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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

How Frustrating, Right? All That Work…

Fortune editorial fellow Rachyl Jones wrote this 1,300-word feature that mentioned Neutrogena 29 times. An exec from Neutrogena’s parent company was quoted four times. Fortune ran Neutrogena’s art. Yet Neutrogena was not mentioned either in the headline or the lede. The headline: “Face-scanning AI apps are giving cosmetics companies deeper connections, and selling points, with customers.” There was no reporting done on any other app.

Says GPT-4: “The primary focus of the article is on Neutrogena’s utilization of AI technology.” Says Google Gemini: “This story is about Neutrogena’s AI skin analysis service called Skin360.” Says Claude 3: “This story is about Neutrogena’s AI-powered skin analysis service called Skin360.”

Can you imagine the frustration in Neutrogena comms? Fortune’s design — in sections and on author pages — permits only the headline to show. That’s all the reader has in order to decide whether to stop and read. All that time invested with no mention of your company where you need it most.

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