What the Puck

I have mentioned several times that I have been a founding member of the news service Puck since it began in 2021. Puck is an American digital media company who’s coverage aims to cover the ‘four centers of power’ in the United States: Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Washington, D.C. and Wall Street. The company was founded by Jon Kelly (former Vanity Fair editor who created The Hive), Joe Purzycki (co-founder of Luminary), and Max Tcheyan, and features prominent journalists including Matthew Belloni, Peter Hamby, Dylan Byers, Bill Cohen and others as founding partners who actually own equity in the company. I find the service incredibly useful.

Puck has several distinctive features that set it apart from traditional media companies. To begin with, it is a journalist-owned business model. Puck journalists are given equity in the company and receive bonuses based on the number of subscribers their articles produce. This is fundamentally different from most media outlets – the reporters aren’t just employees, they’re actual owners with financial stakes in the company’s success. As a writer and businessman…not to mention a liberal, who loves to see employee ownership wherever possible…this alone makes it worthwhile. Then there is Puck’s self-proclaimed “Elite Access and Insider Focus”. The New Yorker described Puck’s editorial tone as being “deliberately clubby,” with part of the appeal for readers being that “its writers move in the same elevated spaces as the people whom they cover.” Knowing Bill Cohen, as I do, I can attest to the fact that in its Wall Street coverage, this is clearly the case. Bill isn’t the only journalist who has this sort of access on Wall Street, but he is clearly one of the best at it and one of the most plugged-in. I would note that one of this year’s top Emmy winners, The Studio won four awards at the main ceremony, including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series – Seth Rogen, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series – Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series – Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez. It’s noteworthy that in addition to Hollywood greats like Bryan Cranston, Marty Scorsese and Ron Howard getting cameos, Puck Hollywood reporter Matt Beloni also got featured. Puck’s focus on the ‘four centers of power’ in the United States: Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Washington, D.C. and Wall Street needs that kind of behind-the-scenes coverage of America’s most powerful people.

Puck also takes a “Story Behind the Story” approach to its writing. Rather than just reporting news, Puck specializes in revealing the insider details that only people with deep access would know. Their tagline emphasizes getting “the story behind the story, the details and plot that only the true insiders know.” Bloomberg News described Puck as a company that “treats reporters like social media influencers”, which is pretty much on-point with the whole “Attention Economy” model that seems to be pervading our world these days. They’ve built their business around star journalists who have direct relationships with their audiences through newsletters, podcasts, and events. You have to hand it to them, it all takes a lot more work than sitting in an ivory tower, blissfully writing stories and hoping someone notices. I find it a testament to this breed of hard-working journalists that a platform like Puck can exist and thrive as a platform for their efforts.

Puck also takes a premium subscription focus. The company operates on a subscription model where readers pay for exclusive access to these insider perspectives, rather than relying primarily on advertising revenue like traditional media. I know I almost always prefer to pay a premium and avoid ads and I suspect lots more people want that these days…even those of us who grew up on the advertising model on TV and then the internet. As much as I like to consider myself as not being an elitist, and I do like it when more budget-conscious folks are given the opportunity to enjoy the same content as I choose to pay for by opting in for the ads. Its hard to deny that, essentially, Puck has positioned itself as the media equivalent of a high-end members club…giving exclusive access to elite journalism about elite circles, with the journalists themselves as co-owners rather than just hired talent. Even the egalitarian in me finds value in that model and, as you can tell, I’m a big fan.

One of the things I also like about Puck, though it is hardly unique in today’s panoply of media outlets, is the way it send you weekly summaries of top stories in case you couldn’t keep up with the news cycle during the week. I recently got that email and its what prompted me to write this story. What struck me was the categories that Puck now writes about as it has evolved somewhat from its ‘four centers of power’ approach. The expansion and refinement of that mission has taken it from the generic list of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Washington, D.C. and Wall Street and broken it down to Media, Hollywood, A.I., Wall Street, Washington, Fashion and the Art Market. The addition of A.I. is very logical and I can even see expanding from Hollywood to Media, but with the addition of Fashion and the Art Market, I will admit that I am getting worried. I have been an Esquire subscriber for years and I am not really keen on seeing Puck turn into Esquire. In fact, I am trying to stop my Esquire subscription because I am feeling too self-conscious about how privileged it seems to be. With Puck, I want all the insider information and all the in-depth analysis on these power-centers that are shaping our lives…I just don’t want the frilly things that are playgrounds of the rich and famous. If that sounds flighty, it probably is.

I recently told Kim that Sunset magazine, to which we have subscribed for a dozen years now as part of our indoctrination into the California and western lifestyle, has also started to bother me with its rich and famous places to go and homes where people live the good life. That forces me to look carefully at The New Yorker, the granddaddy of my subscription universe. There is no doubt that the New Yorker is mostly read by people who are of means and can afford the best of New York, but somehow its liberal ideology and foundations overcome the fancy aspects of the wining and dining it covers. The Goings On and Talk of the Town segments are Puck-like insider bits that have value to stay focused on what like-minded people are thinking and saying. Then it’s Fiction, critiques and other artistic sections go on to remind me that the enlightened life I like is a life of letters. I am convinced that you can have a life of letters without being elitist about it.

What the Puck? I guess I will always be accused by some of elitism just because I have two Ivy League degrees and a professorship at an Ivy League school to my credit. I grew up in anything but a home of privilege in all but one way. I was privileged in the sense that my mother instilled in us the value of education and I may have to constantly work at keeping my sense of educating myself with content in balance with my sensibilities about not aspiring to the lifestyle of the rich and famous.