How a newspaper distributed through Whatsapp amassed 37,000 subscribers

This post is auto-generated from a public YouTube interview for personal study notes. It is not an endorsement. The transcript is machine-derived and may contain errors; refer to the original video for accuracy.

About this video

When Sipho Kings and his co-founder Simon Allison launched The Continent in 2020, they wanted to rethink how journalism is distributed online.

Instead of chasing search traffic and social algorithms, they created a weekly PDF newspaper designed specifically for smartphones and distributed it through platforms like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and email.

The idea was to bring back the simplicity of a curated newspaper while adapting it to how people actually consume information today.

Six years later, The Continent reaches tens of thousands of readers across Africa and around the world.

In a recent interview, Kings explained how the publication grew entirely through word of mouth, why its unusual PDF format created a deeper relationship with readers, and how it’s building a sustainable media business outside the traditional web ecosystem.