“‘We aim to make you 10% more sane for the next four years’ is a hell of a pitch”

The Weekly Wrap: January 24, 2025

“‘We aim to make you 10% more sane for the next four years’ is a hell of a pitch”

This week, Josh asked a question that a whole lot of people are wondering: “How much of your headspace should Donald Trump be taking up?” He wrote about The Logoff, a new Vox daily newsletter that “helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life.”

The Logoff is one solution to a question many news organizations are grappling with: How to keep exhausted readers engaged, including with the daily newsletters that have been successful in building and maintaining audiences. What makes people keep opening?

I’ve begun a little project to track news organizations’ daily newsletter subject lines, looking for hints to how publishers are approaching this question. (I’m looking at newsletters that are aimed at a general audience and not focused specifically on politics.) Here are the subject lines of The New York Times’ flagship newsletter The Morning this week. “The Trump Changes Begin,” “Trump’s First Day Back,” “Rewriting Jan. 6,” “The New Politics of Immigration,” and “Why Tariffs Are Different.” Compare from The Morning’s headlines in the first week of Trump’s first term in January 2017: “President Trump, Yahya Jammeh, Southeast Storms,” “President Trump, ‘Brexit,’ Oscars,” “Keystone Pipeline, Border Wall, Supreme Court,” “Donald Trump, Venus Williams, Mary Tyler Moore,” “Donald Trump, Theresa May, Mexico.” It’s a small sample, but that’s half as many direct mentions of Trump in 2024 as in 2016.

From The Washington Post’s The 7, also published weekday mornings: “Trump’s Day 1 promises; brutal cold to hit millions; NFL playoffs; and more.” “Trump’s busy Day 1; Ozempic’s health impacts; college football; and more.” “A rift in Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’; a historic winter storm; drug-addicted rats; and more. “Trump’s first TV interview since inauguration; coffee and cancer; statue discovery; and more.” “Oscar nomination snubs; Trump’s trip to Los Angeles; America’s newest pandas; and more.” (The 7 launched in 2021, so I couldn’t compare these to 2016; also note that editions of The 7 published to the Post’s site have different headlines than their corresponding newsletters.)

Meanwhile, I asked The Logoff’s editor, Patrick Reis, how the first week went. He couldn’t share subscriber numbers but “we’ve been excited by the positive response we’ve gotten from our audience this week — in terms of signups and feedback and suggestions for topics I’m getting from readers,” he said. “The response has demonstrated there’s clearly a hunger for this kind of product from many readers.”

You may be sick of him, but he’s not sick of him

Today in stories I’m jealous of: This investigation by The Ankler’s Dave Levinthal into the news that Trump’s campaign paid for during the 2024 election cycle. “Trump’s surrogates purchased subscriptions to more than 65 news outlets during the 2024 election cycle through his presidential campaign and affiliated political committees — about twice as many as Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ affiliated committees purchased…in all, Trump’s news spending cost his committees more than $31,000, according to FEC records through late 2024.”

— Laura Hazard Owen

From the week

What will happen to Voice of America in Trump’s second term? Although Trump has announced that Kari Lake will be the next VOA director, the president does not have the legal authority to unilaterally make this appointment. By Kate Wright.

The Tulsa Local News Initiative combines old and new to shore up the city’s information ecosystem “People across the city were lacking things that they felt that they needed in a news publication.” By Sophie Culpepper.

Want a little less Donald Trump in your brain? Vox has a new newsletter that dials down the franticness “A daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life.” By Joshua Benton.

What the creators of Howtown learned in their first few months on YouTube “We don’t know if [this strategy] is going to make sense for us from a money perspective. We’re in the ‘out on a limb’ phase, not the ‘we’ve discovered a new business model’ phase.” By Neel Dhanesha.

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