Ashley Fredde

Handing your 7000 words over the word limit draft to your co-author

Speaking as a reporter who writes on Substack, anyone who thinks individual newsletters are somehow a leaner version of a newsroom is clueless about how journalism works. Feature writing and investigative reporting are team sports. You need sharp editors and, in many cases, stiff-spined lawyers. It helps to have other reporters whose expertise and sources you can call upon, too. You can do a lot to pump out scoops on your own — I regularly break stories on my Substack — but serious beat reporting requires a team.