How independent journalists make their living on Substack

Tuesday, 8 October 2024

Kiwi journalists are finding new opportunities away from traditional newsrooms, with alternative platforms such as Substack booming in popularity.

These publishing sites enable journalists to have more freedom with their content, but should Aotearoa be concerned that alternative media is taking journalists away from traditional newsrooms?

With the recent closure of Newshub ‒ with Stuff now producing news bulletin ThreeNews ‒ and proposed cuts at TVNZ, the traditional media is struggling to keep reporters’ jobs secure.

Online publishing platforms like Substack are keeping journalists in the industry while allowing them creative control of their content, and attracting some of our own local journalists.

Kiwi Hamish McKenzie co-founded Substack, in 2017 ‒ it had more than 20 million active subscribers as of 2023.

The site allows writers to publish their content with support from paid subscribers, who help fund it.

Along with similar websites such as Ghost and Beehiiv, this media is further evolving the ever-changing landscape of journalism.

After more than 30 years as a journalist in New Zealand, Bernard Hickey has successfully transitioned to Substack.

Hickey’s newsletter The Kākā has been running for four years and has accumulated more than 22,000 subscribers, including 2520 who pay. He produces public interest journalism focusing on housing, climate and poverty crises in Aotearoa.

Hickey said the medium is a “simple and reliable” tool not only for writing but also managing and distributing the content.

He said Substack allows a writer’s work to be discovered by a wide audience.

It allows him to publish his work easily and cheaply, with Substack taking 10% of subscription fees. For writers who choose to make their newsletter free, they take no fee.

The subscription payments can’t cover an editor or reporters. So, he said, Substack “works well for individual writers”.

Hickey said subscriptions are needed to finance not only individual newsletter writers, but also traditional newsrooms.

“My view is that since 2012, the only way forward for news was subscriptions, and paywalls and asking readers for money.”

Hickey thinks more and more readers are OK with having to pay for news.

New Zealand newsrooms had realised that “the online advertising was broken and that it wouldn’t support news”.

Nowadays many news organisations are offering subscriptions including Business Desk NZ, New Zealand Herald and Stuff.

Hickey said that it had taken 10 years too long, meanwhile “the rest of the world had gone behind a paywall”.

Very small numbers of journalists are making a living from substack in New Zealand, he said.

He stressed the importance of an established presence in journalism before a newsletter can take off.

Hickey had a column with the NZ Herald for a decade and had built up awareness through appearing on TV and radio.

People were more likely to subscribe if they knew him and what made him different from other writers. “I had a profile.”

Hickey said in the UK and US, Substack has been used to build news organisations, usually with smaller numbers of employees focusing on a particular region, city or topic. Although it’s rare, it is possible.

But, he said, newsrooms are essential to establish journalists, and working as a team produces quality content.

“Newsrooms are quite good at fostering talent and growing it and shaping it.”

Newsletter writing is “not a threat or an alternative” to traditional media, he said.

If you subscribe to a newsroom like the New York Times you get “dozens and dozens of articles each day of highly produced, well resourced news”, he said.

But paying one person is different: “There's only so much one person can do.”

He said the issue with individual content production is “getting it to scale” to compete. Hickey is managing to do it effectively but he said it’s not a solution for everyone.

With Substack benefitting individuals with specific skills and background, it means less head to head competition and “enough room for everyone”.

Another Kiwi writer who has benefited from Substack is journalist David Farrier.

Farrier started his Substack newsletter Webworm in 2020, after he had to pause filming a documentary because of the pandemic.

He was bored and lacked creative outlets, so when McKenzie asked him to create a Substack, he said “yeah, I will give newsletter writing a try”.

He hasn’t looked back. Now living in Los Angeles, Farrier is still putting out Webworm stories multiple times a week.

Webworm is his “main thing”, with a variety of content from “more serious” news to light-hearted stories.

“People want stories. The demand for stories has always existed and I think it's just a matter of finding out where is the best place to put things”.

Farrier keeps stories free that he deems of public interest, but others are accessed through the paid subscription.

When asked for reader feedback on Webworm, subscribers shared why they pay.

One commenter said “With the increasingly grim dimming of the light of journalism in NZ and everywhere else, it just seemed like I needed to put some money where at least one mouth, still doing decent reporting, is”.

Farrier said he loves the community interaction from the platform.

“That’s an aspect to newsletter writing that I think is really powerful and engaging, for me as a writer and people engaging as well.”

But Farrier said he’s also 'facing the consequences” of the difficulties of going out on his own, including legal fees – which he has had to fork out for since covering difficult stories independently.

Farrier previously worked in the newsroom at TV3 for about nine years.

“There’s no better place to be than in the middle of a newsroom, working with people who love what they do, they genuinely want to make the world a better place, and they want to hold power to account,” he said.

With no editor and a limited structure around newsletters or social media accounts, it's important that straight news is presented accurately and ethically.

“I just try to stick to the truth. That’s the key thing,” Farrier said.

Stuff senior journalist Laura Frykberg said that with the challenges facing newsrooms it's more important than ever that we have good journalists in New Zealand.

“Others might turn to different forms of media, and that’s a good thing, but my biggest fear is that we are going to lose more experienced journalists to communications or internationally,” she said.

Frykberg said that having more quality news sources is positive.

“You’re reaching a whole new level of viewership and readers who might not necessarily want to consume traditional forms of media or might question traditional forms of media,” she said.

She said the more quality media outlets and journalists, the better the media is at doing its job in informing the public, as long as the stories are well-researched and balanced.