STAT, a health care, medicine and biotech news site, marks its 10th anniversary this week with plenty to celebrate.
Even after a small round of layoffs last December, The Boston Globe affiliate fields a staff of about 100. With national and some global scope, it has raked in prizes — Loeb, Polk, broadcast and magazine awards — and was twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist. STAT’s audience is concentrated among high-level professionals, but with a number of general readers on board, too. It does not offer an exact figure for its audience size, in part because many of its sales are to groups at businesses or universities, but the numbers have grown steadily. The group licenses number 520, editor-in-chief and co-founder Rick Berke said, and the site gets 7.5 million views a month.
Twice, journalism lightning has landed on STAT’s turf — terrible situations that made for great stories and played to its strengths — COVID-19 in 2020, then the Trump administration’s deep cuts and odd policies this year.
When the pandemic appeared suddenly, STAT had on its staff Helen Branswell, a veteran reporter on infectious diseases. She was among the first, if not the first, journalist to trace the virus back to Asia. STAT’s coverage picked up from there.
Then came the second Trump administration. The site’s beat structure spans a wide range of topics, but Berke told me, “the Trump effect touches everything.” That includes issues that might seem apolitical, like cancer treatment. The site is experiencing a Trump bump, with summer subscription sign-ups up 45% year-to-year. As was the case with COVID-19, that may stall or reverse some as the story loses steam.
Given the 10th anniversary peg, I was interested in the origin story of STAT (named for medical slang that means immediately).
Berke had nearly 28 years at The New York Times. I guessed that maybe he had been nurturing the publication idea for a while and sold Globe owners John and Linda Henry on backing it. Quite the opposite, Berke said.
He followed health and science closely as a reader, but he had no reporting or editing experience in the field. The Henrys had read up on the journalism business and toured conferences to educate themselves before buying the Globe. They also had a high level of interest in health, medicine and related research and thought the field was being lightly covered. Furthermore, Boston and Cambridge were arguably the epicenter of the action. Berke found as he dug into the job that much of the existing coverage was “too slow and not snappy.”
Berke said building a media company was an appealing mid-career step for him. The Henrys gave him “free rein to hire and go all out.” STAT launched with a mix of established writers he lured away from other publications and “smart young talent.” As a result, Berke said, “we had quality from the start. … One of our first stories was about Trump’s bad science and vitamin business. No one had reported what a fraud it was.”
STAT appears to have thrived by having a distinct niche, but one not too narrowly defined — perhaps in the vein of The Marshall Project’s coverage of criminal justice and prisons.
“They do spectacular (investigative) work,” Berke said, but less breaking news. The day we spoke, STAT had posted 18 spot stories, he added, so a better analogy might be The Information or Wired.
STAT is a for-profit company, but reaping profits is not the point. He and the Henrys agree that profits get plowed back into investments in the business. Individual subscriptions go for $399 a year. STAT also accepts advertising, much of it in the form of sponsorships of podcasts, newsletters and events, all of which have worked as related ventures. Audience and other revenue are about equal.
The site is its own company, but has a sibling relationship with the Globe. They share stories and have pooled business functions as a chain would.
When I think I have found a notable success at a legacy regional newspaper outlet, I want to keep an eye out for possible troubles brewing. There are no obvious ones here, though I can’t testify whether or not STAT has a newsroom full of happy campers.
December’s layoffs were done to balance the 2025 budget, as they foresaw an advertising downturn due to search and artificial intelligence, Berke said. The Trump surge partly made up for it, and he does not expect more.
Some of the best launches over the last 20 years — The Marshall Project and The Texas Tribune, for example — have faced turbulence when a lead funder lost interest or a founding editor departed. Not that either Berke or the Henrys give vibes of moving on. Linda Henry is CEO of Boston Globe Media Partners, parent company of both STAT and the Globe. John Henry, who made his fortune in a data-driven investment business, has the deep local roots of being the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and related sports ventures for nearly 25 years. The two are completely hands-off on editorial decisions, Berke said, unlike Jeff Bezos at The Washington Post or Patrick Soon-Shiong at the Los Angeles Times.
STAT does have competitors, many of them long-established. That group would include the policy and investigative KFF Health News, which offers its work free to other outlets, The New York Times science and wellness desks and Scientific American, but their coverage ranges over all kinds of science. STAT doesn’t do astronomy.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary, a STAT press release offered a short list of greatest hits. Among them:
That sampler hints at what has made STAT stand out: ambitious, deeply sourced reporting in a niche where access to reliable information can be literally life-or-death.
To swim against the tide of tough economics and go big with a fresh journalism initiative requires adequate, patient funding, along with a sharp concept, strongly executed. STAT and The Boston Globe are among the few I can think of who have pulled it off.
Correction (Tuesday, Sept. 9): Rick Berke was at the NYT for nearly 28 years, not 17.
