Jack Allen '21 presents his certificate project "'We're saying we're going to be closer to you': How Newsrooms are Turning to Email to Connect with Readers," during the Program in Journalism's third annual Senior Colloquium.
In both the U.K. and U.S., local journalism has been steadily declining since the 2008 recession. To counter this, journalists have turned to email newsletters—an easy way for individual journalists to start their own outlets and connect with their community, and for large outlets to maintain links with their diffuse audience. In the pandemic, too, it has become a way to quickly distribute information about COVID case numbers, and to stay in touch as audiences stayed home. I spoke with newsletter editors in the U.K. and U.S., at local and national outlets to find more about this burgeoning phenomenon—one that, according to a 2020 study from Oxford University, is reaching over a fifth of Americans every week.
