The Newsletter Boom

Joyce Wadler, a veteran New York Times journalist, was vacationing in Alaska in 2018 when an email arrived from an editor saying that her popular humor column, “I Was Misinformed,” had been canceled. It was not the kind of thing you want to be informed about, but was not entirely unexpected. “When the person in power says, ‘This is no longer important,’” Wadler told me, “it’s over.”

Wadler ended up working on a novel for a while. Fortunately, she was financially stable. But still. Eventually, on the recommendation of a writer friend, she began composing her column again and posting it to Substack, the then-newish internet platform that invited practically anyone, but especially journalists, to have a go at email newsletters.

In the years since, Substack has blossomed into an influential cultural presence, attracting about 18,000 contributors and their readers. Along with similar platforms such as Patreon, Medium, and Beehiiv, it has been on the forefront of the shifting pattern in the ways Americans consume information.

Newsletters slip silently into our inboxes. No fuss. The best of them discuss topics in a way that journalists, notably exiles from Big Media, were uncomfortable or unable to tackle at their former stations.

The blizzard of newsletters has resulted in a legit alternative to traditional publishing. They thrive in part because, sadly, many Americans have grown skeptical of what’s found in legacy media.

For the writers who sign on, what’s the benefit? First of all, there’s an audience and, increasingly, good money to be made. The top Substacks bring in several million dollars a year, it has been reported. Among the stars you can now find there are Bari Weiss (The Free Press), Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American), Andrew Sullivan (The Weekly Dish), and Tina Brown (Fresh Hell). Wadler told me she has attracted fewer than 4,000 subscribers, earning her well under $10,000 a year. Obviously not life-changing. However, the primary allure remains extraordinarily powerful: “Freedom, oh freedom!”

All of that freedom is well and good. Broadly speaking, what’s not to like about thousands of diverse voices speaking to subscribers all across the country? Here’s my one concern: few moderators and professional editors are involved in the newsletter world. That’s okay for opinion-based newsletters, which can be preachy and unorthodox. It’s less okay for those with serious journalistic intentions. They’re only as reliable as their contributors and sources, and that’s not good enough in a polarized environment where so many of us have retreated to ideological silos. What’s often cited as a reason to sign up for newsletters — that they’re non-intermediated, take-it-as-presented propositions — is exactly where, sometimes, it can all go wrong.

Finally, let me turn to Kevin Sessums, who for ages was a marquee writer at Vanity Fair. Today, his work — a memoir in installments — appears on Substack. He wrote to me about it from Europe, where he’s been adventuring for a couple of years. “Because I had a big magazine career, I was feeling like a broken dinosaur roaming the digital earth for a while and ducking another damn meteor,” Sessums said by way of explaining his recent enthusiasm for the newsletter format. “Substack is the pasture the meteor missed, the one where you can choose to put yourself out to.” Valid point. I should note that his column (SESS/SUMS IT UP) is terrific. Unedited by a neutral party, true, but worth every cent.

In the January/February issue, Cable Neuhaus wrote about the timeless appeal of paper almanacs.

This article is featured in the March/April 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.