Five years ago this week, we sent the first issue of The Repository to 49 subscribers. In that newsletter, we covered the State of the Word — including Justin Tadlock’s recap that it was about “blocks, blocks, more blocks, and a dash of community” — and Sarah Gooding’s reporting on the WordPress Governance project.

So much has changed in the intervening five years, yet so much is still the same.

In 2019, Kim Gjerstad (founder of MailPoet) and I wanted to start something. As former journalists, our natural inclination was towards news reporting and we saw a need for it in the WordPress ecosystem, journalism that was free of opinion. But neither of us had the time or desire to do it — it takes a heck of a lot of effort to research and write stories — so we created a weekly email featuring the top headlines together with commentary from across the community.

Five years later, I’m very proud and humbled that The Repository has become a go-to resource for many of our wonderful readers.

Times, they are a-changin’

Up until July this year, the weekly email was something I worked on in my spare time, outside of my non-WordPress day job in comms and marketing. It didn’t start that way. When I met Kim, I was consulting in the WordPress space and he was one of my many amazing clients. But then I left to work for a cool AF creative tech firm before giving local government a whirl, all the while keeping one eye on the WordPress space. It was a juggle but it was manageable — until it wasn’t.

The first turning point was when Elon Musk took over Twitter. The WordPress community started to become fragmented as some people fled to other social platforms, making it harder to source comments for the newsletter.

Then Sarah Gooding left WP Tavern and my one amazing source of WordPress news disappeared. It meant that I could no longer link to her articles. With nothing to link to, I found myself writing longer and longer overviews each week and, frankly, it was getting ridiculous. No want wants to read essays in their email.

More recently, Post Status cracked down on sharing comments from its Slack community. I’d previously had a loose agreement with past moderators allowing me to source quotes from Post Status Slack, but changes to the code of conduct changed that. While I completely agree with folks who want to feel safe expressing their views, it also means one of the biggest gathering places of WordPress professionals — i.e. the WordPress business community — is a space closed to public scrutiny. And that’s a real shame.

Suffice it to say, all of these things made writing the newsletter harder and more time consuming. What used to take one day to write was taking 2-3. It wasn’t sustainable. I had to make a choice: walk away or go all in.

So I quit my very secure, very unfulfilling day job to return to journalism. My plan was to take a long-awaited family holiday in September and get stuck into news reporting and expanding The Repository in October.

Wowee, I didn’t have court reporting on my bingo card this year, but here we are.

What’s next?

In recent weeks, I’ve published many stories, including scoops, in addition to sending the weekly newsletter on Fridays. I want to continue publishing stories that matter, that inform, and start conversations in the WordPress community. The last thing I want to do is write about WordPress #drama every week, and that certainly wasn’t my plan back in August. If you are working on something cool, embarking on an unexpected partnership, or innovating in some way, get in touch. Let’s get your news in front of the WordPress community.

The Repository website has also been given a fresh look to make it easier to find and read stories.

There are no plans to change the newsletter (those who responded to the annual survey made it very clear that they want the newsletter to remain as-is). However, I am conscious that it has become very… serious. I want to take it back to the fun, commentary-laden format of 18 months ago. I’m hoping Bluesky will stick to help facilitate this.

I’m also excited to collaborate with others. Nathan Wrigley and I are working on a fun podcast, What Just Happened?, and I’ll be announcing another exciting partnership soon. Watch this space.

Please support The Repository

I’m working on making The Repository financially sustainable. I’ve experienced first-hand how media businesses I’ve worked for have been gutted, and watched very talented colleagues lose their jobs. I’ve seen others try and fail at WordPress news over the years. Why am I doing this? I believe there’s a real need for journalism in the WordPress space and if I do it well enough, you, our readers will support it because you also believe it’s important and has value.

A lot of people have asked how they can support The Repository. The answer to that question is simple: if you’re financially able, please consider becoming an individual supporter via our fundjournalism.org page. If you run a business, please consider becoming a sponsor. There are multiple slots available throughout 2025.

The other thing you can do is tell your friends and colleagues about The Repository. One of the biggest challenges facing new media businesses is discoverability. We rely on our weekly newsletter and social media to get our news out there. Word of mouth makes a huge difference. If you enjoy The Repository, please share our articles and newsletter.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support! Here’s to another five years.