Hi friends,
Happy last day of July. ☀ Where has the flippin’ summer gone? Here at Project C Central, we’re just a few weeks away from the kiddo heading back to high school and it feels like everything is moving so fast. We’re past the midway point with our Google News Initiative cohort of North American content creators and soon we’ll be launching the application window for our first Europe/Middle East/Africa cohort. (If you’re interested, sign up here to be notified when the application is open.)
Speaking of the North American cohort, I hope you’re all catching the profile videos we’ve been posting from the cohort on the Project C Instagram account. This week, meet Joey Ferguson:
In case you missed it, I wrote earlier this week about the Muslim American Creator Journalism Showcase, which was just 10 out of 10 inspiring and I hope you all have a chance to check these creators out.
Finally, a call out for help writing next week’s newsletter: Inspired by Not-Ship’s Amanda Shendruk, I’m writing about how creator journalists take time off for vacation (or not). If you’re a creator journalist and you want to share how you balance your workload with time off, hit reply to this email and tell me how you do it (or not).
Read on below for the latest from around the ecosystem. And enjoy your weekend!
– Liz
🔥 THE LATEST THINGS
Taylor Lorenz walked through a full day of her research-and-writing process for the "Model Behavior" interview series – candid on AI tools, what counts as help vs. slop and how much of an impact AI is having on her bottom line. On Substack
"Substack Writers, You Need a Website" – Elizabeth Tai's case for not putting all your eggs in one platform's basket. elizabethtai.com
Substack's new "Claudefishing" AI-detection tool is getting called a witch hunt. 404 Media reports on writers pushing back on being flagged as AI-assisted when they weren't — a fast, messy follow-up to last week's tool launch. 404 Media
Despite AI Overviews eating search traffic industry-wide, some nonprofit news outlets are seeing a surge in search traffic instead. A genuinely hopeful counter-data-point in a week full of AI doom. NiemanLab
A baseball newsletter is proof that a small, specific audience beats a big vague one. Poynter's case study on niche-audience economics. Poynter
Workweek's Adam Ryan is betting on "practitioner media" — subject-matter experts becoming the content, not just the sources. The Rebooting
A TikTok creator earning a "midlevel salary" needs way less audience than you'd think. A useful reality check on what small-but-real creator income actually looks like next to the mythical mega-influencer numbers. Bloomberg (paywalled)
Senate Democrats introduced bills to rein in AI-powered ads and paid influencers. The same week News/Media Alliance cheered on a separate AI-bot-transparency bill "protecting creators and journalists" from bad-bot scraping, Washington is starting to write rules for exactly the space this community operates in. Semafor / Editor & Publisher
Patreon is laying off 20% of its staff, with its CEO's memo citing AI pressure on the creator economy broadly. Business Insider
A Spanish independent outlet, WATIF, is finding real traction with live YouTube news shows and in-person events — a reminder that "newsletter" doesn't have to mean just email. via News Alchemists
ASU's Cronkite School launched a bachelor's degree in "content creation" — and the pile-on from the Daily Wire, New York Post and others calling it "ridiculous" says more about legacy discomfort with the word "creator" than about the students enrolling. NewsNation (companion reads: NY Post
Two RJI Innovation Fellows are building a collaborative publishing hub for independent journalists — infrastructure aimed at "people who want to hold power to account" outside traditional newsroom structures. Current.org
"Should journalists give up on traditional job paths? Maybe." Poynter's blunt take on why the old newsroom ladder isn't the safest bet anymore. Poynter
🤗 FROM THE PROJECT C COMMUNITY
Serena Maria Daniels (Tostada Magazine) is self-funding her dream of international reporting and is well on her way to raising what she needs. Chip in
Kaitlyn Arford's newsletter was named one of the best websites for freelancers by Writer's Digest – and in the same week, she closed a two-ad sponsorship deal (kicking off September and October) after pushing through a budget conversation she "hates doing on a call." Writer's Digest list
Soleil Ho and COYOTE Media launched their first-ever summer subscriber drive this week, building on last week's strong reader-survey numbers. coyotemedia.org
Suchi Rudra joined the community and launched Climate Inclusive on Substack, covering women leading climate solutions and climate-justice work in the global south – 15 years as a freelance sustainability and tech journalist behind her.
Members get at least one live event a month, usually more. All times ET.
Wednesday, August 5 · 12:00 PM · Your Work Origin Story (members only). Liz Kelly Nelson. RSVP →
Wednesday, August 12 · 12:00 PM · Step Forward on Sponsorships — Accountability Check-in (members only). April Brumley Hinkle & Emily Dresslar. RSVP →
Thursday, September 3 · 12:00 PM · Cracking PACER: Tips for Telling Stories with Federal Court Records. (members only) Seamus Hughes, hosted by Liz Kelly Nelson. RSVP →
Wednesday, September 9 · 12:00 PM · Values That Speak (members only). Liz Kelly Nelson. RSVP →
Also still on the books: Liz will be on a panel at ISOJ in Austin this September.
Ready to build alongside 200+ creator journalists? $39/month gets you the private Slack, members-only events and every replay in the Replay Room.
See who's building independent journalism, and where. 2,096 verified creator-journalists, organized by beat, platform, and geography
How this newsletter is made: A human (hi, it's Liz 👋) writes, edits and makes every editorial call here. I use Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, as a research tool — each week it sweeps my sources and assembles the first draft of the links roundup. Every link and every word gets a human read before it reaches you.
