The Kicker

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, had Matt Pearce sweating. Until the day before the signing deadline, Pearce didn’t know if the biggest piece of legislation he had ever worked on—one that creates a new standard for content-neutral government funding of local news—would become law or not. And then, on September 30, Newsom signed the bill, establishing a groundbreaking precedent for state support of local outlets. Soon, newsrooms will get a twenty-thousand-dollar tax credit every year...

For me, and for most of my fellow millennials in the journalism industry, the idea of spending more than two decades in the same job seems unfathomable. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to, but I’ve never made it more than four years without being laid off or experiencing circumstances so unbearable that I have no choice but to quit. Alison Gerber arrived at the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2003 as an assistant metro editor. (I first met her the following year, when I landed in Chattano...

If you had lots of money to give away, what kind of journalism would you fund? City hall reporting? Big-swing investigative projects? Detailed coverage of your favorite sports team? The magazine of every narrative writer’s dreams? Over nearly three decades as a professional philanthropist, Ruth Ann Harnisch has funded many kinds of journalism, several of which fit none of those buckets. Deez Links, Delia Cai’s reliably hilarious “culture and online fixation report.” Oldster Magazine, Sa...

Anna Sproul-Latimer, a literary agent, on what a shrinking market means for journalists. After a boom time for nonfiction books during the pandemic, sales have been flat or down for multiple years running. Even veteran nonfiction authors are having trouble landing book deals, and those who do are getting less money. For ambitious journalists, that’s bad news; writing a book has historically been one of the best ways to level up one’s career and supplement low newsroom salaries. Anna Sproul-L...

One of my favorite dive-bar conversations with fellow journalists is “What would you do if you couldn’t do this anymore?” We’ve all thought about it; the tough economics of our industry haven’t left us any choice. It’s such an interesting window into people’s psyches: friends have told me about secret dreams of going to medical or law school, opening a restaurant, running a bed-and-breakfast, teaching kindergartners, and more. (Interestingly, no one has ever told me they would go into PR, whi...