Bought in early August by Cox Enterprises for $525 million less than six years after it launched, Axios publishes a variety of topic-based and city-based newsletters and has been in a massive growth mode for at least a year, with many new launches and many more planned.

Listening to Nicholas Johnston, publisher of Axios, during a panel at WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress 2022 in Zaragoza, felt a bit like attending a master class in the possibilities and opportunities for modern journalism.
Built for the way people consume information now
“We started with a blank screen, a blank white board and a shared office space in northern Virginia,” he said. “Knowing what we know about the media space, and the lessons we thought we knew from print publications and website publications and what the data tells us about media consumption, about attention spans, about how people share information, and with those, we built Axios.”

While Axios is cutting-edge new media, Johnston also has an impressive background in legacy media. He started his journalism career at The Washington Post and spent 15 years at Bloomberg before quitting to join Axios.
The thinking behind Smart Brevity
Increasingly famous for its short, bullet points heavy writing style, Axios has literally written a book for modern short, snappy writing. 

“It’s a very distinct style we call Smart Brevity, which is a way of delivering information in a way we think is far more efficient and responsive to the consumpti…