Media News + Moves: Specialized media newsletters to watch

1. Specialized media newsletters to watch (and pitch)

The big picture: There are a ton of great business and industry-specific media newsletters, and not enough hours in the day to keep up. Here are three new ones to have on your radar.

1. Fortune: Jacob Carpenter analyzes the critical role of trust in corporate America, offers insight and advice from experts, and provides actionable tips executives can take to build faith in their leadership and business in The Trust Factor, a new weekly newsletter.
2. STAT News: Business of health care reporter Bob Herman (formerly at Axios) is launching Health Care Inc. next Monday, which will examine how money shapes health care.
3. Axios: In its first year, Axios Local has garnered more than 500K subscribers across 14 different cities. Axios is rapidly expanding its coverage this month with embedded reporters producing daily newsletters in Boston, Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Additional cities launching soon include Baltimore, Miami, Houston and San Francisco.

Why it matters: According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s 2022 Trends and Predictions report, 70% of media leaders plan to focus their efforts on newsletters this year.

Newsletters have proven extremely effective in building loyalty with existing users, attracting new subscribers and introducing more personalization into digital products. The New York Times, for example, produces 50 different newsletters read by 15 million people each week.

The bottom line: Communications teams should include specialized, niche newsletters from top-tier publications as part of their media strategies. Pitching timely stories will help you reach readers right in their inboxes.

2. What’s the news?

• The Washington Post launched a new column, The Department of Data, as part of a significant investment made by the Post in its data journalism. Each week, business columnist Andrew Van Dam explores overlooked and underappreciated data in search of surprising truths and insights about modern life. (MediaPost)
• Snapchat announced a new subscription service, Snapchat Plus, just a month after the company warned of slowing revenue growth. (The Verge)
• FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is calling on Google and Apple to ban TikTok from their app stores after a recent BuzzFeed News report found that user data from the social media platform has been repeatedly accessed in China. (The Washington Post)
• More than nine in 10 journalists in the U.S. (94%) use social media for their jobs, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of reporters, editors and others in the news industry. But while Twitter is the go-to social media site for a majority of U.S. journalists (69%), Facebook is the most widely used social media site for news among the American public. (Pew Research Center)

3. What’s trending?

• About two newspapers in the U.S. are closing every week, with a disproportionate impact on hyperlocal communities than bigger cities, according to a new report from Northwestern University. The average poverty rate in a news desert, or a community without a local newspaper, in the U.S. is 16%, compared to the 11% national average. (Axios)
• Speculation around the future of the metaverse swirled as Meta said it would reduce its hiring goal from 10,000 engineers to between 6,000–7,000. While advertising could generate a majority of metaverse revenue in the future, right now Meta is focused on branded content experiences. (The Drum)
• Alex Wagner will succeed Rachel Maddow as the host of MSNBC’s 9 p.m. hour four days a week. Maddow recently scaled back her hosting duties but will continue to host the 9 p.m. hour on Mondays.(The New York Times)

4. Journalist moves

💼 Business: Reporting on business for newspapers, magazines and digital outlets

• Martin Peers, technology columnist, Bloomberg Opinion (previous: New York bureau chief, The Information) (Talking Biz News)
• Brian O’Keefe, executive editor, Esquire (previous: senior executive editor, Fortune)
• Julie Coleman, breaking news/sports business, Forbes (previous: military and defense reporter, Business Insider) (Cision Media Moves)
• Lila MacLellan, reporter, Fortune (previous: reporter, leadership, wellness and work, Quartz) (Talking Biz News)
• Veralyn Williams, executive producer, NPR (previous: senior editor, LWC Studios) (Talking Biz News)
• Jaclyn Peiser, retail reporter, The Washington Post(promotion) (Washington Post)
• Dagmar Aalund, section editor — Future of Everything vertical, The Wall Street Journal (previous: deputy international news editor, The Wall Street Journal) (Talking Biz News)

💻 Technology: Covering startups, advanced technologies and the intersection of tech/business

• Kara Swisher, podcast producer, Vox Media (previous: tech columnist, The New York Times)
• Jonathan Vanian, social media tech, CNBC (previous: tech reporter + head of Eye on AI and Race Ahead newsletters, Fortune) (Talking Biz News)
• Megan Rose Dickey, San Francisco tech reporter, Axios (previous: chief content officer, Backstage Capital) (Talking Biz News)

🏥 Health + Science: Writing about health and science across mainstream + trade publications

• Anjuman Ali, deputy wellness editor, The Washington Post (promotion) (Talking Biz News)
• Mark Johnson, science writer, The Washington Post (previous: science and health writer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) (Talking Biz News)
• L’Oreal Thompson Payton, health and wellness reporter, Fortune (previous: senior editor, mental health and wellness, YR Media) (Talking Biz News)