelling the "wrong" viewpoints. Audiences aren't dumb, they figured out that *quality work* was no longer the priority with the legacy media, and therefore *quality work* was something that could be found in blogs and self-published authors.
There's also a comical lack of object permanency with regards to the fate of writers who were "cancelled" and blacklisted from legacy media, but went on to successful independent careers. "How scandalous! Those people we isolated and ostracized were supposed to just disappear, somehow! Not become successful on their own without us! :( Their integrity no matter the reputational cost, proves they were always just grifters :( "
I’m impressed with Ross’s work on many levels. I find Substack a ray of hope.
Another case of middle aged - white- males being taken over by younger ones? Could it be that easy?
Btw Substack is great
Much of Substack is great, especially the paying creators part. Some parts worry me, though: It seems to be a key part of the increasing paywall-ization of culture. It tends to promote the op-ed over institutional reportage (though the best substacks are far deeper than most op-eds). Opinion -- informed and otherwise -- is steadily crowding out investigation overall. And -- as with newspaper op-ed columns -- it seems to prod otherwise fascinating and thoughtful people into lowering their own standards to produce sub-par material in order to feed the beast, meet promised or implied output quotas.
I agree with most of this. One of the most common delusions among writers is that they think their work should be getting more attention or praise than it receives.
But I think the huge amount of mediocre writing here presents a problem. It takes a considerable amount of time, in the form of skimming and scrolling, to find the best writing here. And that's not just "wasted time." It's worse. Too much information grazing takes a toll on our brains. It saps our attention spans, and it can be mentally fatiguing.
A lot of writers here, including the ones I like and follow, have a tendency to write "long." They could use an editor. I don't what the solution is. Maybe Substack could offer editing services.