Profile: Ina Fried, Axios
Axios newsletter author Ina Fried discusses her views of virtual events large and small, and the single most important thing PR pros should do when preparing to pitch.
Axios newsletter author Ina Fried discusses her views of virtual events large and small, and the single most important thing PR pros should do when preparing to pitch.
By now you know about Axios and its "smart brevity" (which an Axios comms pro once described as "going deep, writing short"). More than a slogan, smart brevity is a bullet-based, easily scannable writing style designed to convey information clearly at a glance. And now it's more than a writing style...
When Axios launched in 2016, its founders described its goal as “smart brevity,” or more colorfully, as “Twitter meets The Economist.” Take a look, for example, at Sara Fischer’s most recent Media Trends newsletter and you can see that Axios has succeeded. Observe the form, not necessarily the substance.
With Axios now attracting an audience of more than 16 million monthly uniques (per SimilarWeb), it’s now a Tier 1 place to be. And it takes contributed content, too. Yes, most of it is about Trump, Russia or UFOs. But there’s a surprising amount of tech-related content as well. This week we analyze three contributions that might inspire you to approach.
Axios debuts Login, a daily tech newsletter, on Monday. You’ll want to read it. Produced by chief technology correspondent Ina Fried, Login will cover tech for “a broad, sophisticated audience,” Ina says. An inspiration, she explains, is the Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter back when John Paczkowski (now at BuzzFeed) wrote it.
Axios soft-launched yesterday. It's the publication Dan Primack left Fortune to join. You can sign up for its newsletters here. The web site debuts late next month. Pitching Axios will be difficult but not impossible. Think Quartz, Bloomberg Gadfly, The Atlantic, The New Yorker.