Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has launched Air Mail, a digital, international news platform.
Airmail arrives on Saturday at 6AM in your in-box as a newsletter. It looks like a hybrid combo of Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair & the New Yorker except for the “print” component.
Carter told The Times that the ideal Air Mail reader will be
“a sophisticated person. They’re not backpackers, and they’re not in Las Vegas, drinking champagne and sitting around in their heart-shaped bathtub.”
Each newsletter has a single sponsor. Issue #3 arrived in my box this morning, sponsored by Ralph Lauren.
Below you’ll see some screen grabs of the content. In a time gone by, the over-30 crowd used to complain about
“reading things online”
but admit it –that’s how most of us get our news. Plus, it’s more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Air Mail addresses that very issue with an article,
Silicon Island:
The Google elite jet-set their way to saving the earth
Former Vanity Fair writer, Kevin Sessums has his own version of this model, minus the enormous resources. (There are plenty others but as a former VF staffer, I’m a fan of both of these.) Check out sessumsmagazine, some content is free and to subscribe it’s just $20 a year, while Carter’s is $50 per year or $15 for 3 months. Which still sounds cheap, $1 a week? It’s comparable with the cost of subscribing to the New Yorker.
And AirMail is going to be around for a while. One of the investors is TPG Growth, a private-equity firm.
They even delivered a summer playlist with this latest issue. I’m listening to Come Saturday Moring right now.
