Nick Pinto

Nick Pinto

@nickpinto.bsky.social

Co-founder @hellgatenyc.com. Writing about cops, courts, jails, prisons and NYC. You may have known me on Twitter as @macfathom. nick [at] hellgatenyc dot com. On Signal at NickPinto.11

8.7K followers603 following703 posts

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

More and more people are coming to the conclusion that Nick Pinto gets it.

Bright D Limm 임대중@bdlimm.myatproto.social

@nickpinto.bsky.social gets it. "I think that the deference that Mamdani is paying to her [NYPD Commissioner Tish's] power is best understood as a testimony to the incredible political weakness of the police reform and criminal-justice reform movement in this city and in this country."

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

Did @hellgatenyc.com really get on a plane to central Wisconsin and bring back a riveting, hilarious, and disturbing 2,500-word account of former mayor Eric Adams's lackluster efforts to sell the local citizenry on a giant data center? Sure fucking did: hellgatenyc.com/eric-adams-w...

hellgatenyc.comEric Adams Promised to Pitch a Wisconsin Data Center With 'Rigor.' His Failure Was SpectacularHell Gate went to Wisconsin Rapids to trace the footsteps of the former mayor of New York City.

Nick Pinto reposted

ryandevereaux.bsky.social
@ryandevereaux.bsky.social

In July, I took a ride through the Arizona desert with Verlon Jose, chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, a sprawling reservation on the U.S.-Mexico border that may soon be changed forever. It was the beginning of an investigation that ProPublica is publishing today. THREAD ⬇️

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

Busy week at @hellgatenyc.com: We interviewed the Governor in a bar, hosted a battle of the bands, tracked the rolling mess of the Brooklyn Democrats, rushed to cover the ICE shooting, reviewed a restaurant, watched some dubious television, noted some owls, probed an NYPD resignation, and more!

Nick Pinto reposted

Noah Shachtman
@noahshachtman.bsky.social

You're not a real New Yorker if you don't subscribe to @hellgatenyc.com.

Nick Pinto@nickpinto.bsky.social

Founding a worker-owned local news outfit in 2022, we didn't know if we'd last a month. But as @hellgatenyc.com enters our fifth year, we are surviving, and even thriving. Here's our 2026 annual report, detailing our achievements and challenges of the past year. hellgatenyc.com/hell-gate-20...

hellgatenyc.comHell Gate 2026 Annual ReportAs Hell Gate roars into its fifth year, let's take a minute to talk about how things are going.
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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

That's it. That's the thread. There's lots more information in our annual report. If you're a journalist thinking of doing something like this yourself, please get in touch, we'd love to help. If you're already a subscriber but want to help us even more, we've got a tip jar here.

hellgatenyc.comTip JarWe are a subscriber-funded, worker-owned news outlet about New York City, named for the city's sturdiest (and handsomest) bridge over its most treacherous currents.
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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

We're able to do all this with help from generous individuals and foundations, but the lion's share of our revenue, by design, comes from SUBSCRIBERS. The more subscribers we have, the more journalists we can hire, the more of the city we can cover, the more ambitious we can be.

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

Right now, 64,000 people are receiving Hell Gate newsletters without contributing to make the work we do possible. You guys! Come on! If just THREE PERCENT of these people became paying subscribers, we could hire another journalist, do more journalism, cover the city even better.

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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

These livestreams were a big hit. They were shown in bars all over the city. The @columjournreview.bsky.social wrote: "The team has managed to turn one of the most staid forms of news into something lively and fun that also offers some of the smartest political coverage in the city."

cjr.orgHell Gate: The site with personality big enough for the city it covers.And now for something completely different—a site with personality big enough for the city it covers.
Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

Meanwhile, we publish THREE separate newsletters! 🖤 Morning Spew, our daily morning newsletter, featuring a fresh story and link round-up to start your day. 🖤 Inbox Hell, a twice weekly newsletter showcasing our best work, and, new this year, 🖤 Cultural Capital, our arts and culture newsletter.

hellgatenyc.comHell Gate
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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

🖤 Alongside @typeinvestigations.org, we followed up or celebrated Table of Success with another major investigative project, this one looking into the way judges are selected in New York City and why some of them leave something to be desired. courtsofcontempt.hellgatenyc.com

courtsofcontempt.hellgatenyc.comCourts of Contempt - JudgesJudges wield enormous power. Here in the five boroughs, they are often the ultimate arbiters in deciding how many New Yorkers get sent to Rikers Island, where and how new housing will be built, and wh...
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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

🖤 Hell Gate is still here. 🖤 Hell Gate has grown from five founders to 10 employees 🖤 Hell Gate has 11,000 paying subscribers 🖤 When our subscriptions crossed the line of $1 million in Annual Recurring Revenue this summer, we went up on the roof and cracked a $40 bottle of prosecco.

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

We are plowing this revenue right back into the journalism machine. 🖤 We hired two editors this year. 🖤 We've published 3,500 blog posts to date.

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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

3) New Yorkers carry an epigenetic hunger for punchy, funny, angry, joyful, unfiltered journalism. In the city where the Village Voice and Gawker once flourished, there is a niche in the media ecosystem for a publication that is irreverent and aggressively skeptical of power.

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

So how is this experiment bearing out? Well, for a full picture, you should read this year's annual report (and for that matter, our previous annual reports.) But here are some top-line takeaways:

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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

A group of veteran journalists launched @hellgatenyc.com in 2022 to test some theories: 1) A news outlet owned and run by the journalists, without owners or investors or multiple layers of nonprofit executives to pay out, can do more journalism with less money.

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

2) A news outlet built on subscription revenue is more responsive to its readers and less vulnerable to boom-bust vicissitudes than a publication reliant on venture capital or a billionaire owner or fickle philanthropy.

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Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

This collapse is incredibly unhealthy for the society we all live in! Journalism is how we learn what is happening. It is what holds government officials and corporate titans and everyone with power accountable for their actions. Fewer journalists = less journalism, more confusion, more impunity.

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

This is especially bad in news deserts. But it's bad in media capitals like NYC too. The hordes of reporters that once crawled this city are gone. City agencies that once had multiple reporters competing to work the beat now go mostly unscrutinized.

Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

Everybody knows that journalism—especially local journalism—is in crisis in this country. Not that long ago, at the start of the century, there were 40 journalists for every 100,000 people in the United States. In the last quarter century, that ratio has dropped by 75 percent.

muckrack.comLocal Journalist Index 2025 | Muck RackFor the first time, we’ve mapped how many local journalists cover each U.S. county, revealing in stark detail the stunning collapse in local reporting. Me…
Nick Pinto
@nickpinto.bsky.social

Me, drunk as hell, at great volume, addressing no one in particular but well within earshot of the shaken family whose toddler I just narrowly missed cleaving:

Nick Pinto reposted

Jaya Saxena
@jayasaxena.com

Great thread to read if you respond to every paywall like someone has shot you in the chest

Josh Marshall@joshtpm.bsky.social

Let me say a couple words about paywalls. They’re annoying. I feel that (as a news consumer) and know that (as a news publisher). But asking for your email, either to read an article or even to access a gift link (someone said this happened to them a a Times gift link a moment ago) isn’t some …