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Profile: James Ledbetter, Substack Author

In trendy and media trade media at least, the Substack-as-new-model-for-journalism story seems to have already come and gone. Yet there’s so much more left to tell. Perhaps the Substack story’s next phase is best told inside out, through the eyes of a newly self-minted author — such as James Ledbetter.

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The New Era of Fintech Coverage: Payments & Banking

SWMS contributor Rhiannon Pacheco writes: With Covid keeping people out of the aisles and in front of their screens, buying more online than ever before, fintech and ‘buy-now-pay-later’ companies such as Klarna, Affirm, AfterPay, Marqueta are rising in popularity and dominating recent headlines.

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Payments & Banking: Targets and Themes

Based on our research, here’s a look at story types most common in the payments and banking spaces these days, coupled with a short list of must-pitch reporters, and some diamonds in the rough, too. Keep a sharp lookout for the story types, using them as templates for your own approaches.

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Here are Two Fintech Narratives Adaptable for Any Client

Why did we choose payments and banking for the latest SWMS deep-dive? Everybody buys something. If the payments space doesn’t constitute the largest total available market of all time, it’s close. Banking? For a decade, startups have struggled to monetize those who don’t use banks, or barely use them.

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FRIDGE NOTES

Biz Carson to Bloomberg

Biz now covers “the intersection of money and Silicon Valley” for the Bloomberg Wealth section (not Brad Stone‘s team).

Behind the WSJ’s Attack on ‘Woke’ SVB

Twitter blew up yesterday about the WSJ’s suggestion that SVB’s problems may have stemmed from “diversity demands.” Absolutely no one should be surprised by this claim. News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch recently installed Emma Tucker as EIC, a Murdoch loyalist brought in to lead WSJ’s coverage of the 2024 elections. Says The Guardian: “Tucker will find herself having to work out how to cover a third presidential run by Donald Trump. Murdoch has… cooled on the former president and is warming to Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida who is expected to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination.”

So prepare for an onslaught of woke this and woke that from the WSJ, a publication that isn’t what it used to be, no matter how much we wish it otherwise.

Morning Brew Lays Off Another 40

Owner Axel Springer must be nervous. Not a good signal from one the world’s most successful publishers. We’ll do the best we can to audit who left. Axios’s Sara Fischer broke the story.

CNET Lays Off Staff, Moves Connie Guglielmo To AI Role

The Verge’s Mia Sato delivers a scoop on layoffs at CNET (perhaps 10% of staff) and Connie Guglielmo‘s move from EIC to editor-at-large and senior VP of AI content strategy. (Coincidentally, Digiday today ran this story on the rise of the “chief AI officer” — sub required.)

CNET is owned by Red Ventures, which calls itself a media company, but it’s more like a shell company owned by multiple private-equity firms. CNET and ZDNet editors never unionized, which now they probably regret.

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