Good morning,

For those new here, I’m Jon Kelly, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Puck. And to all who celebrate, merry Christmas. We’re coming to your inbox one day later than usual. We hope that you had a great holiday.

All of us at Puck also hope that you’re getting some time to yourself during this quiet final week of the year, and staying safe from this latest variant. Sure, the world is a complicated place right now, but there is so much to be thankful for, as I remind myself all the time, and this time of year in particular.

The holidays may abound, but it was still an incredibly busy week at Puck—in fact, perhaps our best yet. (There’s no rest for a start-up!) As ever, I wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to sample some of the most excellent work that we published over the past week from our array of generationally gifted journalists. And stick around, below the fold, for the backstory on how it came together.

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HOLLYWOOD:

Matt Belloni explains who was naughty, and very naughty, in Hollywood this past year.

WASHINGTON:

Peter Hamby reports on Biden’s looming electoral nightmare.

And…

Julia Ioffe offers a typically brilliant and hilarious dispatch on D.C.’s Manchinitis.

MEDIA:

Dylan Byers offers more dish on the Times’ latest M&A play.

And…

Brian Morrissey has the inside scoop on the ghosts of digital media’s past and future.

SILICON VALLEY:

Teddy Schleifer breaks the news on Mark Zuckerberg’s G.O.P. muscle.

WALL STREET:

Bill Cohan is invited to lunch with one of Wall Street’s biggest C.E.O.s.

PODCAST:

Peter, Julia, and I went deep on Manchin, media, and Biden’s ‘24 hopes on our weekly insiders podcast, The Powers that Be. Listen here! 

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Our future lives and livelihoods: Sustainable and inclusive and growing

As the world economy starts to emerge somewhat bruised from the Covid-19 crisis, the time is coming for leaders to look beyond how they safeguard lives and livelihoods, and set their sights on the challenge of how to better them. A new McKinsey Quarterly article suggests six challenges that leaders should think about tackling in order to achieve their goals of growth, sustainability, and inclusion. Whilst not claiming to have all of the answers, it proposes a way for changemakers in business, government, and society to think about the challenge; a mental model that provides a chance to make the aspirational end a reality.

Nick Bilton, the extraordinary writer and tech savant and my old pal and former colleague, has a great story that he likes to tell about the evolution of journalism. Back in the old days, a journalist’s job was to work their sources, sniff out a story, and collaborate on the piece with their editors. When it came time to publish the article—once the story landed on the newspaper page or glossy magazine spread—they went on to the next yarn. Well, probably the bar first, or perhaps the dinner party of your dreams, and then it was on to the next one. And the next one.  

A generation later, journalists would do all of the above, of course, but a new set of responsibilities would commence upon publication. Journalists would follow up their stories immediately with posts on Facebook, with tweets, with hits on cable news or radio—and, in later stages of the era, with appearances on podcasts, with grams, with TikToks, maybe. Evolutionarily speaking, journalists were moving from artists to distributors, all of it in an effort to ensure that their work could be available to the widest audience possible.

Now, Nick might suggest, something extraordinary is happening. Journalists have become influencers. Their reportage and ideas inform policy and business and culture in the same way that the Kardashians can inform beauty and fashion trends. And now the conversation with their audiences is coming full circle. As media pivots from the scale-at-all-costs model—from the era when journalists had to exit their reporting and composition sprint to begin their public relations throttle—the industry is descending on a direct-to-consumer model, which incentives a two-way connection. 

The word newsletter has developed many meanings in our culture, but in the simplest of terms, it’s article-on-demand, available to a reader upon the moment they open their email. At Puck we believe that our community deserves the right to be informed, if they so choose, in their inbox when one of their favorite writers has just published a piece. We hope this provides our readers with optimal convenience. But we also know that it creates a dynamic community. Those emails come directly from the members of our team, and readers are encouraged to respond directly with their feedback.

My favorite part of the weekend, besides watching my kids play basketball or attempting to not ruin dinner for my wife, is reading all the incredible feedback I receive from this letter. (And some of the criticism that I receive, too. It’s all fair game.) I know that every journalist on our team feels the same way. Our direct relationship with our audience allows us to feel like we are chatting at the same dinner party about the topics and work that matter most to our worlds. And in the short days of another Covid winter, that connection means more than ever.

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It also makes the work better. In phase one of Nick Bilton’s evolutionary tale of journalism, authors had very little feedback. Professional critics reviewed their books (not always correctly, as a recent Times Book Review special hilariously points out) and only a few readers might take the time to write a letter (frustrated or complimentary) to the editor. In the later stage of our industry’s oscillation, we interpreted clicks as a form of validation—a perverse metric which, as the great Baratunde Thurston has written recently, would lead us to believe that the poop cruise was a more important cultural event than climate change. 

Now, we get the chance to interact with our audience as never before, in a more immersive way. And, without getting too meta, it changes how we work. This past week, Dylan Byers published an update to his recent report on The New York Times Company’s diligence of The Athletic. This consequential, but incremental, update would likely not have seen the light of day at another media company, which would have wanted to wait until deliberations were further along. But Dylan knew his readers would be intensely curious. And they were.

Similarly, Julia Ioffe knew from experience that her readers (and all Puck readers, in general) would want to know what the hell was really going on with Joe Manchin’s grandstanding in Washington about the vote on Biden’s signature infrastructure spending legislation. Was Manchin going to switch political parties, as the D.C. rumor mill suggested? No, he wasn’t, Julia reported. Instead, according to her insider reporting, something much deeper was going on. (Check out her piece. It’s an example of the kind of journalism you can only read at Puck.) 

Meanwhile, Teddy Schleifer postponed a piece that he was working on once he learned that Mark Zuckerberg had hired a mega-watt G.O.P. star to help with his political operations and problem-fixing endeavors. Teddy knew that his audience wouldn’t want to wait any longer to find out. The manifestation of a two way community is perhaps best demonstrated in Matt Belloni’s newsletter, What I’m Hearing…, which includes an entire section dedicated to the reader feedback that he receives. One recent response included the incredibly moving inside story of how Sylvester Stallone risked his entire livelihood—with rent past due and an eviction looming—to make Rocky. I’d suggest reading that email in its entirety (or signing up to receive What I’m Hearing in your inbox, if you haven’t already). It’s what Christmas is all about.

Here’s wishing you and your family all the best from all of us at Puck. I’ll be back in your inbox in 2022. See you then.

Best,

Jon

P.S. - if there's something holding you back from becoming a subscriber, I'd love to hear about it. Please feel free to reply to this email with your feedback (replies go directly to my inbox).