An Update to Inside The Newsroom
An Update to Inside The Newsroom
It's the last day before the paywall goes up. Here's what Inside The Newsroom has done over the past two years.
When I arrived at The Texas Tribune in Austin more than two-and-a-half years ago, I thought I was about to start a full-time fellowship. It couldn’t have been better: A curious British dude in the heart of Texas and Tornado Alley, and in scorching January heat! Except when I entered the newsroom that morning, I quickly discovered that the "full-time" fellowship wasn’t that full-time at all. In fact, it was a 20-hour-per-week gig, which swiftly created a gaping hole in my finances and a vacuum of anxiety up top. How the hell was I going to fund myself for the next five months? No matter how much I wanted to cry on the shoulders of random Texans on 6th Street, I refused to feel sorry for myself, and quickly realized I no longer had an excuse not to start the podcast I’d been mulling over for months. So I did just that. Originally called The Daniel Levitt Podcast — someone should have stopped me there — Inside The Newsroom has morphed into a newsletter, a jobs and internships board, and a community of journalists, academics and students from more than 20 countries who want to delve deeper into topics and be curious about the world.
The original artwork for The Daniel Levitt Podcast taken in my grandma’s kitchen. Again, why did nobody immediately shut that down? 👇
Since then, we’ve shone a light on some of the most important domestic and international issues facing us today including the…
History of voter suppression with Jamil Smith of Rolling Stone
Future of climate change with Emily Atkin of HEATED, and original author of the Hockey Stick chart Michael E. Mann
Decimation of local news with media entrepreneur Scott Brodbeck
History of women’s sports with the legendary Christine Brennan
PTSD and the neglect of war veterans with Jason Kander
America’s addiction to coal and running for U.S. Senate with Paula Jean Swearengin
Opioid crisis with David Armstrong of ProPublica
Need for independent politicians with former British MP Anna Soubry
Factchecking Donald Trump with CNN’s Daniel Dale
Preparing for the next pandemic and natural disaster with Amy Webb
Reasons we make the decisions we do with Harvard's Cass Sunstein
History of populism with The Hill’s Krystal Ball and The Intercept's Ryan Grim
Future of AI in journalism with former WSJ R&D chief Francesco Marconi
What it’s like to ask questions to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump with Major Garrett of CBS News
… and dozens of others.
And on top of that, we’ve covered every major election around the world so far this year including…
August: Belarus and Sri Lanka 🇧🇾🇱🇰
July: Mongolia, Iceland 🇲🇳🇮🇸, Croatia, Dominican Republic 🇭🇷🇩🇴 and Syria, North Macedonia 🇸🇾🇲🇰
June: Serbia, Kiribati and Malawi 🇷🇸🇰🇮🇲🇼
May: Burundi 🇧🇮 and Suriname 🇸🇷
April: South Korea 🇰🇷
March: Israel, Slovakia and Tajikistan 🇮🇱🇸🇰🇹🇯
February: Cameroon, Ireland, Azerbaijan 🇨🇲🇮🇪🇦🇿 and Iran, Togo 🇮🇷🇹🇬
… and you can expect coverage on at least 30 more elections still to come this year.
Okay Daniel, but why do I have to pay for an email?
Good question. Doing things the right way means not taking shortcuts. And that means putting in the hours, lots of them. Running a podcast, newsletter and job board is essentially a full-time job, and fortunately I already have one of those. Every week over the past two years has required anywhere between 30-40 hours, so for the price of a couple of cups of coffee, I'll be able to pay students and early-career journalists an actual living wage a (£12/$15) to help out and get some experience/clips along the way. Other people cover U.S. and U.K. politics to death, and that’s a good service, but you can get that anywhere. This newsletter focuses on the global stories happening in the background.
When you become a monthly or annual member, you get:
Complete access to the Inside The Newsroom Jobs and Internships Board. When I was in college, I spent 20 hours a week just finding the jobs that I then spent dozens of hours applying for. While I can’t apply to these jobs, I can at least find them for you and send them to your inbox at the start of each week. Better that than paying £25/$30 a month for LinkedIn Premium, or letting Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter send you random-ass jobs that you have no intention of applying to.
Right now there are more than 800 jobs including almost 200 internships 👇
Application help. Internship season unofficially starts September 1, and the regular job market is starting to pick up again. I’ll help you by looking over your resumes/CVs and cover letters. Don't miss out.
All podcasts and global election coverage. Full in-depth post-game analyses of all podcast episodes, in addition to election summaries of every major election to take place around the world.
Local newsrooms across the world are being decimated as we speak. That’s why a percentage of your subscription will be donated to a newsroom in need each month. It's time to put our money where our mouths are.
No ads, ever. I don't want to sell you insurance. Members make that happen.
No data sharing, ever. Your data is stored and protected by myself, Substack and Stripe. We will NEVER sell or share it.
Become a Founding Member, and get:
All the above 👆
Lifetime access to all Inside The Newsroom content.
Daniel’s personal number to discuss anything in even further depth, or to just have a life chat. Life chats are good.
Opportunity to co-host a podcast episode
A say on future podcast guests and newsletter coverage.
Your name and a mini bio on Inside The Newsroom.
All pricing details will be announced in tomorrow's newsletter. Earlier this month I wrote about how difficult this decision was for me. I hope you continue on this journey with me. 🙏
Got a question? Email me at daniellevitt32@gmail.com and I'll get right back to you.