Building a Better Newspaper In 2018
Why the Skimm’s $12-million funding bodes well for the troubled media industry
The Skimm, a media service that delivers daily news summaries and explainers via its newsletter and app, recently raised a $12 million round and promptly started tongue wagging.
Honestly, it’s great to see the Skimm, a media startup (hurrah!) helmed by two women (double hurrah!) who understand growth and their audience find success. Also, it’s true that the Skimm recycles other publications’ content and delivers accessible summaries of existing news every day to millions of readers. TheSkimm, a newspaper, invented a newspaper.
Pretty much every major newspaper has an email newsletter of its own that is fairly successful in drawing readers to their stories. The New York Times, arguably one of the more successful digital news brands, has 50 free email newsletters that went out to 13 million subscribers in 2017. The Skimm’s newsletter goes out to 6 million free subscribers. I’m not sure which statistic comes out looking more impressive…
