‘We’re Stuck in a Chaos-Landscape’: Substack Co-Founder Hamish McKenzie on How to Save the Press

As the news business moves through a slow-motion crisis, Substack has become one of the few bright spots in the industry — and a platform where independent creators are gaining ground. “We’re in a very painful transition period now from the old world to a new world,” Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie said on this week’s episode of Press Club.

“We’re stuck in a chaos-landscape that’s dominated by social media, where creators in particular don’t really have true ownership. The ownership is still going to Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

McKenzie told Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin that Substack was built as a response to that environment. “The Substack model demonstrates a way where there can be a direct-to-audience era for the media and a new generation of voices where they can not only have a voice, but also get economic power.”

The company, which McKenzie created along with Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi in 2017, now hosts 500,000 creators and recently passed 5 million paid subscribers, gaining their last million in just the past seven months.

For years, McKenzie said, legacy media saw Substack as a threat. Now, as it seeks to partner with outlets like The Washington Post, he thinks traditional media is starting to realize the value of newsletter platforms as partners.

“People need to get out of the defensive crouch where they see Substack as a new, scary thing that might take away their business — it’s an opportunity,” he said. “All these media companies should be building Substacks. Maybe they want to tap [Substack authors] on the shoulder and say, ‘We could republish some of your stuff, or cross-market to your list.”

Substack has become home to some of the most recognizable independent voices in media. Writers like Nate Silver, Bari Weiss, and Mehdi Hasan have built large audiences and sustainable businesses on the platform, with more legacy journalists expected to join as President Donald Trump ramps up threats against the press and traditional news institutions face ongoing consolidations. “There can be a true reorganization and redistribution of media power,” McKenzie said.

He also addressed long-standing questions about the platform’s approach to content moderation. “There’s been this obsessive view that content moderation is the way to solve problems,” he said. “Despite the billions of dollars invested, the problems haven’t gone away. In fact, in many cases, they’ve gotten worse.”

“Content moderation is supposed to mitigate the effects of misinformation. I don’t think we’re in a landscape now where misinformation is less of a concern than it was ten years ago,” argued McKenzie.

Substack’s strategy, according to McKenzie, rewards integrity. “The feed on Substack is worlds away from the feed on Twitter or Facebook. It’s just a much higher quality of discourse — lower in bullshit.”

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