theSkimm: The future of reporting?

By LINDSAY THOMPSON

In this digital age, there are a million ways to read the news: turn on the TV, go online, download an app, and even check your e-mail. The last option is becoming increasingly popular, with newsletter like “theSkimm” popping up.

theSkimm is a daily newsletter summing up important current events, written in a sassy tone to appeal to their target demographic, city-dwelling females ages 18 to 34.

The newsletter is simple way to stay up to date and the summaries are written in an interesting way that keeps their audience reading about topics they may not otherwise be interested in.

“We are reaching our readers in the way they want to be reached and they are making us a part of their daily routine,” said Danielle Weisberg, co-founder of theSkimm.

The newsletter’s motto is: “We read. You skimm.” This means that you don’t get all the facts. Still, we are a generation that wants everything fast, easy, and now, while needing to put fourth minimal effort to attain it. This is exactly what theSkimm gives you. It comes right to your e-mail’s inbox, so you don’t have to hunt down the information, and gives it to you very short and sweet.

So, is skimming going to become the future of reporting? If quickly reading over short newsletters were to become how everyone reads the news, possibly important information could be lost or withheld from our knowledge. Not every story can be summed up in one nice, little paragraph. More often than not, readers need background information and longer explanations to understand everything that is going on with complicated topics such as politics and foreign affairs.

For now, theSkimm seems to have no plans of taking over the reporting world.

“We’re really not a place for people to go to see breaking news and that’s been a luxury,” Weisberg said in an interview with the Huffington Post (http://huff.to/1pp5mmO).

theSkimm continues to grow in popularity, reaching 500,000 subscribers this past July after existing for only two years. The future of news is changing, and it may be headed in the direction of theSkimm.