Mullet Style: How we're covering Trump at the Inside Daily Brief

How the media covers Trump is a big discussion at the moment, as insults and face-grimace memes have evolved into physical violence and the reality that Trump is going to win the Republican nomination. Covering Trump is a must for cable news because, in addition to being the frontrunner for the GOP, he’s transforming their wobbly businesses into ratings and revenue machines. Even if the networks protest, a Trump presidency increases their revenue. Print publications, which have lost more than half of their revenue base in the past two decades, are in a similar boat: he’s the frontrunner and he sells papers.

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The Inside.com Daily Brief isn’t subject to the revenue pressure of the mainstream media (more on that in a minute), so we’re covering the Trump campaign two ways. First, here’s what you need to know, which you will find in the top news section of the IDB. Second, from a 30,000 foot level, here’s the commentary and cultural take on what’s going down, which is in the second half of the email.

We’re rocking the mullet: business up top, party in the back (of the email).

If you feel we are biased please hit reply and call us out -- the [email protected] email goes to the entire team.

By calling us out you’re calling out @lons who writes the IDB, and who, although he is a kind of a socialist, and living in Los Angeles, he has a long history of working in journalism, many of those years with me, and he works tirelessly to be fair and balanced. He works for what many have described as a “libertarian capitalist” (me) from Brooklyn, who wants the newsletter to grow and be steered by a guiding principle of links that are “important & fascinating.”

Some of you are probably wondering about the sustainability of the newsletter. With 17,000 subscribers already, and over half opening every single email, we can cover the ~$20,000 a month burn rate of the business by making $700 a day with either one or two advertisements, or by hitting 2,000 folks paying/donating $10 a month to keep the lights on. My guess is we try both and hit profitability by the summer.  

Questions:

1. How do you think we're doing with our coverage of Trump?

2. What do you think of our mullet?

Best @jason