Behind the Blog: Launch Week and Instagram's Illegal Ads Problem

It's been a little over one week since 404 Media launched, and a lot of what we’re doing still feels like a big experiment (that we’re delighted you’re joining us on!).

In that spirit, we’re trying something we’re calling “Behind the Blog,” where subscribers get a glimpse behind the scenes at how a blog came together, and the reporting process that went into one of our stories that week. We sent this out last week as a section in the paid subscribers newsletter (which we blast every Friday). From this post onwards, we’re also going to publish the Behind the Blog material on the site itself but behind our paywall. That way our most enthusiastic subscribers can get their extra content either in their inboxes or on the homepage itself.

Since this was the first Behind the Blog, “the blog” was the website itself, and each shared a bit about what it has been like getting this thing launched and what we are excited about.

Sam: Jumping into the unknown and having our friends and fans of our work catch us from the first moment, without hesitation, and saying “hell yeah!!!” to what we’re building here has been incredible in a way I don’t have the words for. I think the response has also said something about the way journalism works (or doesn’t work) in the year 2023, and how excited people are to see it done differently, without a bunch of crushing overhead or the bear trap of private equity: just journalists doing cool shit and hoping our audience thinks it’s cool enough to help support it.

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