this is the line that pushed me to paid subscriber - This “Football is Fun” editorial, this kindergarten-level piece of shit that would cause a high school newspaper editor to blush at its utter inanity, is an indicator that the editorial board of the paper has already sunk to USA Today depths of obsequiousness to conventional wisdom, and may be headed even lower
(should've done it sooner - the irony isn't lost on me)
The "Football is Fun!!" dross makes a little more sense when you consider that another venture of Bezos' is the sole televisor of Thursday Night Football. It's a crass bit of cross promotion masquerading as journalism. And that obviously makes it worse than if it were just some kindergarten-level fluff tossed off by the WaPo editorial board.
I happen to be a paying subscriber. I agree with the politics, it's well written, some of it is very very sharp, etc. But consider this Hamilton. I'm paying $60/yr for this. $60 more for Steve Vladeck. I hold off on a bunch of others because, you know, it adds up. Meanwhile, I pay just a few hundred bucks for all of the NYT, with all their add-ons too.
I wonder if there would be a way to bundle Substacks - you know, like choose 10 for $150 - that would make more financial sense for writer/producers in the end.
This is an idea that a lot of people have talked about but does not yet exist. I think inevitably it will happen, and/ or more individual pubs will combine to reform bigger publications. As a reader I feel your pain.
There should be a subscription to Substack, but I understand that is a tiny amount per author. Maybe one chooses particular authors so as to weed out dreck.
Suggestion: read the AP and Reuters for free (UPI, for some reason, is submental); cancel subs to the NYT, WaPo, etc. and invest in various other media outlets: this, Zeteo, DemNow, etc. I dumped the expensive but very well-written FT to spread dough around that way.
They are not perfect but the AP and Reuters give you a good picture of the world. Reuters especially does good investigative work. The ICIJ is also worth supporting.
Hamilton rocks but does mostly analysis. Which is fine—he’s among the best out there—but we desperately need real investigative (ie, expensive as fuck) digging, too! An even harder nut to crack.
If you cancel the NYT occasionally they'll offer you a much cheaper rate to sign up again. I don't like their cowardice on the issues we're dealing with but I have a daughter who lives in Manhattan so I like to keep up on the local news there and they do have a lot of good writers. I'm only paying 4 bucks a month right now.
As soon as I get a jaaaay o be I will subscribe (I just graduated nursing school). In the meantime how can we just like, send ypu $5-10 here and there? Some writers I follow have this and it is doable for me until I can afford like 7 subscriptions. Thank you for keeping this available to us poors. We appreciate you.
As a journalist, I appreciate your work overall and I love this column — and it worked. It got me to pay up, for good reason. You're an invaluable source on labor issues in particular, please keep it up!
While I'm here, I'll mention my own current project, launched earlier this year: https://theprogressivesouth.org/. Trying to amplify progressive voices across the South. (Very much including labor voices.)
Less than SEVEN PERCENT are paying the equivalent of one overpriced fast casual coffee to enjoy the work published here?! That's fucking insane. I hesitate to shame anyone for their poverty, but I have a hard time believing that 93 percent of you fuckos are too poor to sacrifice what is one third the price of one shit ass streaming subscription. Open your goddamn wallets, you miscreants!
Christ, you freeloaders got me talking all profane. Stop being shitheads. Hamno is too kind to berate you, but I'm just some fucking schmo. So pony up!
That was the math that put me on board. Quite literally ONE fancy coffee a MONTH is all you're paying. It it all gets too much, I'll just pass on the coffee
A successful career in journalism in these bleak times is more the result of randomness than anything else. The most talented people I know and the most successful people I know are not the same people.
It's the Breitbart Doctrine. It doesn't go far enough (https://cancellingreality.substack.com/p/the-breitbart-doctrine-doesnt-go). Breitbart said that politics is downstream from culture. Change someone's culture, their politics will change. What he didn't say was that politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from reality. Change someone's reality, their culture changes, and their politics change. The reason why the right wing is so intent on establishing a media empire or "filling the zone with shit" is that they need people to live in that fantasy world so that they vote for the right wing policies that solve the "problems" of that fantasy world, like migrant crime.
Rather beside the point, I know, (and I am a paid subscriber and am allowed a mulligan) but the picture at the top of your essay is of the legendary Whitney the Hobo who ruled afternoon television for kids in Eastern North Carolina when I was growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was on the NBC affiliate WITN in Washington, N.C. ("Little Washington" where Dominque "The Human Highlight Reel" Wilkins played high school basketball for the Washington High School Pam Pack) for an hour or two weekday afternoons and would have kids from the area on his show. Between episodes of The Three Stooges and cartoons he would talk to us (I was on his show once with a friend and it remains one of the highlights of my life) about the things that mattered in our lives -- Little League baseball, the tobacco harvest, did we contribute our dimes to have the Battleship North Carolina moved to Wilmington, N.C., etc. Maybe he was a bit of a Shill for Big Cola, but Eastern North Carolina was and remains Pepsi Country.
You and John Ganz (Unpopular Front) divide the current world of political/cultural reporting between you. I have a labor relations background and particularly appreciate your advocacy on behalf of unions.
WITN...WITNey the Hobo. Get it? When you are 7 years old you can never stop laughing at that.
Public funding for journalism is good until it’s not. Imagine what this administration would have done with “their” journalists? In the American system, especially, which is so partisan, I’m not so sure.
this is the line that pushed me to paid subscriber - This “Football is Fun” editorial, this kindergarten-level piece of shit that would cause a high school newspaper editor to blush at its utter inanity, is an indicator that the editorial board of the paper has already sunk to USA Today depths of obsequiousness to conventional wisdom, and may be headed even lower
(should've done it sooner - the irony isn't lost on me)
Thank you Stephanie.
To quote Ghost Busters 2:
https://clip.cafe/ghostbusters-ii-1989/better-late-than-never/
The "Football is Fun!!" dross makes a little more sense when you consider that another venture of Bezos' is the sole televisor of Thursday Night Football. It's a crass bit of cross promotion masquerading as journalism. And that obviously makes it worse than if it were just some kindergarten-level fluff tossed off by the WaPo editorial board.
Great piece, as always, Hamilton.
Good fucking point.
I happen to be a paying subscriber. I agree with the politics, it's well written, some of it is very very sharp, etc. But consider this Hamilton. I'm paying $60/yr for this. $60 more for Steve Vladeck. I hold off on a bunch of others because, you know, it adds up. Meanwhile, I pay just a few hundred bucks for all of the NYT, with all their add-ons too.
I wonder if there would be a way to bundle Substacks - you know, like choose 10 for $150 - that would make more financial sense for writer/producers in the end.
This is an idea that a lot of people have talked about but does not yet exist. I think inevitably it will happen, and/ or more individual pubs will combine to reform bigger publications. As a reader I feel your pain.
Maybe you could also write for an outlet like Zeteo or the Lever? I would think either of them would welcome your perspective...
There should be a subscription to Substack, but I understand that is a tiny amount per author. Maybe one chooses particular authors so as to weed out dreck.
Re-form - that's an interesting idea - new online journalism forms, but built from pre-existing subscriber bases.
Suggestion: read the AP and Reuters for free (UPI, for some reason, is submental); cancel subs to the NYT, WaPo, etc. and invest in various other media outlets: this, Zeteo, DemNow, etc. I dumped the expensive but very well-written FT to spread dough around that way.
They are not perfect but the AP and Reuters give you a good picture of the world. Reuters especially does good investigative work. The ICIJ is also worth supporting.
Hamilton rocks but does mostly analysis. Which is fine—he’s among the best out there—but we desperately need real investigative (ie, expensive as fuck) digging, too! An even harder nut to crack.
If you cancel the NYT occasionally they'll offer you a much cheaper rate to sign up again. I don't like their cowardice on the issues we're dealing with but I have a daughter who lives in Manhattan so I like to keep up on the local news there and they do have a lot of good writers. I'm only paying 4 bucks a month right now.
Check your library! Mine offers a subscription to the local paper and NYT with my card.
As soon as I get a jaaaay o be I will subscribe (I just graduated nursing school). In the meantime how can we just like, send ypu $5-10 here and there? Some writers I follow have this and it is doable for me until I can afford like 7 subscriptions. Thank you for keeping this available to us poors. We appreciate you.
As a journalist, I appreciate your work overall and I love this column — and it worked. It got me to pay up, for good reason. You're an invaluable source on labor issues in particular, please keep it up!
While I'm here, I'll mention my own current project, launched earlier this year: https://theprogressivesouth.org/. Trying to amplify progressive voices across the South. (Very much including labor voices.)
Appreciate you on both fronts.
Intriguing. Is it mostly podcast episodes?
Yes, a weekly podcast, plus we'll be building out features on the website over the coming year.
I willingly pay for this substack because you are a fine and passionate writer with a strong, important message that seems like simple truth.
Less than SEVEN PERCENT are paying the equivalent of one overpriced fast casual coffee to enjoy the work published here?! That's fucking insane. I hesitate to shame anyone for their poverty, but I have a hard time believing that 93 percent of you fuckos are too poor to sacrifice what is one third the price of one shit ass streaming subscription. Open your goddamn wallets, you miscreants!
Christ, you freeloaders got me talking all profane. Stop being shitheads. Hamno is too kind to berate you, but I'm just some fucking schmo. So pony up!
That was the math that put me on board. Quite literally ONE fancy coffee a MONTH is all you're paying. It it all gets too much, I'll just pass on the coffee
Well done! 🤣
I 100000% thought I was paying for this until I saw the upgrade link! Fixed!!!!!
✊️
proud paying member since near the beginning of this project!
A successful career in journalism in these bleak times is more the result of randomness than anything else. The most talented people I know and the most successful people I know are not the same people.
It's the Breitbart Doctrine. It doesn't go far enough (https://cancellingreality.substack.com/p/the-breitbart-doctrine-doesnt-go). Breitbart said that politics is downstream from culture. Change someone's culture, their politics will change. What he didn't say was that politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from reality. Change someone's reality, their culture changes, and their politics change. The reason why the right wing is so intent on establishing a media empire or "filling the zone with shit" is that they need people to live in that fantasy world so that they vote for the right wing policies that solve the "problems" of that fantasy world, like migrant crime.
I am not a subscriber, but I did contribute a lump sum once before. I would do it again now, but I cannot find a link that allows that …
Thanks for the support and if you prefer to do a one time donation, you can do it here: https://donorbox.org/how-things-work-reporting-fund
A ha!
That WaPo editorial just reeks of AI.
Rather beside the point, I know, (and I am a paid subscriber and am allowed a mulligan) but the picture at the top of your essay is of the legendary Whitney the Hobo who ruled afternoon television for kids in Eastern North Carolina when I was growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was on the NBC affiliate WITN in Washington, N.C. ("Little Washington" where Dominque "The Human Highlight Reel" Wilkins played high school basketball for the Washington High School Pam Pack) for an hour or two weekday afternoons and would have kids from the area on his show. Between episodes of The Three Stooges and cartoons he would talk to us (I was on his show once with a friend and it remains one of the highlights of my life) about the things that mattered in our lives -- Little League baseball, the tobacco harvest, did we contribute our dimes to have the Battleship North Carolina moved to Wilmington, N.C., etc. Maybe he was a bit of a Shill for Big Cola, but Eastern North Carolina was and remains Pepsi Country.
You and John Ganz (Unpopular Front) divide the current world of political/cultural reporting between you. I have a labor relations background and particularly appreciate your advocacy on behalf of unions.
WITN...WITNey the Hobo. Get it? When you are 7 years old you can never stop laughing at that.
Public funding for journalism is good until it’s not. Imagine what this administration would have done with “their” journalists? In the American system, especially, which is so partisan, I’m not so sure.
And then there's that.
Happy birthday fellow former Florida Man!