Will people still pay for news without President Trump?
This week: can the news survive without Donald Trump? Plus a bunch of good stuff and a return to the sacred art of Garfield remixes.
Hey there. Welcome to the kites can’t fly newsletter, a little ditty about how things like the news, social media, and tech change how we live. I’m cory zanoni.
What's the news without its leading man?
Say what you will about Donald Trump but he was good for news outlets. The New York Times saw a 300% uptick in digital subscriptions once he became president. That's, ah, a lot. Trump sent the news agenda, for better or worse, and provided what the news often lacks: a clear-cut antagonist you couldn't stop watching.
The news isn't entertainment (or at least it shouldn't necessarily be). It exists to help you understand the world. But the principles of entertainment still apply when you're trying to get people to buy into your service: great characters and compelling drama sell. President Trump provided both:
Audiences love a villain. They simplify things. Why pay for news? So you know what he’s doing. Why donate to this cause? To help stop him.
In many ways, President Trump was an audition for major news outlets. They got a slew of new subscribers and had four years to prove to people that they're a valuable service. It'll be interesting to see how they fared.
And, really, the world still has a lot of issues worth staying across. They just lack the panache of a renegade president.
Read more: Will people still pay for news without President Trump?
Love the world anyway
The world isn’t exactly lovable at the moment. But, alas, loving the world is required to fix it. It's required for hope.
And both love and hope are choices. You wake up every day and rededicate yourself to both. And you try and build reasons to do it again tomorrow.
Read more: Love the world anyway
Good stuff
- Yuno's latest single, "Somebody", is a banger; Bicep's second album slays; and Sidewalks and Skeletons are still making great music.
- Apple Music dropped a playlist filled with music from Indigenous Australian artists. Well worth your time.
- Can you draw a perfect circle? My best effort netted a score of 165,000. That was using a mouse: wonder if I could do better on my iPad.
- Scene On Radio's series about masculinity and patriarchy, MEN, is a must listen. Thoughtful, well-researched, and well-considered.
- Listen to some forests.
- Watch funny people make funny sounds, including what the Fast and the Furious franchise would sound like if it was mostly cats and dogs.
- Songlines is incredible book about Indigenous knowledge systems. To no-one's real surprise, calling them simply "oral" systems is doing them a massive disservice.
- A top notch thread about how streaming numbers are both "meaningless and damaging".
- Here's a great Twitter account all about Garfield getting thrown out a window. There was a brief window of time when remixing Garfield comics was the pinnacle of internet humour and art. May we one day return there.
Thanks for reading.
❤️ cz