Should you start a newsletter?

Plus: Noticing what's in your neighborhood, and a podcasting playbook for students

Photo by Tolga Ahmetler from Pexels.

July 10, 2026

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Dear Storyboard community:

There are many ways to tell a great story in 2026 — through longform narrative, books, TikTok, YouTube — but not every story works for every platform.

This is particularly true for investigative or in-depth narrative journalism. Social media and the creator economy — which forced us to become solo entrepreneurs rather than members of a team — simply weren’t built to replace organizations with expertise and resources. It’s almost impossible for one person to pull off the reporting, editing, fact-checking, and legal vetting required for a single longform story or podcast.

But we are also in a moment where news organizations have cut budgets or shuttered entirely, leading many journalists to start their own newsletters, YouTube channels, or Patreons. We try to focus on craft here at Storyboard, but the medium always shapes that craft, and these platforms create their own unique storytelling opportunities and constraints. They help us connect with an audience and build community, but they can also limit our ability to log off and do deeper reporting in the outside world.

I say this all to arrive at the pressing question: Should you start your own newsletter?

A newsletter takes time and energy. It’s adding another project to your portfolio.

But my personal answer is yes. You absolutely should start a newsletter.

Where you host that newsletter, and how often you publish, are important questions. Several posts came to my attention this week that might help you assess the best way forward: Jane Friedman’s “Should You Use Substack for Your Email Newsletter? Or Something Else?” and this conversation between writers Lincoln Michel and John Warner about the realities of Substack, freelance writing, and the modern media landscape. Both offer clear-eyed assessments of Substack’s evolution from email newsletter service to social media platform, and what that means for writers, as well as a breakdown of other newsletter services like Beehiiv, MailChimp, and Ghost.

For me, the key question before launching a newsletter is this: Do you want your newsletter to be your main focus? Or is it a vehicle to promote your other work?

Most social media incentivizes quantity over quality, so once you get on that treadmill, the dopamine kicks in and it can feel like a sprint to publish as much as possible to grow an audience. (The danger, of course, is that if you start a newsletter to promote a future book project, you might quickly discover that you no longer have any time to work on the actual book.)

Aside from my work here at Nieman, I publish an occasional personal newsletter through my website, where I write about work, my music, and what I’m reading and listening to. In a perfect world, I’d send updates once a month, but realistically, I send them whenever I have something to say or share. I have no desire to monetize it or turn it into something more "professional,” because I don’t want it to be the central focus of my work, my time, or my energy. It’s just a nice way to stay in touch with people I’ve met over the years.

Every time I send an update, I experience the joy of hearing back from old friends and colleagues, who then tell me what’s new in their lives, too. That’s all I’ve ever wanted from the internet: connection with real people.

You might be seeking something similar, or a new outlet for your writing, or a place to try out ideas. The nice thing is that you get to decide. If you’ve started a newsletter and have advice or lessons on what you’ve learned, share it with us: editor@niemanstoryboard.org.

Links of note

Mallary Tenore Tarpley’s excellent guest post last week on people-watching has inspired me to spend more time observing what’s right in front of me (and not rush past it in the frenzy of daily life). Jami Attenberg’s Craft Talk newsletter offers prompts building on this point. For example: “Have you noticed anything new in your neighborhood?” One other note from last week’s newsletter: A few readers pointed out that the “four-square” journaling exercise Tarpley learned at her writing retreat first originated with comic artist Lynda Barry in her book “Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor.” Thanks to everyone who shared the additional context, and you can read more about Barry’s process here.
Good Tape, a magazine dedicated to celebrating the craft and business of podcasting, has launched a new feature, Ear Stuff, focused on reviewing narrative podcasts. They’re starting with “Who Blew Up the Guidestones?” a seven-part series from journalist Tyler McBrien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, investigating the mystery of who was behind the destruction of a massive stone monument in Elberton, Ga., in 2022.
The Bell, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists and civic leaders, is hosting a free Zoom meetup on Wednesday, July 15 to share their Student Podcast Playbook, a free podcasting curriculum for school classrooms developed with support from Journalism for All, an initiative to revitalize journalism education in New York City public schools.