Mastodawn

News organizations are increasingly launching newsletters in hopes of building a more direct relationship with readers, as traffic from platforms they once relied on — like social media and Google Search — continues to shrink.

But the explosion in newsletters is overwhelming as a reader. Instead of one paper with a dozen writers, you’ve got a dozen newsletters scattered across your inbox.

What if you could curate your own custom newspaper? All your favorite writers, no spam, no surveillance.

Although I regularly read about “the death of RSS”, RSS is still alive and well, and I’ve been using it for more than a decade. Here’s how you can too.

1. Choose an RSS reader. I use Inoreader, but there are a bunch of options out there (free and paid, mobile/web/desktop). Switching between them is pretty easy, so you don’t have to agonize over this too much.

2. Add your sites. Try searching for feeds on the newsletters/blogs/websites you read the most (like Citation Needed!) You can even put in YouTube channels, or Mastodon or BlueSky feeds.

If you need ideas, I publish some of my blogroll: https://mollywhite.net/blogroll/

Some websites don’t publish RSS feeds — often paywalled websites or newsletters. Increasingly, RSS readers are incorporating features that allow you to send newsletters to your feed reader via email, and there are also services like Kill the Newsletter that can do this for you.

3. Read! As you use RSS more, you can make different “newspapers” for different purposes.

And don’t forget to support writers — whose subscription reminders may be less noticeable in RSS feeds. Most newsletters allow you to pay for a subscription but disable email delivery, if you (like me) prefer to read in your RSS reader rather than your email client.

RSS offers readers and writers a path away from unreliable, manipulative, and hostile platforms and intermediaries.

Citation Needed has a full-text RSS feed regardless of whether you subscribe, so consider adding it to your feed reader! https://citationneeded.news/rss/

And consider signing up for a pay-what-you-want subscription to help me continue this work. https://www.citationneeded.news/signup/