I first learned of Ted Gioia from a rapturous interview with Rick Beato on Rick’s YouTube channel. That interview lit my curiosity, and I found Ted’s writing on Substack.
Ted Gioia is the only writer I pay to subscribe to on Substack. (If Paul Krugman starts charging a yearly fee, I’ll pay to follow him, too.)
On Substack, writers are free to decide whether to charge for all their pieces, make some free to the general public, and make some just for paying readers. In some cases, you can show your first six paragraphs and then induce people to subscribe with a “subscribe now to read entire pieces.”
Ted makes about 1/2 of his stuff free, and the other half is just for subscribers.
I offer this piece from Ted (he’s a noted jazz and blues critic with multiple book awards and prizes) where he discusses how we need new reporters for this warped zeitgeist, like the “New Journalists” he mentions here with their best works, people like Lilian Ross (I’m reading her book “Picture” from 1952 because she was person who broke ground for New Journalism - even Truman Capote gave Ross the props for that) Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Joan Didion, etc.
If you read this piece, you will have an interesting and respectful list of great writing from the days when reporters excelled at embedding themselves inside their long-form stories.
That said, this link to Ted Giaioa on Substack is one you will want to follow for other free pieces he posts there two or three times weekly. It’s free to follow someone on Substack. That means you will be notified when they release something new via a push message on your phone, by email, or just on the website when you open it up. You make your own choices for such notifications.
I’ve learned loads from his thoughts on sports, Spotify (I had no idea how evil that streaming service was), recording as a musician today, how to write, his free course on the Classics, and more. I add that his comments sections introduce me to people I end up following on Substack, people who are following their passion, who gave up their gigs at WaPo, NYT, the LA Times, Bloomberg, etc, to freely write what they want to write, whenever they feel like writing.
Enjoy.