How The Ankler is thriving covering the entertainment industry

Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin of The New York Times examine some startup news organizations that are thriving.

Robertson and Mullin write, “The Ankler, a paid newsletter focused on Hollywood, is anchored by Richard Rushfield, an entertainment journalist who has emerged as Hollywood’s unsparing gadfly, narrating the industry’s unending chaos and skewering the actors, agents and executives responsible for creating it.

“Ankler Media has raised $1.3 million at a valuation of $20 million and has been profitable for more than a year, said Janice Min, the company’s chief executive and founder, who previously helmed The Hollywood Reporter and Us Weekly. The Ankler now has seven employees and publishes several newsletters, including Wake Up, a Hollywood news digest.

“‘If we want to make a Hollywood analogy, it’s like these growing franchises are multiverses,’ Ms. Min said. ‘People like what we do and see our newsletters as an extension of the voice that might have drawn them in in the beginning.'”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.