Engage: How Bernard Hickey created a newsroom in the comments section
Engage is an offshoot of our Grow interview series. It highlights the stories and best practices of how writers grew their readership through interaction and community-building.
has some of the most influential figures in Aotearoa-New Zealand subscribed to and hanging out in the comments section of . In this interview, Bernard shares how he’s come to know his audience and continues to engage with them through podcasting, webinars, and Substack’s new feature, Chat.This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What’s your Substack about in one sentence?
Public-interest journalism about housing unaffordability, climate change inaction, and child poverty in Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Who reads your Substack?
Most of the people making the biggest decisions and influencing opinions in Aotearoa-NZ.
The Speaker of our Parliament sends me style notes. The Cabinet, the Opposition, almost all senior civil servants, the media, and enough paying citizens to allow me to keep the bastards honest with curly questions, tough reporting, and analysis.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reads my stuff and doesn’t always love it. She tells me so in public news conferences, but she still sent me a Christmas present and a card last year.
Why do you think they read it?
They want to know what I know before everyone else knows it.
They want my independent analysis. They know I’ve spent time digging for useful and enlightening facts and views.
What is your content strategy?
Posts: I write regular summaries and analysis of the news that matters from my reporting, reading, and interviews in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy, and from geopolitics and the global economy.
Podcast: I publish audio interviews to paying subscribers first, and sometimes later in full to all subscribers, usually after showing a preview to all. It certainly helps engagement and, I guess, to reduce churn and increase my upsell from free to paid. It’s also a fantastic excuse and reason for an interview with someone interesting, or a bastard who needs to be kept honest.
Webinars: I do weekly webinars for paying subscribers that I turn into a free podcast with an article sampler for all.
Promotion: I share each article and podcast via Twitter threads and on LinkedIn. I can’t stand Facebook, so my editor and lovely wife Lynn Grieveson does it. I say sorry and give her a big kiss and a hug every time she dives into that cesspit. Also, I regularly do appearances on radio and TV, delivering my public-interest journalism to a wider audience.
How have you gotten to know your readers?
They wave me down in the street. I ask them questions in news conferences. I answer their questions in webinars. They ring me on my cell phone out of the blue. They DM me.
I talk with them in the comments section and in my chat.
I love the chat because it’s another opportunity to chat directly with paying subscribers only. They’re special. They need to know I care, I am still alive, and doing good work for their $190 a year.
Can you tell us how you are using Chat?
It’s been a great way to talk directly to paying subscribers, have a bit of fun and do work with them. I am in the New Zealand equivalent of the press core. I go to news conferences of the prime minister and in the middle of the press conference, I can put a question into Chat saying, “the prime minister just said this thing, why is it important to you, and what sort of questions should I ask?” This essentially allows subscribers to view the news conference live.
Giving paying subscribers a chance to be part of the action, help us report the news and ask the right questions has been a fantastic way to build extra flavor and strength in the subscriber relationship.
Giving paying subscribers a chance to be part of the action, help us report the news and ask the right questions has been a fantastic way to build extra flavor and strength in the subscriber relationship.
How does Substack differ to other platforms in terms of your relationships with your readers?
Substack is so much more collegial, friendly, safe, productive, and hopeful. It’s a human place. There are no dickheads.
Well, there was one, but I banned him from commenting. I gave him the option of canceling with a refund. He thanked me and is still a paying subscriber.
What’s the sharpest insight you can offer other writers about engaging with their readers?
Trust your readers with your insights, questions, and responses, even with all the caveats about what can and can’t be known, and can and can’t be shared.
They want to help and be part of making something good. Use podcasts, webinars, host Ask Me Anythings, and use Chat to give extra flavor and juice to paying subscribers. If your publication is about making information public, then use these tools to show subscribers some love, have them help you, fact-check you, and make each other laugh.
Trust your readers with your insights, questions, and responses, even with all the caveats about what can and can’t be known, and can and can’t be shared. They want to help and be part of making something good.
What advice have you received about building a community around your publication that didn’t prove to be helpful?
Put it all behind a paywall. And treat them mean to keep them keen. Nah.
Who’s another Substack writer you turn to for guidance and inspiration?
. He was my mentor in the Substack Grow fellowship. A hero making a difference. Takeaways
Community as a paid perk. Bernard offers rich, dynamic connections with readers, like webinars, podcasts, and the comments section, as a paid perk. But he remembers to remind free readers about it, using tools like free previews.
Subscribers are eager to build with you. Bernard treats his subscribers as collaborators, having open conversations in Chat and the comments, admitting when he doesn’t know and staying open to feedback.
People are mostly good. Even when Bernard had a nasty comment, he was able to use Substack’s moderation tools and have a civil conversation with the commenter. They even stayed on as a paying subscriber.
What questions do you have for
that we didn’t ask? Leave them in the comments!Looking for a space to engage with your readers in a meaningful way? We’ve just introduced Substack Chat, a community space reimagined specifically for writers and creators—it’s like having your own private social network where you make the rules. Learn more and host your first chat today.
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