The Washington Post is in talks about hosting some of Substack’s writers for opinion pieces, as the site’s co-founder said many legacy media brands are embracing the newsletter platform to gain readership.
Substack’s Hamish McKenzie told the Guardian he had spoken to the Washington Post about its plans to widen the types of opinion pieces it has on its website.
“We’ve talked to them, but there’s no formal agreement or partnership, and they wouldn’t need to talk to us to be able to go out and attempt to do those things,” McKenzie said.
“They need to persuade the writers, creators, the journalists, publishers, not us."
While the transitional media was once suspicious of Substack, there has been a change in opinion. United Kingdom-based companies like the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and Reach all launching newsletters on the site.
“All of a sudden really, a bunch of legacy news organisations are trying to see how they can take advantage of Substack,” McKenzie said.
“People are starting to understand that Substack is not just a publishing system that helps people make money, but it’s also a network and it represents new land to build on, where new media products can be born and built.
“Legacy institutions can build those just as well as newcomers. It’s a big opportunity era.”
Substack was launched in 2017 and allows anyone to distribute and publish digital content primarily through newsletters and charge a subscription.
According to analysis by the Press Gazette, the number of Substack newsletters with at least US$500,000 in annual subscription revenue has doubled in the past two years.
The Post's leaning towards Substack comes as the paper’s opinion editor departed the company after owner Jeff Bezos said he wanted to align the publication with the political right. The right-wing turn was seen as a move on Bezos’ part to get into U.S. President Donald Trump’s good graces.
The Post is also trying to draw in more readers after reporting US$100 million losses last year under its British chief executive and publisher, Will Lewis.
This comes after reports that The Post could soon allow non-professional writers to submit opinion columns through an AI writing coach called Ember.
