Taylor Lorenz
- Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz is going solo and launching her own Substack publication.
- Lorenz announced her departure from The Washington Post this week for her own venture.
- She spoke with BI about the launch, monetizing the publication, and plans to protect herself.
Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz is going full creator mode, launching her own Substack publication called User Mag.
Lorenz has written about tech, politics, and digital culture for a variety of prominent outlets including The Atlantic, The New York Times, and most recently, The Washington Post as a columnist.
The signs that Lorenz might strike out on her own had been evident for some time.
For years, she has worked at the intersection of the journalism and creator worlds. She has built up a sizable following on YouTube and TikTok, and has a weekly podcast called “Power User” that’s part of Vox Media’s podcast network.
Lorenz’s status as an internet personality has come with benefits and downsides. Her connection to the creator economy has helped her work across formats and lifted the reach of her journalistic output. But she has also frequently come into the crosshairs of the likes of Fox News and has been the subject of online harassment.
Lorenz said she had been planning her departure from The Washington Post for months and that it wasn’t related to the recent discourse regarding a meme about President Joe Biden she posted on Instagram six weeks ago.
“We are grateful for the work Taylor has produced at The Washington Post,” the Post’s PR said in a statement. “She has resigned to pursue a career in independent journalism, and we wish her the best.”
Lorenz is far from alone in her journey going solo.
Other journalists who have left traditional media to start their own Substack newsletters include startups and VC reporter Eric Newcomer, media reporter Simon Owens, and political writer Matthew Yglesias. Yglesias recently told Peter Kafka, chief correspondent at Business Insider, that his newsletter Slow Boring is grossing about $1.4 million a year.
I spoke with Lorenz on her decision to leave legacy media and launch her own solo venture. Here are edited parts of that conversation.
What were you doing before you became a journalist?
I was doing temp jobs and I was working retail. This girl at one of my temp jobs was like, “Oh, I just sit on Tumblr all day. That’s the best way to pass the time because we get a lot of downtime.” And so I was like, “What’s Tumblr?” This was back in 2009. It was a really night and day for me. I got on Tumblr, and I immediately started spending 16 hours, 18 hours a day on Tumblr. I made a lot of Tumblrs around food and different interest themes. A lot of my Tumblrs were submission-based, and I just got very obsessed with early virality and making things viral. I also started blogging at that time. I really liked that I was able to write whatever I wanted on the internet.
The first half of my career, I was blogging, and writing on the side, and then doing social media.
What was the tipping point for you that led to your decision to start your own thing?
Mark Seibel is one of the greatest living journalists. He’s an incredible editor and he would always push me to do better. I learned so much from him. I had already been thinking that this was not a long-term thing for me, but when Mark left [The Washington Post], I just thought, if not now, when?
How did you prepare User Mag for launch?
I spent a lot of the summer talking to content creators and other journalists who went independent and sort of planning out my business model. I also saved up, making sure that I had enough to make it through. I hired somebody to work on my branding and develop a brand identity and a logo.
Launching in the fall seemed like the best time. I talked to a lot of people, and first I thought maybe I’ll wait until January. But people told me that’s not the best time to get subscriptions because people cut down their subscriptions around the New Year.
Were there any specific people who inspired you or gave you advice on your decision?
I’m very inspired by Johnny Harris and Cleo Abram, Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day, and 404 Media.
There’s been a lot of people that have moved on from Vox and done amazing things.
There’s also this whole group of YouTubers that I think do a really good job of covering news or covering these right-wing figures in a really thoughtful and critical way. I really like J Aubrey on YouTube, Mina Le, and Hasan Piker.
Kate Lindsay from Embedded also gave me a lot of advice. I talked to dozens and dozens of people before making this move. I really asked everybody about their business models and what they wish they knew. I made an entire spreadsheet of the different ways that I wanted to think about building out my own brand.
Advice for journalists on growing a following?
It’s so crucial, not just in terms of trust, because people are far more likely to trust somebody that they can know directly than a faceless brand, but also because it gives you a level of feedback and accountability.
There are really smart people that follow me who are just incredibly interesting that I would’ve never had any way to hear from previously. I think that that’s helped me break some of the biggest stories in my career. People are like, “Hey, I follow you. I know the way that you’re going to tell the story. I’m not just emailing a tip line somewhere.” I encourage all journalists to build those direct relationships with their audiences and cultivate their audiences.
Beyond Substack, do you plan to post more content on TikTok and YouTube?
Substack is the main engine for everything. I think Substack is doing a lot more in terms of multimedia. It now hosts video, and I just participated in Substack livestreaming where I’m a beta tester. I think I will be posting videos and maybe doing interactive live streams on there, too.
YouTube is the other platform that I want to lean really hard into. I think TikTok is going to get banned so I don’t want to invest heavily until I know it’s going to be around. YouTube is much more stable, and I’m always going to be an Instagram girl because I’m a millennial. I also love trying out new platforms.
How are you planning to monetize User Mag beyond Substack subscribers?
I’m trying to do everything on subscription revenue but it depends on how much subscription revenue I can make. I think that you’re able to do more things when you rely on subscriptions, and it’s much harder to do certain things when you rely on advertising.
I will probably be doing a few one-off speaking gigs and things like that if opportunities come up. But I really want to try to go full-on subscription revenue, and if I can make enough off of subscription revenue, I can keep all of my YouTube content free and I can keep my podcast completely free without a paywall.
What types of stories are you hoping to cover in User Mag?
I will still be doing online culture writing, business, and politics. But I’m really excited to do more serialized content. For instance, I just launched this series on the moral panic around kids and technology. I really want to do a lot of these deep dives. I haven’t announced this yet, but I’m also doing quarterly-themed topics for User Mag.
Zoe Jensen has been helping me out on User Mag, and she’s going to be coming on as a contributor.
Do you feel like you were constrained by the types of stories you wanted to cover at a traditional media organization?
One thing I loved about working in traditional media was brainstorming with some of the smartest people. I am devastated to not work with Drew Harwell anymore because he is just one of the most brilliant people. I literally came to The Washington Post to work with Drew because I have admired his work for years. So there’s people like that, that I’m really going to miss having access to their minds on a daily basis.
I think that legacy media comes with a lot of benefits and constraints. It should exist, but for someone like me, I don’t know what role I would have, and I feel like it was a bit of a square peg in a round hole ever since I became a reporter. I am a content creator. I have always been a content creator, and I don’t know that these places are set up for that. I just want a lot more flexibility in terms of voice.
You’ve been sued before. How do you plan on handling legal stuff now that you’re on your own? For many journalists, one of the biggest benefits of working at an established organization is having that type of legal backing and support.
When Tucker Carlson and all these right-wingers were attacking me, the most stressful thing was managing my employer. You’re basically never allowed to respond, which by the way, then results in reputational harm.
If I were independent, first of all, I’d be able to monetize all of that. I’d lean super hard. I’d be doing reaction videos probably. I don’t give a shit about what these people say.
I will say The Washington Post has been so amazing in terms of the physical security that they have provided. Really, shout out to them because I’ve dealt with a lot of physical security threats that they have handled really well, so that’s going to be annoying to deal with by myself.
I think for those more contentious stories, I will have to find some sort of way to write with protection. I imagine if it’s a story that I think is going to be contentious to that level, I will probably work with an outside place or maybe partner with an organization that has legal protection. That doesn’t have to be a legacy organization. Some of these other new media outlets do have more legal protection.
Right now, as an independent operator, I will be relying on help from lawyer friends.
Do you plan on building a team?
I would love to get to the point where I don’t have to edit my own content. I’d love to hire a video editor. That would probably be the next hire that I would make, and I’d also love somebody to read the stuff that I write before I post it.
Disclaimer: Lorenz formerly worked at Business Insider and she also highlighted the author’s reporting in her book Extremely Online.