Washington Post in talks with Substack about using its writers
The Washington Post has held talks with Substack about hosting pieces by its writers, the site's co-founder has said, as a host of legacy media brands embrace the newsletter platform in the battle for readers.
In an interview with the Guardian, Substack's Hamish McKenzie said he had spoken to the Post about its plans to widen the types of opinion pieces on its website.
He said there had been a 'change in mindset' from traditional media, which once viewed Substack with suspicion. He said many now saw the platform as an opportunity to adapt to what he described as 'the most significant media disruption since the printing press'.
UK news companies including the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and Reach, which publishes the Daily Mirror, have all launched newsletters on Substack.
McKenzie said the Post had approached Substack about hosting its writers. '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.
'If they're helping to bring more exposure to those writers and drive audiences to them, if it's designed in that way – and I'm not 100% sure what the ultimate outcome is going to be – that could be really good for everyone.'
Substack has become increasingly influential since its launch in 2017. It allows anyone to publish and distribute digital content, primarily through newsletters, and charge a subscription. It has also been branching out into podcasts and video.
The potential tie-up comes after Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Post, provoked its comment editor to walk out after he announced its comment pages would be more narrowly focused on pieces that supported and defended 'personal liberties' and 'free markets'. The move was seen as an attempt by Bezos to safeguard his relationship with President Trump.
However, the Post – under its British chief executive and publisher, Will Lewis – is trying to find other ways of drawing in readers following reported losses of $100m (£74m) last year, including a project to host comment pieces from other sources on its website.
Reach has launched dozens of Substacks this year alone, covering topics from book trends to Liverpool FC. The Telegraph has just started to post content on a royal family Substack, while the Daily Mail has a Substack dedicated to showbiz news.
'All of a sudden really, a bunch of legacy news organisations are trying to see how they can take advantage of Substack,' McKenzie said. 'That's a really welcome change in mindset. At first people looked at us as if we were a curious instrument and then they started to look at us as maybe we were a threat, because some talent would prefer to go independent on Substack rather than be in a newsroom.
'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.'
He said Substack was supposed to be a 'disruptor of social media', rather than the traditional media, allowing longer writing instead of viral content. He said he had 'no regrets whatsoever' about having resisted overtures from Elon Musk to buy the site.
McKenzie said Substack was trying to find new workable models for media amid the struggles of traditional outlets to hold on to rapidly fragmenting audiences. 'It's not a problem with demand for quality journalism,' he said. 'It's a problem with the business model and so there has to be a reinvention. We're almost at the point where the fire has razed through the forest and there are a few trees still standing. It's time to replant the forest. We're living through the most significant media disruption since the printing press.'
Substack allows anyone to create digital content, which then sits on a dedicated website and can be sent directly to the inboxes of subscribers. It has also branched out into audio and video features in an attempt to benefit from the podcast boom. Crucially, it allows writers to charge a subscription for some or all of their pieces.
The ability to monetise content has allowed some established writers to break away from traditional titles and go it alone. According to an analysis by the Press Gazette, the number of Substack newsletters with at least $500,000 (£369,000) in annual subscriptions revenue alone has doubled in two years. Some of the writers on the site have become influential in US politics, including Bari Weiss and Matt Yglesias.
In the UK, it has provided a platform for new local news sites where newspapers have disappeared from the map or had their reporting staff significantly cut back. New ventures include The Manchester Mill, launched by the journalist Joshi Herrmann, and London Centric, launched by the former Guardian journalist, Jim Waterson.
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BBC News
13 minutes ago
- BBC News
The families hiring 'private bobbies' to police their homes
Listen to this article on BBC SoundsWe are driving at speed through the green hills of rural Hertfordshire. Through the passenger seat window, large elegant houses flash by. Each front lawn is neat, each hedgerow well-kept. It looks like England from a storybook - but this part of the country is actually on the frontline of a relatively new (and some might say divisive) approach to crime the driver's seat is Robert, a guard employed by Blueline Security. His car is painted with blue and yellow stripes, meaning it looks a lot like a police car. Inside there's a walkie-talkie, a first-aid kit, and a Belgian Malinois dog called Bella (given similar training to a police dog, I'm told).But Robert - who wears a bullet-proof vest and carries a pair of handcuffs - is careful to point out that he is not a real policeman."The more keen eye will realise that this isn't a police car," he says as he flicks his indicator. He points out that they follow the regulations on vehicle markings designed to distinguish police cars from other cars. "But it looks similar enough where criminality will see it at a distance and think, 'Let's maybe not go there'." Blueline is one of a handful of "private policing" firms that have emerged in recent years. It has operated mostly in wealthy enclaves of southern England since 2019 and, for a fee, its team of ex-police or ex-army guards can patrol villages, looking for burglars and car thieves. Robert, in fact, spent 14 years working in the police similar businesses have sprung up around the UK in recent years, including My Local Bobby, which was founded in 2016 and now has almost 150 security guards, as well as a fleet of to some customers who spoke to the BBC, this fills a gap left by the real police, who they claim they no longer trust to turn up promptly to a 999 call in their residents who can afford these firms, they are a "lifeline", as one customer tells me. But to others, they represent an affront to the values on which British policing was founded; a step towards a country in which the wealthy get better access to law enforcement than the former senior figure in the Metropolitan Police says she fears the emergence of a "two-tier society".So, with pressures on real police growing, is there room for private firms to help ease the load - or do so-called "private bobbies" blur the lines between police and profit? Rise of 'private policing' The firms offering "private policing" that I've spoken to say that demand for their services has risen. According to a paper published last year by criminologists from the universities of Sheffield and Brunel, the UK's private security industry grew substantially between 2008 and 2021, with an increase in revenue and in the number of licensed security according to the Home Office, the number of real police officers in England and Wales fell most years from 2009 onwards, reaching a low of about 122,000 in 2017 - before ticking back up, to about 147,000 last year. The study's co-author, Dr Matteo Pazzona, a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Brunel University, describes a shift in policing from the "public to the private" realm. Whilst most UK security guards work in shops and other businesses, his data does also signal a rise in the sort of residential work carried out by private firms, he are lots of reasons why the security industry might have grown over this period. But David Spencer, a former Detective Chief Inspector at the Metropolitan Police, thinks that private firms could be filling the gaps left by police. "If you've got money and you don't feel that the police are effective, then it's no surprise if you decide to use your resources to keep your family safe," he says. Confidence 'hangs by a thread' Until the 19th Century, protection from crime was largely a privilege enjoyed by the rich. Wealthy people employed "thief takers" to guard their property, whilst ordinary folk had to make do with volunteer watchmen, who focused on the more basic task of keeping changed when Sir Robert Peel, a Tory prime minister, started London's Metropolitan Police - Britain's first modern, professional force funded from general taxation. He instilled in the force several principles that can still be reeled off from memory by many constables today: being visible in the community; treating members of the public equally, regardless of wealth or social standing - and perhaps more important than all: policing with some worry that trust is being undermined. Most burglaries and car thefts go unsolved. A YouGov survey from last month found that 50% of adults in Great Britain held "not very much confidence" or "no confidence at all" in their local force - up from 42% in 2019. The government's police inspector, Andy Cooke, said in a report in 2023 that confidence in police "hangs by a thread" (although his report last year noted some improvements).Mr Spencer, who is now head of crime and justice for the centre-right Policy Exchange think tank, says demands on police time have risen dramatically. Online fraud has shot up in recent decades, and police have recognised the need to tackle issues that were once considered "private" (like domestic abuse and sexual violence). And police resources are failing to keep up pace, he he thinks, helps explain the interest in so-called private police. A deterrent to burglars? Laura (who didn't want to share her full name) signed up for private security to patrol her road a few weeks ago, after a spate of burglaries in the area. She lives in rural Hertfordshire with her husband and one of her three already had CCTV installed and, on the night that her neighbour was burgled, it showed a gang of masked men sitting on her garden chairs. "You can see them looking at the camera, and they've seen it's zoomed in on them. And then they went."Her neighbours held a meeting; about 40 households decided to subscribe to a private firm. Each pays £1,500 per year. In return, guards patrol the area daily. Laura says she can call a guard at any time."I don't think we can afford to be confident that [the police] would get here in good time," she says. However, private guards have no more power than a member of the public. The aim for many is not to catch or restrain criminals but to act as a deterrent. Jamie Strickland, a former soldier who founded Blueline, stresses that he does not regard his business as a replacement for the police and argues that even a perfectly-resourced force would struggle to reach remote areas of the countryside."The police can't be everywhere all the time," he a spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs' Council says they remain "resolutely committed" to attending the scene of crimes, and that all English and Welsh police forces now aim to attend a property following every burglary added that private firms "should not replace or supplement police and it is for properly trained officers to intervene when a crime has been committed". 'I'm lucky I can afford it' The question, though, is whether so-called private police firms signal the emergence of an unfair two-tier system, in which the wealthiest can pay to be better protected from is a concern for Parm Sandhu, a former chief superintendent at the Metropolitan Police who left the force in 2019 and has since written a book about her experiences of prejudice. "If you're living on a council estate, you cannot afford to pay for policing," she says. "Does that mean you deserve to be burgled, sexually assaulted, or mugged? No you don't."She argues that the correlation between falling police numbers and an expanding private security industry signals something "totally wrong".Andy, who also lives in rural Hertfordshire, near Laura, and employs a private security firm, has his own feelings on this. "I look at it and say, 'It's £1,500 a year, I'm lucky I can find that,'" he he argues that not everyone who uses the service is wealthy. "You watch the CCTV [of burglaries], you feel worried for your family." The expense, he adds, is worth it for that doubts remain. Ms Sandhu points out that the police-like appearance of some of these security firms could be confusing. "If you've got somebody who's under the influence [of] drugs or alcohol, they will look up quickly and think, 'Oh, this is a police officer'," she says. "It's really important to have that differential between police officers and security guards."Members of the public [could] go to them thinking they're talking to police officers, and take their advice."Which raises the question of what, exactly, private guards can do. The companies I speak to are clear that their staff can restrain somebody they suspect to be a criminal, only in the same way that any member of the public can, a power commonly known as a "citizen's arrest".And it comes with risk. Under English and Welsh law, a citizen's arrest can only be used for an "indictable" offence - a serious crime tried at the Crown Court. You cannot use a citizen's arrest for a lesser "summary" offence (tried at the magistrates' court).In the heat of the moment, it may be difficult for a guard to judge the difference - and if they get it wrong, they could be guilty of a crime themselves. Questions about accountability There are also questions about accountability. Police forces are inspected by the Government's Inspectorate of Constabulary; if a serious complaint is made against a constable, it will be investigated by an independent regulator. Few such tools of accountability exist for private firms - other than having their licence revoked by the Security Industry Martin Gill, a criminology professor and the director of Perpetuity Research, a security consultancy, points out that in shopping centres and hospitals, the "majority of policing is undertaken by private police forces" (in other words, security guards). Most of them, he argues, do a "very good job".In his view, when a private firm starts operating in a residential area, the local police force should engage. The founder of My Local Bobby, David McKelvey, says he now has a "good relationship" with police forces, after a rocky start. "There was a lot of reticence [from the police] in the first place, but now they're starting to see the benefit of [our service]," he would like police to work closer with firms. "At the moment, there's a reticence still within policing to sharing information [and] intelligence. Often that information is absolutely vital for us to do our job."The College of Policing has said police forces should only share intelligence under strict circumstances. Not quite Starsky & Hutch Ultimately, the sort of work carried out by 'private bobbies' is a tiny fraction of the real police work carried out across the country. But whether more residential communities will in future opt for the private model depends largely on whether the police are able to restore public confidence, says Mr Spencer of Policy Exchange."If it doesn't, then I think it's inevitable we will see more people […] turning to private providers," he on the road with Robert, midway through his patrol, his radio buzzes. A customer has called: a horse is loose and wandering in a country lane. Within minutes, he has driven there and helped return it to its field. It's not quite Starsky & Hutch, Robert concedes, but it's an insight into the sort of work they do. And yet, he admits, there are recalls one shift, on an April night this year, when he drove along a country road in his patch and saw a car that looked like it was being used for drug dealing. "If they've had drugs and they're behind a wheel, that's a summary offence - I have no power to deal with it," he he sat in his car and called the real image credit: Getty Images BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.
Times
24 minutes ago
- Times
Reeves plans billons in infrastructure spending but her luck needs to change
Darren Jones has spent the past few months in the eye of the storm, leading negotiations between the Treasury and cabinet ministers on the spending review. But even during the most tense of discussions, there were moments of levity: the soldiers taking part in rehearsals for Trooping the Colour would intermittently burst into music below his office window, leaving ministers in fits of laughter. Despite claims of blistering rows between him and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, and Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, insists they are all singing from the same hymn sheet. In an interview in his Treasury office overlooking St James's Park on Thursday, Jones, 38, looked more relaxed than he did only the day before, when Rachel Reeves delivered the results of her spending review, divvying up hundreds of billions of pounds between her ministerial colleagues. Reflecting on the process, he said: 'I'm friends with everybody. Look, the spending review is always a challenging process because the economy is not in a position where we've got surpluses. So, obviously, everybody always wants more than is available.' For most government departments, the spending review has been a game of two halves. On day-to-day spending there has been a big squeeze, the Foreign Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) among the biggest losers. However, there has also been a large boost in capital funding as the government seeks to tell a more positive economic story after rows over cuts to disability benefits and last month's U-turn over winter fuel payments for pensioners. This week Jones will start to unveil how the money will be spent, including an announcement tomorrow that the government will spend a minimum of £750 billion on infrastructure over the next ten years. This, he hopes, will be part of 'a destination story' about 'how the country's going to look and feel better' as a consequence of the decisions the Labour government is taking. Alongside this, the government will launch a new website giving details of the 'pipeline of the projects' so industry will be able to see in advance when and where they will be built. For the first time, this will bring together economic infrastructure alongside housing and social infrastructure, giving a decade-long view ahead to the supply chain. It will be followed in a few weeks' time by the announcement of sites for 'new towns of the future' and an industrial strategy that is set to include energy subsidies for manufacturers. 'What we want to achieve is businesses investing in their workforce because that's the real constraint on delivery,' said Jones, who began life in a council house on the outskirts of Bristol. 'So it should give them the confidence to invest in apprentices, to train up their workforce, to hire more people and get them skilled up so they can actually deliver these houses and schools and energy infrastructure.' Jones was quick to point to the job opportunities because unemployment has started to creep up again from 4.5 per cent to 4.6 per cent. Critics argue that the effect of Labour's NI rise for employers is now being felt. Jones has also been forced to clarify remarks he made on BBC's Question Time when he appeared to suggest that the majority of those arriving on small boats across the Channel are 'children, babies and women'. In fact, 81 per cent are men. Jones said later that he was referring to one visit he had made to Dover. Along with money for potholes and a tranche of new railway stations and lines — including one between Liverpool and Manchester — the government will announce a ten-year flood defence strategy, investing £7.9 billion in building and repairing barricades. Defra claims that every pound spent on flood defences prevents £8 of economic damage, the Treasury saving £3 from this due to a reduction in damage to public infrastructure such as roads, railways, schools and hospitals. But it won't all be good news. The Sunday Times can reveal that HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is investigating the high-speed rail project HS2 for fraud, including the treatment of workers and whether they should have been paid as in-house staff or freelancers. On Wednesday, the transport secretary Heidi Alexander is set to address the issue head-on as part of a major 'reset' of HS2, which has been blighted by delays, huge cost overruns and chronic mismanagement. She will set out a scathing assessment of how the project has been run, based on the findings of Mark Wild, who in December was appointed chief executive of HS2 Ltd, the body set up to oversee the line's construction. Wild, who previously oversaw Crossrail in London, has written to Alexander warning that phase one of HS2 will not be completed within the current 2029-33 time frame if the project sticks to its current framework. He will not specify how much longer it is expected to take, but industry sources say completion of phase one could be pushed back by at least five years. HS2 is also due to open talks with contractors to switch from 'cost-plus' contracts — which cover the actual costs incurred plus a fee — to those that better incentivise cost savings. Jones said: 'The last government hadn't really updated prices or scheduling or anything with HS2, which was a real problem. The whole thing just kind of got out of hand. The Department for Transport will be publishing their review shortly, which will expose all of the problems that we have found in the project, but also what our plan is now to … get a grip of it.' Despite announcing billions of pounds in investment, the headlines since Wednesday have been dominated by dire predictions that tax rises will follow in the autumn budget because of the strain on the public finances. Economists have said there will be no choice but to raise taxes to keep the Treasury's books balanced at a time when forecasts suggest a worse-than-expected outlook for growth. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published on Thursday revealed that the economy contracted in April by 0.3 per cent as businesses cut jobs and cancelled investment plans in response to higher taxes and the uncertainty created by President Trump's tariff war. This, along with the latest jobs data, released on Tuesday, which showed the number of workers on company payrolls had fallen by 109,000 in May, threatens to rob the government of any credit for its spending review investment. Like other ministers who have been asked, Jones did not rule out tax rises in the autumn. 'Well, no one is able to rule anything in or out because this is all about forecasts,' he said. 'What we don't do in government is have hypothetical forecasts because you'd just be completely crazy. You'd be changing your plans every five minutes with the latest data set. 'So, the next [Office for Budget Responsibility] forecast will be commissioned ten weeks in advance of the budget in the autumn. And then we'll need to see what they think and as a consequence, what Rachel and the prime minister decide.' HS2 is years behind schedule CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES Reeves has previously ruled out coming back for any more in the autumn after announcing £40 billion in tax hikes last year, including £25 billion from employer's national insurance contributions (NICs). But it is understood that inside the exchequer, a list of potential revenue raisers is already being compiled, although insiders insist officials always draw up such documents for ministers in preparation for fiscal events. According to one source, the list includes potentially raising the bank surcharge — an additional levy imposed on banks' profits, above the 25 per cent corporation tax rate — which was considered by Reeves before her first budget but ditched following a backlash from City executives. The surcharge was cut from 8 per cent to 3 per cent under the Tories in 2023 and a source suggested that Reeves could seek to partially reverse it by increasing the rate to 5 or 6 per cent. A second option said to be on the list is increasing the tax rate applied to dividends, which are paid to shareholders of companies and are sometimes taken by company directors as an alternative to a wage. Currently the top rate on dividends stands at 39 per cent, compared with 45 per cent charged on the top rate of income tax. Taxpayers are also entitled to a £500 dividend allowance on top of the £12,570 tax-free personal allowance which, if removed altogether, would save the Treasury approximately £325 million a year. According to a poll of almost 2,000 people by the think tank More in Common, the public overwhelmingly expects taxes will have to rise in response to last week's spending review (56 per cent to 20 per cent). Only 15 per cent think the chancellor is doing a good job and the public now say they would trust her predecessor, Sir Jeremy Hunt, to run the economy over Reeves by a margin of 62 per cent to 38 per cent. The public also do not believe the chancellor will meet her pledge to close the asylum hotels by the end of this parliament. Luke Tryl, director of More in Common, said: 'The public are going to need to see real results before their opinion of the government improves. What's more, the public are increasingly worried that the Treasury is going to have to come back and ask for extra tax rises to pay for last week's announcements — and most people are in no mood to pay more. In particular, the suggestion of further hikes in council tax looks set to land particularly badly with the public, who, more than any other area of taxation, want to see council tax go down. The chancellor's economic tightrope act looks set to continue.' The government will begin its next high-wire act this week when it introduces the controversial welfare reform bill, which proposes billions of pounds of benefit cuts. Ministers have in recent days floated tweaks to the package to soften the impact and win over Labour MPs threatening to rebel and No 10 is now increasingly confident it has the numbers to win the vote, expected at the end of the month. However, with the weather improving, a summer of small boat crossings, rising unemployment and the spectre of tax rises could yet again threaten the new-found political harmony in the Labour ranks.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Elon Musk's X down for thousands of US users, Downdetector shows
June 14 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's X was down for thousands of users in the U.S. on Saturday, according to outage tracking website There were more than 6,700 incidents of people reporting issues with the social media platform as of 06:07 p.m. ET, Downdetector showed, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources. Downdetector's numbers are based on user-submitted reports. The actual number of affected users may vary.
