Beginning a new chapter — with your help.

Dear Reader:

I’m writing today with something a bit different — not a column about our strange times, but an explanation and a request for help.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to really love writing this newsletter and column, even if its name started off more tongue-in-cheek three years ago than it often feels now.

Over a million people read this newsletter last year, and at every single book event or public talk I’ve given over this past year — including just last week in Santa Fe — readers like you have come up to me to say how much they value its analysis, context, and reporting. I’ve loved hearing from so many of you; for those of you who have hit “reply” to these newsletters, you know the emails actually come to me and, more often than not, I’ll write you back!

I’m so grateful that you trust me to help you navigate the very strange times in which we currently live.

I’ve also been touched by how many of you have asked over the last year how you can support my work or become a paid subscriber — my answer has long been “Not yet.”

Today, though, I want to start asking for your help to become a paid subscriber and help me build a new media project aimed at helping you (and me) understand the world better.

First, what won’t change: My goal is to keep this newsletter readable by anyone and everyone who wants it; it’s not going to disappear behind a paywall. I believe that in this moment it’s critical for high-quality reporting and analysis to be as available as it can — one of our democracy’s biggest threats right now is the collapse of access to high-quality information for citizens. I want my work and writing to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. If you’re not in a position to pay for a subscription, absolutely nothing will change for you and you can keep reading everything for free.

Second, what will change: I’m hoping, if you are in a position to pay, you will become a paid subscriber and help me over the course of this next year to build something better and more ambitious — analysis that comes to you more regularly, in more forms, that covers a wider variety of topics, and that never compromises its values or shades the truth about this moment.

I never set out for this newsletter to be only about Donald Trump’s threat to democracy, its primary subject over the last year. I want to add more regular books coverage, broader national security and geopolitics coverage, tackle a couple larger reporting projects, and build out the podcast that Doomsday Scenario actually was intended to be from the start, among other topics and efforts. (Plus, copyediting! As some of you — like my mother — regularly point out, there are more typos in this newsletter than there should be!) But to do some or all of that I need more time and more help — and you becoming a paid subscriber will help create that support and infrastructure.

I’m hoping that with your support I can grow this effort into something that’s more reflective of my broader interests, something that helps you understand and live in the world better, and that helps provide good, paid work for other journalists I respect and who share my values and understanding of this moment in history.

I don’t need to explain how challenging it is right now for legacy media enterprises or for so many journalists who are trying to make it go as an independent, but as an established voice in a fractured media ecosystem that also means I can recruit some incredible talent to this project if funding allows. If some benevolent philanthropist waved a magic million dollars in front of me, I know exactly the team I’d hire to build the country’s most eclectic magazine of government accountability journalism mixed with a ton of books and geopolitics coverage. That’s unlikely to happen wholesale, but maybe we can start building some pieces of that together here.

It’s important to me to build something that’s sustainable, free of any institutional investment, and that I can build in my own vision. Over the course of this year, my hope is to add a regular reported discussion podcast, a nonfiction book club, and more — all of which requires building a team beyond myself to help with this. If all goes well, this will be the first of four announcements this year about the growth and evolution of this newsletter.

So what does this mean for you? If you’re not able to contribute, please just continue to read and share. That matters a great deal to me. You’ll never be cut off from reading.

If you are able to contribute and help grow this, becoming a paid subscriber will get you a few immediate benefits:

• Everyone who is a paid subscriber, at any level, will be invited to a monthly online roundtable where we can talk about the news, I can provide some analysis, and we can hear from a reporter friend or two about how they see and understand the world.
  

• If you’re in a position to join one of two higher paid tiers — for instance, if you’re able to expense your subscription, wink, wink — you’ll also receive a signed copy of my next book, out later this year (more about that to come too!), as well as your choice of one of my recent books too. (This benefit, unfortunately, is for US subscribers only — but if you’re subscribing at this tier from overseas, please email me and let’s see if we can work something out!)
  

• A special surprise later in the year as the site grows. (Think more “merch” than “I’m showing up at your kids’ birthday with a pony.”)

I hope, if you’re able, you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription. And regardless, I’m grateful to you for giving me some of your attention and reading time, which is an incredibly precious and limited commodity in this modern moment.

Let’s go build something fun, useful, awesome — and ultimately, fun and hopeful — together.

Sincerely,

GMG