The Year of Newsfucking Dangerously

OPTIONAL post! No news in here! Just some Happy Fucking TFN Birthday thoughts...

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This is the day I’ve been dreading. It was one year ago today that I relaunched TFN.

For those of you new to TFN, which — excitingly! — is most of you, you may not know that TFN had a previous life. That’s right, TFN was a daily newsletter I did in the pre-Trumpocene era and only dropped when I got honest work as the managing editor of The Young Turks in 2017.

And we had 3,000 subscribers! Which was amazing! So, when The Young Turks got rid of my position — I was overseeing original reporting — I relaunched TFN…and immediately emailed all 3,000 OG Newsfuckers that TFN was back.

And in the first week or so, a whopping fifty of them upgraded to paid subscriptions. I mean, wow. I was floored and gratified and my terror about my family’s finances abated at least a tiny bit.

So, why have I dreaded today? Because most folks who go with paid subscriptions choose annual plans.

Which means that now, as of today, most Newsfuckers with paid subscriptions are going to start deciding whether to renew their annual subscriptions. Which means the adorable little newsfucking empire I’m building here could all start crumbling away starting now…if folks opt not to renew.

I confess, I was definitely tempted not to remind folks at all that this moment was coming.

But that is not how I roll (one of many reasons I’m not as rich as Elon Musk or even Vivek Ramaswamy).

So, herewith, your reminder (and I think Substack will remind you, too) to renew or not renew. If you don’t want to pay for another year, you have to actively choose not to renew. If you don’t, Substack automatically renews you.

Of course, I would love for everyone to continue supporting TFN, but I don’t want anyone doing so because they forgot. And no one should renew or upgrade to paid in order to “save” TFN. The Fucking News is doing well enough that (a) I don’t have to pretend to be James Carville and scare folks into upgrading, but also (b) if our current growth rate continues throughout the year, I’ll be able to do TFN until I die in federal prison for aggravated journalisming.

That said, I do want to make a case for continuing to support TFN.

I took the opportunity around the holidays to discuss my goals for TFN, how TFN is doing by the numbers, and, most importantly to me, the stories and investigative reporting and commentary your support made possible in 2024.

What I didn’t talk about were the long-term goals. We need a new, independent information sphere. Right now, everything is fracturing. And that’s probably needed, but ultimately we need, once again, outlets that are accessible and of interest to broad, diverse audiences.

Ultimately, we need an outlet that models national discourse that’s trustworthy and reasonable and that can drive the conversation and frame political agendas the way Fox has, but not for Satan. I don’t imagine that will be TFN … but I do imagine TFN growing to the point where it can be part of that new thing. That’s my long-term hope — and honestly not even necessarily that long-term.

Yes, there are many, many other outlets out there right now. I confess I’m not a huge fan of many. Many are great in some ways, but none — including TFN — are exactly what we need. Yet.

But I no longer think it’s crazy that TFN can help model and boost and support the growth of an information ecosystem that is what we need.

While cable TV news is struggling, TFN has quadrupled the number of subscribers since a year ago today. (We’ve literally moved up 100 rungs on Substack’s leaderboard since last summer.)

Maybe this level of support has a lot to do with simply the habituation of TFN being in your inbox every weekday morning. But as I learned working in daily TV news, being there every day really, really matters. And I feel fortunate that I picked up the discipline of having to churn out crap quality TV news programming day after brain-numbing day.

For a variety of reasons, Newsfuckers who do upgrade to paid seem very happy about it (which, of course, thrills me) and with TFN. Six months after upgrading to paid, 95% are still on board. The annual retention rate is 97%. That’s almost as high as Trump’s margin of victory!

Of course, what even are statistics in our re-Trumpian world? If crime rates don’t matter in the face of crime anecdotes, then why waste time with subscription stats when I can share anecdotal feedback from paid subscribers that — truly — makes me freakin’ giddy to see?

So here’s a sampling of what some paid subscribers have had to say:

As a journalist, I’m skeptical of everything; nothing more than myself and my own work. So it’s nearly a transcendent experience to have you good, gracious Newsfuckers tell me I’m achieving the things I’ve set out to do with the obvious exception of being compared to Andy Borowitz.

Thank you. OGs and noobs alike.

One year on and I’m less fearful than I’ve been at any time since losing my job. Even Trump doesn’t scare me. And while I know he will hurt people and do damage — and I know courage is easy for me from my multiple points of privilege — I also know that part of TFN’s mission going forward is to puncture the balloon of Trumpism.

As horrifying as it might be for us to witness, TFN’s mission, like all good journalism, is to reveal what it looks like when — Jesus fucking Lord blind me now — the emperor has no clothes.

Other media may signal that Trump = America, that his election is an existential statement about Who We Are™. Bullshit. Not TFN.

Because that’s not reality. It’s a prophecy. And it only comes true if we let it. America isn’t intrinsically anything — other than what we choose to be every day. Which is why we fuck the news.

- Jonathan

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