Welcome! I'm Simon Owens and this is my media industry newsletter. If you've received it, then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.

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Quick hits

Did Wired mislead its audience about Google censorship? [Simon Owens]

In 2022, The Verge rolled out a redesign that made its homepage look more bloggy. "The number of 'loyal users' (defined as those who have five or more sessions on the site in a calendar month) increased by 47% in the course of 2023. Though it is not a general-interest title, The Verge continues to be the most visited single site under the umbrella of Vox Media, its parent company." [New Yorker]

The New Yorker goes deep on the hedge fund that launched an investigative journalism outlet. [New Yorker]

Nate Silver is launching a podcast with Pushkin Industries. [Nate Silver]

“We have a lot of advertisers who essentially say they want to go dark from September through November. They don’t want to be associated. They know we run a lot of political content. They don’t want to be running any advertisements around what they assume will be a highly toxic, highly divisive election” [Press Gazette]

New York Magazine profiles The Daily Beast's new owners. If these anecdotes are true, then I don't have high hopes for the outlet's future prosperity. [New York]

I've spoken to a lot of media operators and creators who have shifted their marketing efforts from Twitter to LinkedIn. [TechCrunch]

ICYMI: How Android Intelligence built a thriving paid membership

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