{"id":270691,"date":"2026-03-16T12:04:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=270691"},"modified":"2026-03-23T09:07:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:07:50","slug":"how-writing-a-newsletter-is-like-a-cargo-cult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2026\/03\/16\/how-writing-a-newsletter-is-like-a-cargo-cult\/","title":{"rendered":"How writing a newsletter is like a cargo cult"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As I typed thousands of words into my newsletter editing system (which somewhat ironically is called Ghost) and added dozens of links to related information for the benefit of my eleven or so paying readers, it suddenly occurred to me that I’m a little like the indigenous tribes of the Solomon Islands, who built fake landing strips and made ersatz planes out of palm fronds and tree trunks in the hope that the gods \u2014 otherwise known as the US military \u2014 might return with airplanes full of food and other supplies, the way they did during the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, I am writing the same way I did when I had an actual job, in the hope that it might produce the same kind of revenue it did before, but what I end up with is pennies. It’s taken me a while to realize it, but the gods are not coming back. And then it struck me that this is essentially what the entire traditional media industry has been doing since the internet came along \u2014 going through the same motions, repeating all the same behaviors, like someone reciting a magic spell, hoping the glory days of the newspaper or TV network (or movie studio or book publisher or half a dozen other things) will return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As I typed thousands of words into my newsletter editing system (which somewhat ironically is called Ghost) and added dozens of links to related information for the benefit of my eleven or so paying readers, it suddenly occurred to me that I’m a little like the indigenous tribes of the Solomon Islands, who built fake … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “How writing a newsletter is like a cargo cult”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":true,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270691"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285652,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270691\/revisions\/285652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}