So the newsletter is a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short. I've been traveling a lot this month, so the weekly Friday for the next few weeks be more links, less essay. This week, I was visiting the new Knight Center for the Future of News at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications. I had such an amazing time connecting with students and faculty, sharing a stage with the amazing Rashida Jones, and meeting two Project C members - Zineb Haddaji and Jazmin Goodwin – in person. 😍 - Liz

📌 Nieman Lab profiled Trustfnd's newsletter bundling model, featuring indie journalists who sold 500 bundle passes in week one – 77% to completely new subscribers. Michael Jarjour (ex-Twitter) built it to let independent pubs grow together.

📌 Kaitlyn Arford published "The Layoff Library" – a massive resource list for laid-off journalists looking for work, freelance opportunities, and community support. Timely as hell given the AP news.

📌 Nieman Lab profiled V Spehar – the full arc of UnderTheDeskNews from viral TikTok to sustainable indie news business. One of the most complete portraits yet of what it actually takes to build a creator-journalist career at scale.

📌 From A Media Operator, when going solo morphs into a SaaS – A cycling editor quit his job to launch an AI-powered newsroom, building a custom CMS that automates the operational grunt work of publishing. Now while actual cycling site is struggling, the tool itself is attracting licensing partners and may be the real business.

📌 Will audiences actually download a standalone news app? Last year’s big bet on a quality standalone news creator app was Noosphere, this year brings the debut of Newdle – $14.99/month bundled app for independent journalists.

📌 OpenAI bought TBPN – reportedly for "low hundreds of millions,” and is shuttering the show's $30M ad business. This is one of the cleanest signals yet that the big AI labs see creator-led shows as a strategic media play, not just a marketing path.

📌 Outdoor Retailer is hiring 150 creators – If the outdoors and travel/adventure is your beat, this may be for you.

📌 200+ organizations signed an open letter to YouTube asking the platform to crack down on AI-generated slop targeted at kids. A rare moment of real pressure on platform content standards.

📌 The Associated Press is offering buyouts to 120+ U.S. journalists as it pivots away from newspaper-era revenue toward video and AI licensing deals.

📌 Rick Ellis wrote a provocation about the future of TV criticism – how independent journalists can make themselves most useful to the people and companies they cover.

📌 Vanessa Armstrong shared a Reddit discovery hack 👀 — use reddit.com/domain/yoursite.com to see everywhere your posts are being shared. Simple, useful, and it sparked a great conversation about Reddit distribution strategy in the community.

📌 Andy Dehnart was selected for the AIR New Voices cohort! Congrats, Andy — 14 tada reactions and counting. He also hosted a pitching workshop through the Flatiron Writers Room AND was one of the first to spin up a Trustfnd bundle with Vanessa Armstrong and Ani Bundel. Big week. 🎉

📌 Seamus Hughes had his best day at Court Watch News — 65% open rate, 13% CTR, 3K website hits, 40 new subs, and a NOTUS citation! All from a piece about a federal judge calling out the Bureau of Prisons. This is what accountability journalism looks like when you own the platform.

📌 Michelle Leder wrote a short item for the NYT DealBook that immediately drove a new paid subscriber, a group subscription inquiry, and a wave of free signups. Legacy exposure → indie conversion pipeline in action.

James Cave built an interactive antique map product for The Jiffy newsletter using Mapbox, Claude Code, and GitHub + Cloudflare. It’s super cool, so no wonder he’s also a finalist for the Next Challenge Pioneer Award. Congrats, James!

Matt Kiser dropped a quote in that should be on a wall somewhere: