Why Kiplinger’s newsletter has been so successful

Knight Kiplinger, editor emeritus of The Kiplinger Letter, writes about why the 99-year-old newsletter has remained successful.

Kiplinger writes, “What many of our readers may not know is that our savvy, Washington-based reporters and editors are fulfilling the same mission, in much the same way, as their predecessors at Kiplinger did, going back 99 years.

“Next year will be the 100th anniversary of the first issue, in September of 1923. (I would be born 25 years later and would become, by the 1980s, the third generation of Kiplingers to edit the Letter.)

“The reasons for the Letter’s longevity are rooted in editorial innovations that were modern and compelling in 1923, and even more so today:

Not just dry news (what government officials say and do), but bold forecasts based on thorough reporting and analysis, relying on unnamed but highly trustworthy sources
Lean, colloquial writing, to save the reader’s valuable time
Political and ideological independence
Strong engagement with our readers, who are encouraged to contact us for more information and to suggest story ideas.

“The mastermind behind the Letter, my grandfather W.M. Kiplinger (1891-1967), has been called the Father of the Modern Newsletter, a man who foreshadowed trends that would intensify with the rise of digital journalism decades after his career ended.”

Read more here.

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.