News Roundup #7: Glenn Greenwald Goes Independent Following Biden Story Dispute

Welcome to Issue #7 of the Means of Creation weekly news roundup where we break down the latest news on the passion economy, including the happenings related to platforms, creators, startups, and trends.

This Week’s Interview: Joe Albanese

This week we interviewed Joe Albanese, CEO and cofounder of Stir, a startup that’s building tools to help creators run their businesses and optimize their finances. 

Last week, Stir launched a public beta of its core product and also announced its $4 million seed round led by Homebrew, XYZ Capital, and Ludlow Ventures, with participation from Casey Neistat, Jack Conte from Patreon, and our own Li Jin.

Some highlights from our conversation with Joe: 

• The backstory on how he ended up building for creators and major learnings so far
• Why collaborations between creators (“collectives”) are important in the passion economy
• Why they’ve been creating Drops

Find it as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Breaker or wherever you listen to podcasts, or as a video on YouTube here. Or subscribe to the Means of Creation YouTube Channel.

Top of Mind

Glenn Greenwald Goes Independent 
Glenn Greenwald resigns from the Intercept following dispute over Biden story // Jeremy Barr & Elahe Izadi, Washington Post 

TLDR:

• Glenn Greenwald, cofounder of the Intercept, resigned over editorial disagreements related to a story that portrayed Joe Biden in a critical light. 
• The Intercept, a popular publication known for its investigative journalism, first came into the spotlight for breaking Edward Snowden’s story. 
• Like many high-profile writers with loyal audiences, he chose Substack to launch his independent newsletter. A migration that was personally lauded by Substack cofounder Chris Best. 
• Chris Best on Twitter: ""As of now, I will be publishing my journalism here on Substack" 🔥… "

So what?

• Editorial autonomy seems to be the common motivation driving prominent writers to leave their established media jobs. Substack seems to be the common platform.
• With this influx of established writers, questions around Substack’s own editorial identity have been raised. Unlike a neutral intermediary, are there certain sociopolitical narratives that Substack leans towards? 
• Myles Udland on Twitter: "I think Substack's editorial identity is starting to come into focus."
• Moreover, an overly romanticized narrative of editorial independence dismisses the role editors have traditionally played. Editorial checks and balances arguably protect us from disinformation.

What Readers Are Saying

This post was really awesome especially the news on David and on Triller. Amazing work team.

Newsletters are insightful and I never feel they are too wordy. Please keep this style. Sometime you feel some people develop simple ideas in too many lines just for the sake of writing or having a long newsletter. Yours are straight to the pint and enjoyable to read.

This is great! I love all the news about the Passion Economy, thanks for pulling it together. As a curator myself and someone who wants to be "in the know" about what creators, curators and builders are doing, I really appreciate this. Thank you!

Looking forward to more news from means of creation. More power to you guys :)

When you subscribe to Means of Creation, you also get:

1. The Means of Creation talk show every Friday at 11:00am PST / 2:00pm EST featuring founders and investors in the passion economy. Recent guests include Ankur Nagpal, Joseph Cohen, and Blake Robbins.
2. Passion Economy News (you’re reading it now!) where we break down the latest news on the passion economy — platforms, creators, startups, and trends.
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