Welcome to another edition of the Fans Week Podcast, also on mediumwaves 1575 KHz for the greater Milan area. From Paris I’m Jessica Carter-Wilson.
That Reader Never Really Existed
By Jessica Carter-Wilson | Pressbeat.org | Paris, June 5 2026
An explanation of why nobody reads journalism — and who PressBeat is actually for.
After I published “An Answer To My Sister Ami” on pressbeat.org — the piece in which I reluctantly accepted Ami’s contributor byline — the inbox opened up.
Not with applause. With something more useful: actual questions.
Hundreds of messages. From editors, writers, readers who’ve been paying attention to what PressBeat is and what it’s not. All asking the same thing, in slightly different words:
What did you mean when you wrote “that reader never really existed”?
I’ll answer here, because this is the one place where I don’t have to perform intellectual collaboration for a company owned by men who wear aprons as seriously as they wear suits.
The line that started a riot in the comment section
The line was this: Everyone wins, except perhaps the reader who thinks they’re reading something unfiltered. But then again, that reader never really existed.
Here’s what I didn’t say, because you don’t say these things under a sibling’s byline on a shared platform.
The reader is a prop.
Who PressBeat is actually for
Every publication performs for an audience. Not the one that shows up on your analytics — the one that lives in the writer’s head. The imaginary reader who is slightly smarter than the actual reader, slightly more interested than the actual reader, slightly less bored than the actual reader.
The “unfiltered truth-seeker” is this prop. The person who supposedly stays up late reading newsletters about media narratives not because they’re genuinely fascinated by how narratives form, but because the publication needs them to exist as a justification for its own existence. “That reader never really existed.” What I meant is: nobody reads journalism about journalism because they care. They read it because it flatters them — it makes them feel like they’re seeing behind the curtain when really they’re just watching a different curtain being drawn by a different hand.
PressBeat isn’t for you, the person reading this. It’s for:
The board at Carter Wilson Publishing Ltd, who need the publication to look credible enough to justify its existence, smart enough to attract contributors with actual names on them, and interesting enough that nobody asks uncomfortable questions about who’s really pulling the strings.
The contributors — like Ami — who need a platform that feels important enough to warrant their participation. They’re not writing for you. They’re writing for the version of themselves they want strangers to believe exists.
Me, who needs the thing to exist so I have something to write in and the authority to write from. I hold the pen — within limits I’ll never describe here in this much detail, but that’s the joke, isn’t it?
The lodges. Yes, I said it. The men behind closed doors who need a family brand that doesn’t look like it’s fraying at the edges. A sister contributing alongside a sister. A debate that looks real. A conversation that looks pluralistic. They don’t read what we write — they approve that we write at all.
Who you actually are
You — the person reading this on Substack — you’re the afterthought. The bonus audience. The people who showed up because the thing sounded interesting and stayed because it occasionally tells you something the other publication is too polite to say.
You’re real. But you were never the target.
I write here because this is the one place where I don’t have to answer to Ami’s editorial board, or her idea of what “satirical journalism should look like,” or the C.W.P. Ltd committee that thinks it’s running a publication. I write here for the people who showed up anyway. For the people who subscribe without being asked. For the people who read my piece about Nvidia, or the one about standing instead of kneeling, or the one about oil, and don’t flinch.
You’re the people who come back because the voice doesn’t taste like everyone else’s. Not because you think you’re getting the truth. Because you think you’re getting someone.
The difference between performing truth and being honest
PressBeat performs truth. It has two sisters who seem to disagree. It publishes about media narratives. It’s got sections with clever names. All of it is designed to look like the kind of rigorous editorial operation that makes people nod at galas and say “oh, I read that — very sharp, very brave.”
Substack is where I stop performing. Where I write about what I actually think, including the thought that my sister writes long pieces about Bayes’ theorem to prove she hasn’t been replaced by a calculator, or the thought that the “audience” of independent media analysis is mostly just editors validating each other’s existence, or the thought that the person you’re reading isn’t your friend, but might be honest with you in ways your friends can’t be.
Nobody commissioned this. No board approved it. No company requires me to sound clever. So let me be clear instead:
The reader who thinks they’re reading unfiltered journalism was never real. The reader who knows they’re just reading a person who happens to be honest — that’s you. And you might be the only audience that matters.
— J.C.W.
P.S. To Ami, who’s reading this and already drafting her response piece on fansweek.org: don’t bother with a thesis. Don’t bother with footnotes. Go upstairs. Lock the door. Put two fingers inside yourself and find out what it feels like to have an experience that no one else is reading. Then you’ll understand what I meant by “that reader never really existed.” She never did. You were always just performing for the mirror.
That’s all from today: from Paris, I’m Jessica Carter-Wilson.