Newsletters as Newspapers
A funny thing happened in our current Newsletter Renaissance: inundation. Much like the television streaming era which is now in full-swing, we’re learning that there can, in fact, be too much of a good thing. At least for those of us who are completists. Which is to say: there are too many newsletters that I now subscribe to and want to read, but often cannot. Because, well, time.
There are a few possible solutions here.
First, we could simply unsubscribe from several of these newsletters. But that’s no fun. What if time magically appears and you yearn for one of those old friends in your inbox?
Second, we may see aggregators of newsletters start to rise. It seems like tools such as Substack and Revue could fairly easily do something like this with either a “best of” their respective networks, or a more verticalized approach. Or, as they become more network-centric, a more custom tailored approach. Also, services like Stoop seem built for this.
Third, we, as newsletter readers could get better about our consumption patterns. This is the bucket I’m currently in. Even though I am a completist, I recognize the need to be realistic about time. So here’s how I’m currently thinking about my newsletter consumption: Newspapers.
That is to say, I’ve been trying to get through my newsletter “inbox” in the morning while having my coffee, much like our parents would do back in the sepia-toned days of the 1930s, or the black-and-white-toned days of the 1950s, or even the neon-toned days of the 1980s. While some people still do this — even I will occasionally buy a physical paper (though more often I’ll go on this nostalgic journey in a hotel room) — most everyone is reading their news online. Even if it’s “newspaper” content online.
But whereas a newspaper used to be a vessel of news and opinion for your locality, this has sadly been all-but destroyed in our current era. So now if you’re reading a newspaper, it’s probably one of the national ones. And while there is great value in this package, it can’t be as complete as the internet itself, which is so vast so as to literally be able to cover everything.
Enter newsletters. I’ve found the ones I really enjoy to be great curators of content, which helps me sift through the news/opinion of the day or week. Some do this with long-form commentary, some with actual reporting, some with simple links and blurbs about why you should care about said story. Again, it’s actually not that different from a newspaper, at least in terms of the type of content being delivered.¹
And since I don’t have a physical newspaper being delivered, I thought using my morning newsletter inbox would be a good thing to try to start the day with some information injection. So I now use a Gmail filter for each newsletter to skip my actual inbox and instead put them in a “Newsletter” folder, which I’ll check in the morning as time permits. (Again, Stoop does this same basic thing in app form.)
Now, there’s still way too much content to get through every day. But I’ll often save longer-form pieces to read later to Pocket, Instapaper, Reeder, and the like. And then I’ll skimm a lot (including, yes, theSkimm)² before archiving. I generally like this workflow, though I’m still pretty early into doing it.
¹ Also, basically all newspapers have newsletters now, of course.
² Disclosure: a GV investment.
