The Substack x Polymarket gamble
Journalism is a gamble. Substack x Polymarket is not the right bet.
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The thing I’ve wanted to do with my life has been dying ever since I was born. No one told me this, of course. When I wrote my first story in elementary school, the teacher didn’t point out that book publishing was in decline—she made laminated copies of it for the entire class. I took my first journalism class in high school; this year, as The Washington Post laid off over 300 employees, my school has expanded the program. Even media’s rebirth online, the burst of hope that renewed my interest in journalism in college, was seemingly short-lived. Graduating in 2015 meant that already, my odds of success in this industry weren’t good.
All things considered, I’ve been on a lucky streak. It hasn’t always feel like it, though. There were days in the depths of my early content farming when I really thought I had missed my chance to do anything other than round up what was coming to Netflix that month. But I was employed, my job held aloft by whatever new trend was supposed to “save journalism” at that moment. I wrote listicles, 30-page slideshows, and SEO explainers of the weirdest sex stuff you can imagine. I went live on outlets’ Facebook pages and appeared in their Snapchat stories. I’ve run their newsletters, launched their TikToks, spoken on podcasts that never came out—in short, I said yes to everything, because it turns out that’s what digital media really is these days.
Most of the time, I’ve enjoyed it! I don’t resent having to do any of these things. But I do resent that none of them have brought journalism any closer to stability. They laid me off anyway. At my most pessimistic, it can feel like I’ve always been a company’s gamble that didn’t pay off.
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So maybe that’s why this Substack x Polymarket collaboration has gotten so under my skin. I don’t blame Substack—God knows I’m familiar with doing whatever you need for a company to succeed! But it was one specific line from Polymarket’s announcement on Twitter that sent my eyes rolling:
Journalism is better when it’s backed by live markets. Journalism? It’s better when it’s backed by live markets. Journalism. Is better. When it’s back by live markets.
This sentence has the same lilt to me as “Gushers wouldn’t be Gushers without the Black community,” and it’s about as meaningless, too. It’s a statement from a company trying to appeal to a moment of genuine crisis by retroactively claiming to have a relationship to it. I’m supposed to believe that a Substacker embedding the odds for “Will Jesus return in 2026?” into their post will somehow be the turning point for media after a thirty-year decline?
Substack and Polymarket can collab—that’s fine! But don’t act like you’re doing this for me. I have my own thoughts about prediction markets, but I hate this because it’s insincere. I hate this because I’ve been through enough of the new savior of journalism to know that this isn’t it. I hate this because if more outlets pivot to something like this—whatever that looks like—it’s me and my colleagues who will take the fall for it. I hate this because I’ve spent 10 straight years wondering if this is the day my luck finally runs out, and so a collaboration with Polymarket is just too on the nose.
And yet: My husband is in charge of the newspaper at the elementary school he teaches at. A few weeks ago, I attended one of the sessions for a “fireside chat” with Liz Baker Plosser. We talked about newsletters and podcasts and how to work with editors (and about dogs we’ve seen on the subway). Of course, I did not tell them any of what I’ve just written about. I realize that, like the teachers and mentors who came before me, I’m not lying to them. I’m placing a bet that by the time it’s their turn, journalism will finally come out on top.
And underneath all of it is the quiet normalization of betting markets as a legitimate epistemological tool — a way of knowing things — sitting alongside actual reported journalism and analysis. As you say “not the right bet.”
journalism is so important - rooting for you and all the other future journalists out there!