Hi there, if you’re US-based, hope you had a lovely long Labor Day weekend. If you’re reading elsewhere in the world, now you know why the newsletter is a day late and why there’s no essay this week. Scroll down for the latest from around the ecosystem, some impressive AF wins from the Project C community and some upcoming must-see programming.
I'll be back with more thoughts next week. - Liz
🔥 THE LATEST THINGS
Substack's first Head of News and Politics is leaving. Catherine Valentine is launching a growth agency and product lab for independent media founders. Feed Me
News influencers are filling information gaps in New Jersey, but original reporting still lags behind them. Nieman Lab
Did the New York Times lift a 5,000-word indie report? The indie outlet claims to have the receipts. Fansplaining
How two 17-year-olds accidentally built a finance newsletter with 57,000 readers. A Media Operator
How one newsletter writer is building a subscription business when paywalls don't really work. Nieman Lab
Don Lemon is launching his own FAST channel. Variety
"The Latest Darlings of Social Media Marketing: Regular People With 500 Followers." Small, trusted accounts over mega-reach. WSJ ($)
The Canadian Journalism Foundation named its 2026 Emerging News Voices trainees – a cohort built from creator-journalists alongside traditional media (and I can’t wait to talk to them!). Yahoo Finance Canada
Crooked Media's nonprofit is launching a political creator drive ahead of 2028. Kyle Tharp (Chaotic Era) joins as executive director to recruit and support creators making entertaining content on AI safety, climate, healthcare, and inequality. Semafor
YouTube now lets creators tag Amazon products directly in videos — another shot at TikTok Shop. The Publish Press
NYC's Mamdani administration is paying social media creators for public messaging — CJR's Tow Center is asking the disclosure questions. CJR
😃 FROM THE PROJECT C COMMUNITY
Amanda Shendruk got the Creator Spotlight treatment this week. 💅 creatorspotlight.com
Anya Kelley launched her Substack after months of planning. Substack
Julie Holstein took her first week off after 49 posts/weeks of Ward 6 – two full days completely off the grid – and is already planning her one-year anniversary party. 🥳
Bryan M. Vance passed 7,000 subscribers at Stumptown Savings. 🎉📈
Yulia Denisyuk brought Going Places Media back from a four-week hiatus, with a new deep-dive series on Chile. goingplacesmedia.com
Bryan Schott's Utah Political Watch turned two and crossed $50,000 in annual recurring revenue. 💰
Zineb Haddaji got a last-minute call to go on Monte Carlo Doualiya, a French state-owned Arabic-language radio station, to talk about the attempted coup in Niger – a sign, she said, that her visibility as a creator journalist is starting to pull attention from traditional media. 💪
Julia Barton landed a new paid subscriber with the kind of note every indie journalist wants to frame: "I canceled my Hulu subscription in favor of Continuous Wave and feel great about that decision."
Jillian Melero added a third accelerator to her plate, The Onion's satire writing workshop, on top of ONA's Women's Leadership Accelerator and the Pulitzer Center's Digital Storytelling Accelerator.
Rey Katz got a new duck mascot, hand-illustrated by Rose Thomas Bannister's kid (who's taking commissions, btw), to go with one of their favorite deep-dive topics: intersex ducks and gender variation in nature. 🦆
Welcome, Adam Popescu – narrative journalist and author (NYT, Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek), now building his independent practice and launching Narrative Fest with ASU's Cronkite School on Oct 30. Register
Members get at least one live event a month, usually more. All times ET.
Wednesday, Sept 9 · 12–1:30 PM · Values That Speak. Storytelling coach Megan Finnerty walks you through composing a true, first-person story about who you are, what you do, and why it matters. Members only. RSVP →
Thursday, Sept 17 · 3 PM · NEW! Monthly Legal Office Hours. Attorney Julian Sarafian takes your contract questions live, group format. Bring what's sitting in your inbox. Members only. RSVP →
Open now: We extended the deadline! Applications for the Journalism Creators Startup Lab (EMEA) cohort close Friday, Sept 11 (midnight ET). Apply →
🎤 And here's where I'll be this fall. Come say hi:
Thursday, Sept 10 · I'm on a panel at INMA's Young Audiences Summit (virtual).
September 17–18 · ISOJ in Austin, paneling with LNI's Micah Gelman and indie journalist Aaron Parnas.
October 14–16 · Blue Engine's Local News Camp in Durham, NC.
See who's building independent journalism, and where. The Independent Journalism Atlas maps 2,000+ 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.
