Independent journalist era takes off

Substack is on track to more than double its politics and news subscribers in 2024, executives told Axios. The number of Substack journalists in news and politics making more than $1 million has doubled over the past year—and is now in "double digits," the company says. A boom in digital publishing tech combined with a slew of media cutbacks prompted a big wave of journalists to go independent during the pandemic. But the trend slowed following a huge turnaround for media businesses in 2021, pegged to an unprecedented comeback in the ad market. Today, industry instability, combined with product improvements at independent publishing platforms like Substack, has made independent ventures viable for a wider array of journalists.