At Sterling, we’ve been known to help clients develop, produce, and manage email newsletters in service of their communications goals. Heck, we even produce our own monthly newsletter to keep our network up to date on what we’re up to.
We also read A LOT of newsletters to satisfy our insatiable curiosity. As public relations professionals, we know we are more media obsessed than most. But anyone can enjoy the often-excellent writing and expert curation supplied by a veritable cornucopia of newsletters available (often for free) for email subscription.
If you’re looking to refresh your inbox with something new, consider some of our favorites (in alphabetical order):
- 1440 Daily Digest – Refreshingly straightforward and compact daily general interest news briefs stripped of spin, hype, and bias.
- Axios – Mavens of short-form journalism, Axios produces a selection of digestible daily and weekly newsletters. We’re fond of Communicators and What’s Next.
- The Download – MIT Technology Review produces a swath of great science and technology newsletters and The Download is the gold standard.
- Future of Everything – WSJ seems to produce a newsletter for every interest. Our favorite is FoE for thought-provoking insights on innovation and technology.
- The Hustle – Startup-focused newsletter that describes itself as a “daily dose of irreverent, offbeat, and informative takes on the headlines and trends across business and tech.”
- Morning Brew – Launched in 2015 as a fun business newsletter by University of Michigan college students, Business Insider picked up a majority stake in this popular daily back in 2020 and the producers have since expanded into new verticals with offerings like Tech Brew and Healthcare Brew.
- The Mercury News – Silicon Valley’s hometown paper delivers a daily newsletter that keeps us up to date on what’s happening in our own backyard.
- MuckRack Daily – Public relations scuttlebut and snappy aggregation of who and what are capturing media attention.
- The New Yorker – Great writing.
- The New York Times – The Gray Lady offers a handful of free daily (and weekly) newsletters highlighting its current headlines. It also produces an enormous selection of special-interest and subscriber-only editions. Our favorites include The Morning and California Today.
- Planet Money – Weekly highlight drawn from NPR’s popular radio show and podcast, which promises “just the right amount of economics.”
- Plugged In – Fast Company’s weekly exploration of innovation.
- Semafor – Solid reporting on a variety of topics available in a selection of newsletters from this relatively new digital outlet helmed by heavyweight Bloomberg and NYT veterans.
- Term Sheet – Fortune’s informative daily rundown of deals, with analysis of business and finance trends.
- This Week – The Altantic’s Sunday night selection of stories expected to spark conversations in the week ahead.
- Wired Daily – Roundup of the venerable technology and culture magazine’s best stories.
We’re also fans of sector-specific newsletters that supply excellent information on topics related to, say, healthcare (such as those from the American Medical Association, MedCity News, and STAT) or sustainability and energy transition (Bloomberg Daily Green and Canary Media, for example). And we haven’t even run the gamut of stellar Substacks and outlet-unaffiliated newsletters worthy of consideration (such as Casey Newton’s Platformer or Ben Thompson’s Stratechery).
Our list is by no means comprehensive. And we’re also always on the lookout for new newsletters. If you have a favorite to recommend, we’d love to hear about it. Reach out to us at go@sterlingpr.com.