Citing the success of publications like The Charlotte Ledger and Toronto’s City Hall Watcher, Substack has announced it will spend $1 million to support a new group of local news writers on the platform.
The email newsletter platform joins other tech companies — Google and Facebook most prominently among them — in launching programs to foster innovation in local news or support existing news organizations. But the Substack Local program, announced via blog post on Thursday morning, isn’t just handing out cash. The program will place an emphasis on paid subscriptions and achieving sustainability:
I wish them luck but Medium was the 2010s story and Substack will be the 2020s story. 2000s story was just pure blogging and monetizing it with advertisements. It is funny though how Medium and Substack are both influencing us bloggers. Medium taught us that we could ask for donations for our free work and Substack has taught us that we can make our articles member-only and require payment for people to read them.