Hello,
This is the first post I am sending from my Substack — what I assume has for the last four years been a few lonely megabytes on a server in San Francisco, nestled alongside more valuable data from top-subscribed titans like “guy who thinks phrenology is cool” and “incomprehensible vector of anger.”
I’m Graham, a person and newsletter title who is also global business editor at Bloomberg News, a news organization full of very nice people who are much smarter than me. You might also know me from Twitter, which is a website that existed many years ago, and mostly still does. At some point since 2018, you signed up to receive an email from me, or from my previous newsletter “Nightmare Box,” and that’s why you’re getting this.
I thought I would start with a short F.A.Q. No one has sent me questions, so “frequently” isn’t entirely accurate, and neither is “asked” for that matter.
What is this newsletter?
A place where I will share articles I liked reading, writing, or working on. Maybe I’ll share other things, too. My 2017 New Year’s resolution was to be more generous.
Why now?
I’m about to turn 30, and am worried I’ll die without any stupid indelible pieces of writing from my youth on the Internet.
Some people are also leaving Twitter, which is where many journalists share their work. Other social media sites are less traveled or not as friendly to off-site linking.
Do you have any favorite articles?
David Grann’s “Trial By Fire” (2009) and Pamela Colloff’s “Blood Will Tell” (2018) each show how police departments use information gaps and faulty science to fast-pace convictions and increase their budgets. “Machine Bias” (2016) shows how algorithmic policing primarily targets Black Americans and traps them in the carceral state.
Also: “Lord of the Roths,” how Peter Thiel turned retirement accounts into a tax-free billion-dollar piggy bank; “How to Hide $400 Million,” about shell accounts and the offshore financial system; “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama,” heartbreak in Palestinian life under Israeli rule; and “The Lost Ones,” Jen Percy’s report of people in Japan searching for loved ones years after the 2011 tsunami.
How frequently will you publish this?
I don’t know — my last post was January 2019!! (Gonna try for once a week.)
What can I expect from this newsletter?
Please don’t expect anything. You’ll only be disappointed.