The Morning Brew newsletter draws a bold comparison to your daily caffeination ritual, positioning itself as indispensable to a balanced informational diet. Morning Brew ostensibly targets a white-collar audience, but its meteoric growth in subscriber base suggests broader appeal. So what’s the Brew’s special blend, and is it worth your time and inbox space? Below, we answer these questions and many more, delving into the Morning Brew’s content philosophy, biases and influences, and the efficacy of its newsletter layout.
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What is the Morning Brew newsletter?
The Morning Brew newsletter is, on paper, a free business newsletter geared towards savvy professionals in marketing, finance, and tech. However, Morning Brew bucks the trend of locking this economically vital information behind arcane jargon. Their editorial style is imminently readable, peppered with humor, and above all meaningful even to people without an MBA.
While Morning Brew won’t talk over your head, it doesn’t hold your hand either. This newsletter trusts in its audience’s intelligence enough to remain engaged without resorting to clickbait headlines and ragebait conclusions. And although it’s hard to say any one publication is totally unbiased, it’s clear to see that Morning Brew fights the good fight. They highlight outcomes over implications whenever possible, citing reputable sources and substantiating their arguments with logic.
What subjects are on the Morning Brew newsletter?
The subjects on the Morning Brew newsletter cluster around a nucleus of business, economics, finance, tech, and culture. However, Morning Brew isn’t limited to simple reports on market movements, investment advice, and personal finance. After all, in the 21st century, there is virtually no domain of human existence that goes untouched by the business world.
Morning Brew knows that pretty much every story stands on its own merits, but also necessarily exists against a macro-contextual backdrop. Morning Brew thus walks a careful line, going as wide as it can with its subject material and deep as needed to convey its true significance to the interconnected world of business and economics. The most actionable takeaways are right on the newsletter page, leaving the wonky deep dives for curious clickthroughs without overwhelming everyone else.
How many people subscribe to the Morning Brew newsletter?
As of early 2023, the Morning Brew newsletter has seen over 4 million people subscribe to its flagship newsletter. Across the entire Morning Brew ecosystem (including Money Scoop, Emerging Tech Brew, Money with Katie, Future Social, and many more), that number balloons to well over 6 million subscribers. What’s notable about these numbers isn’t necessarily the impressive absolute values, but how quickly they are rising. For example, it took Morning Brew just three months to jump from 3 million to 4 million subscribers. The rapid growth of Morning Brew is indicative of its immediate relevance to a broad readership well beyond its nominal domains of business and economics, a trait emblematic of the best newsletters.
How is the Morning Brew newsletter structured?
Morning Brew offers a master class in newsletter anatomy, with a structure that appeals to scanning and careful reading alike. The most pertinent information rises to the top, but not before the Morning Brew editorial team sets the conversational tone the newsletter is known for. From top to bottom, the identity of the Morning Brew newsletter is apparent in its elegant readability. The flow of information is similar to that of a traditional newspaper, with some extra goodies thrown in to appease info-hungry (and attention deficit) 21st century readers from all walks of life.
Good Morning
Your first sip of Morning Brew comes with a cordial Good Morning. Immediately following the customary salutation is a conversational tidbit, which might cover a giant tortoise’s 190th birthday celebration, killer robots, or something as tame as a periodic update from the Brew team.
Contrary to the logic that governs the typical newsletter’s above-the-fold space, Morning Brew keeps it low key with their Good Morning. You won’t find click-bait browbeating here, just intriguing miscellanea that is more likely to catch your attention than not. (Don’t worry, though, the breaking news is just a short scroll down the page.) In summation, Morning Brew leads with water cooler talk, and respects your attention and tastes enough to trust you with the decision to stick around or not.
Markets
The Markets section of the Morning Brew newsletter is always relevant (even if your Reddit handle isn’t some permutation of “Diamond Hands”). The typical fixtures are all in place, usually including Nasdaq, Dow, S&P 500, 10-year Treasury Notes, and even Bitcoin. They’ll usually throw in a wild card that’s winning big just to round-out the report.
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Morning Brew lets the numbers mostly speak for themselves with minimal market analysis, once again trusting you to understand enough to care. And if neither of these are the case, the Markets section is short enough to scroll past with a flick.
Headliner
The Morning Brew’s headliner section breaks the day’s most important news in 350 words or less. This is where Morning Brew’s editorial prowess comes into focus, providing thorough coverage of complex events and their implications in less time than it takes you to take your second coffee break in as many hours.
The subject matter primarily consists of market-shaking events happening in the domains of geopolitics, environment, heavy industry, technology, labor, public health, and more. Morning Brew exercises considerable restraint in keeping any bias in check, as these topics are often polarizing and difficult in nature. Morning Brew manages to keep their mud-slinging gloves clean while weighing contrasting viewpoints for a more substantiated takeaway. The big picture has never been more digestible.
World news
The Morning Brew newsletter’s first stop below the newsletter fold matches the headliner in terms of gravity, if not length. This Tour de headlines section is a lightning round of critical tidbits from around the world. Information is presented in three stages of depth: headline, blurb, and link. Thus, this section offers something to all readers, regardless of how much reading time or attention span they have available.
Socio-economic double feature
Next up on the Morning Brew’s docket is what we dub (in lieu of an official name) the “socio-economic double feature”. These back-to-back news stories encompass a similar scope to the headline, but by design contrast and complement it. The topical spread is generally interesting enough to make you forget that Morning Brew is primarily a business newsletter aimed at professionals. From wealth management to media and entertainment, there is usually an actionable or otherwise useful nugget hiding away at the end.
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Of course, sometimes the double feature…isn’t. Morning Brew varies each newsletter up slightly, so this section is often the first to feature a deviation from standard form. It might be a sponsored message or a calendar of the week’s events to come, but this section always makes an attempt at relevance to Morning Brew’s target audience (and then some).
Grab Bag
The Morning Brew newsletter is something of a grab bag in and of itself, so consider the Grab Bag section a microcosm of the whole. As the business-flavored subtitle “Key performance indicators” suggests, the Grab Bag is focused on the numbers. Whether it’s the total cost of the largest dam demolition in history, Ronaldo’s half-a-billion Instagram follower milestone, or the tragic story of an Iranian man living in Paris’ CDG airport for 18 years, the Grab Bag always offers an illuminating perspective on world events. Each section caps off with a thematically appropriate quote or link to related reading.
Unfortunately, the Grab Bag isn’t in every issue of the Morning Brew, so cherish it when you get it.
What Else Is Brewing
Morning Brew knows that the further down the page you read, the more competition their newsletter has to keep your attention. At the beginning of the end of the page lies What Else Is Brewing, a quick bulleted list of fascinating miscellanea. This is pure “hey, didya know” fodder designed to make you a bit more interesting than before you woke up to your daily newsletter fix. You can always click through the links to learn more, but you’ll generally get everything you need from the one-or-two sentences curated by Brew’s editors.
Brew’s Bets
Contrary to what the name might suggest, Brew’s Bets isn’t a hot stock of the day tip-off. Instead, it’s a variety pack of stuff Morning Brew’s team thought cool enough to include. From grammatical tips to Tiny Desk Concerts to the story of fondue’s inventor, Brew’s Bets is a sweet treat for anyone who made it this far down the page. Unlike the other shorter newsletter sections, Brew’s Bets items don’t reveal their hand right-off, instead opting to reward curious clicks.
Disclaimer: Brew’s Bets occasionally features sponsored content, but Morning Brew clearly marks it as such in order to avoid misleading their readers.
Games
Any newspaper worth its salt has its crossword section, and likewise, Morning Brew has its Games section. Unlike your old analogue gazette, Morning Brew makes full use of the digital medium with a slew of intellectually stimulating browser-based games created by the Brew itself. Additionally, you’ll find brain benders in the form of Jeopardy, spot the fake headline, rhyme games, and many more novel concepts. Heck, they even throw in the occasional crossword for good measure!
There is always an Answers section at the very bottom of the page in case you get stumped.
Does Morning Brew have ads?
Yes, Morning Brew has ads–and that’s an important question to ask. After all, advertising partners often have a corruptive influence on the quality or bias of a publication, and newsletters are not exempt from this. As a result, free newsletter ads are a bit of a cagey subject among many newsletter readers–though Morning Brew is seemingly quite aware of this fact.
To be sure, the Morning Brew is monetized, with partner branding appearing at the very top of the newsletter, right above the Good Morning salutation. Sponsored content also tends to appear after the headliner as well as the socio-economic double feature. There’s even an Around the Brew section lodged between the Games and Answer sections designed to pitch other newsletters and services within (and outside) Morning Brew’s own ecosystem.
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However, it’s worth noting once again that Morning Brew exercises restraint in how they approach their newsletter. The visual design of the ads is congruent with the rest of the newsletter spreads, but still clearly delineated so you don’t feel cheated into accidentally clicking something commercial in nature. Moreover, Morning Brew is choosey with their partners, and the products and services do feel tailored towards the newsletter’s professional audience. Finally, the density of ads is light compared to how much content Morning Brew packs into their newsletter.
Overall, Morning Brew’s ads are non-intrusive, graciously spaced, and well-behaved. It’s a small price to pay for the quality of content Brew’s editorial team puts out.
Who owns the Morning Brew newsletter?
As of October 2020, Insider (formerly Business Insider) owns a majority stake in Morning Brew. According to Ad Fontes Media, Insider’s umbrella registers a slight left-center bias and high overall reliability, straddling the line between pure factual reporting and moderate editorial analysis. Insider’s parent company is German media mega-conglomerate Axel Springer, with which it shares political leanings and factual integrity. Although Morning Brew doesn’t necessarily run lock-step with the views of its parent company, it is important to consider the vectors of influence coming from the top.
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Is Morning Brew biased?
Morning Brew has a bias towards economic centrism, with a slight left lean on social issues. In order to understand this bias in context, there are three things to consider. First, every publication on planet Earth has bias, though some newsletters go to greater lengths to keep bias in check than others. Second, a bias towards the center is still a bias. Third, Morning Brew exists to the left of the Wall Street Journal, but to the right of Forbes while beating out both for factual reporting. Thus, any claims of Morning Brew sharing extreme or unsubstantiated views should be largely discredited as partisan rankling.
Conclusion: Is the Morning Brew newsletter worth subscribing to?
The Morning Brew is absolutely worth subscribing to for several reasons. First, Morning Brew is high in factual reporting, but offers just enough analysis to make complex current events digestible in the short newsletter format. Secondly, Morning Brew’s newsletter layout lends itself to meaningful intake via quick scanning and deep dives alike. Finally, Morning Brew curates a holistic worldview among its readership by corralling seemingly disparate pieces of the world news puzzle together under a single content philosophy. A story that might lack context on its own comes into focus amidst the backdrop of daily Morning Brew issues, subtly honing your mind to correlate events in a more meaningfully actionable way.
Don’t just take our word for it though, try it out for yourself by subscribing to the free Morning Brew newsletter.
