I like the idea of an EA newspaper or magazine, and agree with using it to grow the EA community. But I think this pitch is somewhat inward-looking and unambitious. Moreover, journalism is the wrong business to be in for mitigating negative coverage. Posting a rebuttal in a magazine is going to increase the exposure of criticism, andpushback, as will the existence of a magazine in general. Posting B-tier profiles is a very indirect way to push back against elitism, and would not attract readers. An outlet should choose a content niche that people want to read, not just what you want them to read, and B-tier profiles seem like an example of the latter.
The question, then, is what content niche would some people be eager to read about, that we are equipped to do, and want to tell them about. What topics have EAs written about previously, that lots of people have wanted to read? I can think of some possibilities:
For a broader, less inward-looking paper, I don’t know exactly the right name, but I don’t think “The Altruist” is it.
I think that you should engage more seriously with the case of Future Perfect. Is it succeeding? What is its niche? What has gone well/poorly? What other niches do they think might be out there? And so on.
You also need to engage more seriously with the question of where you would find talent. Who would write for this outlet? Who could be the editor? In order to excite that founding team, you might need to give them a lot of leeway in shaping its direction.
That’s a fair point that the pitch is likely overly inward-looking. Perhaps weighting the reasons in favour of creating something like this may have been clearer (or ordering them by importance) but I view increasing community growth and improving outreach resources as most (say 80%) of the value from an EA newspaper.
Looking at particularly popular previous topics for EA coverage and diving deeper into Future Perfect as a case study are both great suggestions for developing this. I’ll defend the B-tier interviews though. If something doesn’t yet exist, it’s hard to know how popular it may be but similar profiles of important figures/ org leaders seem very common in journalism and are therefore likely reasonably popular. I think it’s reasonable to have guiding principles too about content that you want to put in front of people and that this is common to a lot of (even most) reporting (e.g. The Guardian’s added focus on climate change in the last year as an editorial decision).
The pitch is meant as a semi-polished thing to gauge interest so there’s plenty of research and refining of ideas that would be valuable that I haven’t yet done so I appreciate the ideas on what might be useful to do.
I like the idea of an EA newspaper or magazine, and agree with using it to grow the EA community. But I think this pitch is somewhat inward-looking and unambitious. Moreover, journalism is the wrong business to be in for mitigating negative coverage. Posting a rebuttal in a magazine is going to increase the exposure of criticism, and pushback, as will the existence of a magazine in general. Posting B-tier profiles is a very indirect way to push back against elitism, and would not attract readers. An outlet should choose a content niche that people want to read, not just what you want them to read, and B-tier profiles seem like an example of the latter.
The question, then, is what content niche would some people be eager to read about, that we are equipped to do, and want to tell them about. What topics have EAs written about previously, that lots of people have wanted to read? I can think of some possibilities:
Detailed analyses of scientific questions that matter to people
Including the content of, & impact of policies
Fact-checking the fact-checkers
News on topics that matter for the long-term.
Explainers of useful concepts
For a broader, less inward-looking paper, I don’t know exactly the right name, but I don’t think “The Altruist” is it.
I think that you should engage more seriously with the case of Future Perfect. Is it succeeding? What is its niche? What has gone well/poorly? What other niches do they think might be out there? And so on.
You also need to engage more seriously with the question of where you would find talent. Who would write for this outlet? Who could be the editor? In order to excite that founding team, you might need to give them a lot of leeway in shaping its direction.
That’s a fair point that the pitch is likely overly inward-looking. Perhaps weighting the reasons in favour of creating something like this may have been clearer (or ordering them by importance) but I view increasing community growth and improving outreach resources as most (say 80%) of the value from an EA newspaper.
Looking at particularly popular previous topics for EA coverage and diving deeper into Future Perfect as a case study are both great suggestions for developing this. I’ll defend the B-tier interviews though. If something doesn’t yet exist, it’s hard to know how popular it may be but similar profiles of important figures/ org leaders seem very common in journalism and are therefore likely reasonably popular. I think it’s reasonable to have guiding principles too about content that you want to put in front of people and that this is common to a lot of (even most) reporting (e.g. The Guardian’s added focus on climate change in the last year as an editorial decision).
The pitch is meant as a semi-polished thing to gauge interest so there’s plenty of research and refining of ideas that would be valuable that I haven’t yet done so I appreciate the ideas on what might be useful to do.
This may be useful for Future Perfect as a case study: The 12 most-read Future Perfect pieces of 2021