NewsBreak - Breaking Up The Hegemony of Locally-Controlled Local News!
What is the alternative path?
Content provider channels are constantly evolving.
On Medium content-provider-advice-bragging stories are very popular, to the point that I started to wonder if I should leave Medium. Medium had started to have the feel of the ubiquitous courses on how to get rich quick- Answer!- Start a course on how to get rich quick!
But still, there is value in having a place where content providers can learn from one another, When extremes develop, the backlash emerges, such in this story by very humorous writer, Broni Glez:
I’ve Just Made $10,000 With My First Story And Zero Followers
So what’s your excuse?
There are still many other types of stories appropriate to Medium that are not a fit with NewsBreak, so, this too shall pass.
One can see that Medium is now competing with NewsBreak in how it pays content providers, but from my perspective, NewsBreak is better, not only in the rumors about how it pays, which one cannot actually know until one is one paid status and then there is an NDA agreement which keeps content about how creators are paid out of public view. I don’t think it is very smart for Medium to start offering bonuses to its top tier writers-the ones with the most views, because the source of Medium payments has been from the monthly subscription fees that all creators pay, which is only $5.00. One wonders, will the $5.00 fee charged to all go up to accommodate the bonuses being given to the top tier which is already making more money than everyone else? Many contributors do not make any money to speak of. They are the ones writing the other content- well, not quite that cut and dry, but it feels that way, more and more.
Furthermore, we are now treated to many stories by writers bragging about their bonuses, a new Medium money-making content! Please Medium, get hip to what is dragging you down in the content-provider- platform wars! If all the unpaid Medium contributors leave the ship, how will you pay the stars?
UPDATE- on the correct way to follow onNewsbreak. It has been confirmed that a follower can only follow a creator by downloading the app to a mobile phone and clicking the follow button in the article.
I do not know NewsBreak’s financial model. At the speed at which things travel today, this report from TechCrunch in January of this year is likely outdated. It is quite amazing that it reports only three investors, four company profiles, and four board members. -it’s a small company!
PitchBook reports NewsBreak was founded in 2015 and 129 employees. The funding I have found to date is always reported as “the latest round”, which raised $115 million dollars in early 2021. PitchBook reports 5 investors, still a small number.
Because NewsBreak is started by Jeff Zheng, who previously led Yahoo Labs in Beijing and was also founding CEO at Chinese news startup Yidian Zixun, Internet trolls perpetuate the rumor that NewsBreak is run by the Communist Party. However, I would never be able to voice what I think is undergoing in Maine and its public-private partnership with Chinese financial power and political philosophy, in locally-controlled local media as I am allowed to do on Newsbreak. It is another way of racism to equate anyone of a Chinese background with communism. China has been a swinging pendulum between opening up to private enterprise and state control over industry. The government of a country is not synonymous with the people of a nation. It seems to be always true that those who have lived close to the extremes of an oppressive government value freedom the most.
And then there is Substack, where the content provider has total control over published content, which is distributed through an email mailing list. I often start composing on Substack because it is where I feel the most freedom to express my personal views.
However, the entirety of all the platforms has evolved into a recycling channel. This story, published on Medium’s Arge of Awareness, as The WorkForce Is Mad! And They Are Not Going To Take it Anymore! is the same as it was published on Substack under the same title, but I would not normally submit an article to a Medium publication with the personal introduction that I included in Substack, but on Medium, one can also self-publish, and say anything one wants to say, so I self-published that post as a story originally published on Substack. Then the Age of Awareness left a note that it would be perfect for their publication.
The story was published on NewsBreak as No Plan? Or Just Not Saying? Boothbay's Unfunded Fifty-Million-Dollar School. Time to Visualize An Alternative Way, without the introductory comment that I included in Substack, and ended up in Age of Awareness. The idea began in a comment I posted in the Boothbay Register, which was deleted by the moderator, claiming it was because the Boothbay Register has a policy of disallowing links, although links are available to use in the posting app. That’s a locally-controlled policy- no links and they have been enforcing it for ten years so why would anyone think the policy would ever change in this constantly evolving media world? The comment was just a starting point, the post evolved beyond it. Within the freedom of the nationally distributed local news, I can tell the thought much better and incorporate as many links as I want. NewsBreak is breaking up the hegemony that local news has enjoyed over local narratives forever and ever.
So I composed this post on Substack, but presently, it is a little too early in the cycle to publish a new post on Substack. Where does it channel from here? One doesn’t know what is going to be accepted by any channel, so creators just have to submit and see.
So I submitted first to Newsbreak in the national category and it is now published.
So far all my national stories have gotten only a four rating. I attribute that to national news relevance. So far I have not submitted a story in the national category that is specifically targeting a popular news category. This story is of national interest, but not policy, elections, ongoing lawsuits, etc. It's a niche topic. I am not unhappy with a four rating since the next bump up makes it a five, which generates the larger pictures. in the local category. I wonder if it is the same in the national category.
Curiously, the impressions and views have a one-to-one relationship again (as opposed to many to one), I have no idea what that is about, except that it must be a more targeted distribution.