Episode Description
Seamus Hughes is the terrorism scholar and two-time Pulitzer-winning New York Times contributor behind Court Watch, an independent newsletter that mines the federal court system's 94 districts for stories no one else is covering. Francis talks with him about building a fiercely loyal 10,000-subscriber audience without ads or partisanship, the tactics he uses to find stories inside a deliberately broken records system, and why he trains 1,000+ of his own competitors every year.
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Seamus Hughes
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Timestamps
00:00 Introducing Seamus Hughes
00:52 Intentionally making less money
06:55 The creator ecosystem falls apart without him
11:00 Growth to 10k subscribers
13:57 Over 500 paying subscribers
16:20 Why this costs $100k to run
31:06 Finding stories within the outdated legal system
38:49 The value of a collective or community
43:02 Why he only sleeps 4 hours a night
45:47 Why he doesn't sell ads