Late état des lieux. Létat des lieux. Get it??? Late… létat…. it’s pronounced the same.
If you don’t think I’m funny, we are enemies now.
No seriously, as usual thank you for supporting me. I’m going to start off this monthly update with a simple request to support me financially. Currently we have 4000+ subscribers, and make 30,000 a year off of 751 subscribers (the majority of them pay for the discounted 1 year subscription!)
The first 12k was shared 50% with Gabrielle (whom I miss, and would gladly share the 30,000 with, if she ever gets tired of her job. Hint hint, i know she’s reading this), and that’s before transaction fees from Stripe. After taxes and transaction fees, i’ve made about $19,000 this year from this substack. I have been keeping the price at $5 a month, and I’m committed to keeping it at this low price. I believe in this project, and I want to make sure it’s as accessible as possible. I keep everything free, which is uncommon on substack. It’s because everyone deserves good information, and I’m doing alright financially. You also have the option of giving more if you pay for the founder level.
If you give $5 a month, it would be amazing. I want to get to $50,000 a year on $5 a month. At $50,000 I will be allocating $10,000 a year to hire someone to help me with administrative work, and some reporting work. I have someone in mind. I would like this to grow some, and develop into a full fledged media someday. So please consider it– I know things aren’t always easy financially, but your support allows me to do social media, as well as my written work while remaining in university. Three thousandish people read this newsletter every time I send it. If half of those three thousand supported me, I would easily be able to hire a second person part time. But like I said, I know it’s tough out here, so the site will be available to everyone in perpetuity.
This month I was drowning in the work that I was doing. The election absolutely ravaged me. I released two and a half highly consequential reports in French and English that I think had an influence on the election, I released reports on the failures of the Liberals in Newfoundland Labrador, who lost the election, and I released videos, reports on muslims in Quebec, and have broken some big news– like the constitution of quebec ignoring the demands of feminists, like the community in Longeuil being ignored by the city of Longeuil… But here we are, made it through two more elections. I also taught a journalism class at Concordia, with an amazing group of people who are bound to do great things. I know a few of them read this newsletter, so to you folks— I’m sorry for being so tough on you! I always try to push the line as far as possible. Those students, all doing masters programs, are the future of journalism that we need.
I’m tired, and finals are coming up. I’m ready to have a little break, and looking forward to some time off at Christmas.
I also released the first Corruption & Democracy Review a week ago, which is more or less the direction I’ve been looking to head for a long time. I believe in fighting for democracy, and this is how I plan to do it. If you haven’t read my piece with Dónal Gill on Canadian Dimension, please do. I’m happy to announce that me and Dónal are planning on doing more work together, since we have aligned interests and I believe that our particular skills could combine well. He’s a PhD. I’m a shoe leather reporter. We can make something good.
We’re approaching magazines and publications for further work with them, and we will hopefully be growing our work together into some sort of marquee policy criticism. Time to replace some old dogs like Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne, and Robert Fife.
I’m coming for those guys. Wish me luck.
I’m also building something special. This week I’ve started building an election promises tracker with my colleagues Aedan and Eliot, two exceptional minds whom I’ve done a ton of work with on other stuff. Aedan runs the database of MP landlords and assets. Eliot helps me with a ton of stuff on the DL. We’re hoping to have the promise tracker for the feds up and running next week.
We also are fleshing out our investigation into the media. It got slowed down because of the elections I was working on, sadly I wasn’t able to keep up on my goals with that while simultaneously working on two elections as a journalist, but I should be back. Within the next couple weeks I’m hoping to have the Post Media investigation out.
This week I will hopefully have the Gab and Isaac show on monday, and on Tuesday or Wednesday the french podcast, Le Plancher des vaches out. Otherwise, this next week is going to be a bit quieter on the “posting” front. I am putting all my energy into this elections promises project, since I think it could lead to a long term game changer. We’re designing it to be embeddable in any website, so hopefully we can make this work.
So, please be patient with me in this next week as I will not be posting much on socials or on substack. After we get the federal promises done, I’m hopeful that we can do Quebec for next year. We’ll asses my capacity afterwards.
I actually, overall, want to decrease my output. I’m incredibly talented at working at breakneck speeds. I’ve been providing three or four posts a week for months now, while publishing on other media, while producing social media videos. But I think I want to be less present, and make higher quality products. I had other people in mind as I was modelling these platforms before, but I’m always trying to re-adapt and see what works. Things I’ve seen working are when I released my Democracy and Corruption review, when I wrote the piece on Canadian Dimension, and my analysis on the budget this week. These articles have been getting big numbers and big positive feedback. I’d like to focus down on that. I haven’t fully figured out how to do videos with this newer context. I feel that I’m changing, and the winter is coming, which means less protests and outdoor coverage, and more reading and institutional coverage. But I hope you don’t mind as I figure this out, I might switch up here and there as i work out the best approaches for everything, and It’s not gonna be perfect right away. I truly, genuinely appreciate all of you. In one month i’ll have been doing journalism on social media for one year, and I feel like that will be some type of celebration to come.
Thank you as always for your patience, you’re all incredible, and kind. I will see you after the weekend.