Axios' Sara Fischer on the alternative media's growth

Brian: 00:00:09

Welcome to the rebooting show.

Brian: 00:00:11

I'm Brian Morrissey.

Brian: 00:00:12

I'm continuing our set of episodes that preview the year ahead this week.

Brian: 00:00:15

And today I am speaking with Sarah Fisher, who writes the Axios Media Trends newsletter.

Brian: 00:00:21

She's a great reporter, who I know I depend on keeping up to date on all the comings and goings in this industry.

Brian: 00:00:28

and we wanted to focus, In this episode on what we're calling alternative media in the year ahead, and, you know, obviously, institutional media has has lost traction

Brian: 00:00:38

over the last several years, and it has come in large part, at the expense of the growth of alternative media channels.

Brian: 00:00:45

And I think our conversation is pretty timely because this is, I think one of the biggest shifts we're seeing since the beginning of the Internet.

Brian: 00:00:52

And, you know, unlike the early predictions that digitally native companies like BuzzFeed or Vox would

Brian: 00:00:56

become the new media giants, it turns out the real disruption came from independent creators, YouTubers, and podcasters.

Brian: 00:01:02

and this is putting pressure on institutional media companies to shift their structures.

Brian: 00:01:06

Talk about it a lot.

Brian: 00:01:07

and Sarah is actually part of this.

Brian: 00:01:08

You know, Axios is about to roll out a subscription product, for Axios Media Trends.

Brian: 00:01:13

And to me, this is something that we'll see more of in the years to come.

Brian: 00:01:16

You know, institutional media brands will build franchises around key talent.

Brian: 00:01:20

And we discussed that.

Brian: 00:01:21

We also talk about the decline in trust in journalism overall and how measures large and small are being taken to restore that trust, which has leaked

Brian: 00:01:28

out to the edges as, we go through this populist period where the authenticity of individuals is so heavily valued.

Brian: 00:01:34

And in particular we discussed the critical role of curiosity in journalism.

Brian: 00:01:37

I mean, it's an area that I think has a lot of legs.

Brian: 00:01:41

The profession of journalism, you know, rightly emphasizes that.

Brian: 00:01:44

Accountability journalism.

Brian: 00:01:45

and that's critical.

Brian: 00:01:46

And of course, under threat.

Brian: 00:01:48

but the packaging of the product can sometimes give the impression of facts assembled to make a case.

Brian: 00:01:51

And it is used, in both good faith, sort of criticism, but also, as a way to delegitimize the press.

Brian: 00:01:58

so it's a thorny issue and we get into this.

Brian: 00:02:00

I hope you enjoy this conversation,

Brian: 00:02:02

this episode.

Brian: 00:02:03

And all of the, preview episodes are brought to you by EX.CO, the machine learning video platform trusted by leading media groups like Advanced Local Theory in a Group.

Brian: 00:02:12

Hurst Newspapers, NASDAQ, News Corp, and more.

Brian: 00:02:15

Last week, EX.CO announced the expansion of its award winning ad server to upgrade programmatic auctions in CTV and digital out of home environments.

Brian: 00:02:23

Their solution empowers media owners to drive higher revenue through smarter, automated ad auctions using a machine learning based yield engine.

Brian: 00:02:32

That dynamically optimizes auctions in real time.

Brian: 00:02:35

outdated programmatic pipes, fragmented technologies, and missed revenue opportunities have plagued CTV and digital out of home media owners for far too long.

Brian: 00:02:43

Try EX.CO's expanded ad server today to generate more revenue than you ever had before.

Brian: 00:02:48

Get in touch with EX.CO's video experts by visiting EX.CO, that is E X dot C O.

Brian: 00:02:54

Thank you to my friends at Xco.

Brian: 00:02:56

And here's my conversation with Sarah.

Brian: 00:03:05

All right, Sarah, we're, we're going to come in hot.

Brian: 00:03:07

Thank you for doing, I think this is your third or fourth time on the podcast.

Brian: 00:03:10

They're always well listened to.

Sara: 00:03:12

I Love this podcast.

Sara: 00:03:13

Thanks for having me.

Brian: 00:03:14

Okay.

Brian: 00:03:15

So, I think it's the end of this month.

Brian: 00:03:16

You guys have been teasing it for a little while.

Brian: 00:03:18

We're, we're going to get into alternative media.

Brian: 00:03:19

but you've got, you've got a membership coming and I think this is actually weirdly part of, of our discussion going, but like, what can you tell us?

Brian: 00:03:29

Exactly about it.

Brian: 00:03:30

I'll be a customer.

Sara: 00:03:32

Oh Brian, you're the best.

Brian: 00:03:34

Wait, how much is it

Sara: 00:03:36

It's gonna be I think it's gonna be three or four hundred bucks.

Sara: 00:03:38

We're still finalizing that and I'm really excited about it.

Sara: 00:03:43

It is meant for media executives So practitioners and it's really for people who need sound voice Information to be able to make market moving decisions.

Sara: 00:03:54

Even if you work at a private company, we want to give you the right scoops, data analysis, and reporting to be able to make sound business decisions for your company.

Sara: 00:04:03

So what does that look like?

Sara: 00:04:04

Members will get access to platform updates every other quarter where we basically give you all the different changes to content moderation rules, advertising policies.

Sara: 00:04:15

speech policies.

Sara: 00:04:16

something like that doesn't currently exist to have that all in one place.

Sara: 00:04:19

we're going to do ad economic updates each, every other quarter, which categories are up, which categories are down.

Sara: 00:04:25

We'll do special reports on things that as a media executive, you need to know about, but you might not have the time to just sit and research it yourself.

Sara: 00:04:32

So deep dives on that.

Sara: 00:04:34

measurement, you know, what is happening with the state of all these various vendors, what's happening between

Sara: 00:04:38

Paramount and Nielsen will do things on copyright and IP will do things on the state of Hollywood's recovery.

Sara: 00:04:44

So it's really about giving people information to do their jobs better.

Sara: 00:04:48

And then my weekly column, which includes most of my big scoops and exclusives for now will remain free.

Brian: 00:04:53

for now?

Brian: 00:04:54

That's like a

Sara: 00:04:55

Yeah, I mean,

Brian: 00:04:56

promise and a threat.

Brian: 00:04:57

Everyone,

Sara: 00:04:58

I

Brian: 00:04:58

if you don't convert, Sarah's putting that behind the paywall.

Sara: 00:05:02

yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different options, but, and then obviously you'll get, we'll do a lot of different membership events, which I know, Brian,

Sara: 00:05:07

you do a ton of those, and I see you at a bunch of those, where you'll get to talk to me and my colleague Carrie Flynn, who's gonna be coming over to work on this with

Brian: 00:05:14

My former colleague.

Sara: 00:05:16

Your former colleague.

Sara: 00:05:17

And, I'm just super excited about it because I used to sell advertising and I used to feel as though, there wasn't this product that could act as a resource for me that existed out there.

Sara: 00:05:29

And so now I get to build it and I'm so pumped.

Brian: 00:05:32

Yeah.

Brian: 00:05:32

So the reason I think that I, that's very exciting that it's, it's coming out.

Brian: 00:05:35

So like Carrie and like, is Tim gonna, Tim Basinger, is he going to like contribute to

Sara: 00:05:40

Tim's amazing.

Sara: 00:05:40

We're going to keep, I would love to have contributors to it.

Sara: 00:05:43

And Tim's been so awesome.

Sara: 00:05:45

I think one of the, interesting things is I took a look at this market and we did it Axios.

Sara: 00:05:50

And one of the things that was so interesting was there's a lot of coverage right now of Hollywood.

Sara: 00:05:55

And we're going to continue to do Hollywood coverage.

Sara: 00:05:57

You know, I cover streamers and entertainment and sports, but where I felt there was a really interesting white space.

Sara: 00:06:02

I'm Is catering to the sort of the Madison Avenue community.

Sara: 00:06:06

They have so many great resources with things like ad age and ad week, but a lot of that is like agency moves.

Sara: 00:06:12

It's not some of the more, sort of tactical information around what platforms are doing, what the, where the ad economics are.

Sara: 00:06:19

And so we think there's a great opportunity there, but there's so much opportunity for expansion always.

Sara: 00:06:23

So yeah, well, maybe one day if we have more contributors come in, I'll give you a call, Brian.

Brian: 00:06:28

oh, okay.

Brian: 00:06:29

Well, great.

Brian: 00:06:29

no, but I think like because I wanted to talk to you about alternative media like going and we're doing these like like I'm doing we i'm doing these like year ahead and looking at specific

Brian: 00:06:38

sectors and to me like going into to this year It's going to be a fascinating year for what I consider alternative media All right, and that's everything doesn't fall into the mainstream media.

Brian: 00:06:49

And basically what I was like thinking last night was That You know, going back some old guy, like when, like the internet started, the, the assumption was that there'd be new players that would

Brian: 00:07:01

at some point either, you know, coexist or supplant the, the analog traditional media companies, the Condes, the Hearst, the, even the New York times, et cetera.

Brian: 00:07:11

And then.

Brian: 00:07:12

You know, that was where, you know, BuzzFeed and Vox and, and even Vice and Mike and all the rest of the, the, those got funded.

Brian: 00:07:20

But it turns out that like, it was a bunch of YouTubers and podcasters actually that ended up taking that role to some degree.

Brian: 00:07:28

Like, you know, and I think we're now seeing this really fascinating decentralization of the media ecosystem that when I think about it, Was inevitable.

Brian: 00:07:42

It's like looking back.

Brian: 00:07:42

I'm like, well, of course, this was inevitable.

Brian: 00:07:44

Like you democratize, you know distribution and then you're gonna democratize like creation and eventually the monetization systems We'll catch up and you're going to have complete chaos.

Brian: 00:08:00

That's my working theory.

Sara: 00:08:02

It does kind of feel like chaos right now, though.

Sara: 00:08:04

Like if you're a consumer, the opportunities for where you can get your content are so endless that it's almost hard to navigate.

Sara: 00:08:12

I think that's why platforms like TikTok have gotten so popular because the recommendation systems help you to navigate this deluge of creators.

Sara: 00:08:21

And to me, that's like another big next step, not just monetization, but discovery of all these new creators is going to be huge.

Brian: 00:08:29

But it's hard for me not to put, you know, next to each other.

Brian: 00:08:33

The, you know, the regular, you know, I, I, you know, you don't have all negative stories, right?

Brian: 00:08:38

I mean, we had a thing where we went through some of the headlines and previously, but you know, it's like,

Brian: 00:08:43

oh, dot dash Meredith, which is doing like, you know, some of the best of the traditional media, they just.

Brian: 00:08:48

Whacked 150 something after whacking 50, you know, they're a big company and you reprioritize, but come on, it's coming after the post takes

Brian: 00:08:57

out a hundred bucks, takes out, you know, it's, it gets a little, gets a little depressing in some ways, but then there has been a power shift.

Brian: 00:09:07

And I and money follows power to These I don't want us to call but alternative media we saw it.

Brian: 00:09:15

I mean I harp on it, but this election was a massive Wake up call I think to how much the pendulum in many ways has

Brian: 00:09:25

swung from the traditional media companies to this very strange chaotic group of alternative alternative media, right?

Sara: 00:09:35

Yeah, two thoughts first.

Sara: 00:09:37

One is on the layoffs part.

Sara: 00:09:39

This is a not a very regulated media with the exception or industry with the exception of, you know, local broadcast and radio.

Sara: 00:09:47

And so as a result, you are going to have job turnover because of the disruption.

Sara: 00:09:52

It's inevitable.

Sara: 00:09:53

And there's it's just not a, you know, it's not heavily regulated.

Sara: 00:09:57

So when I think about like a dot dash, yes, they are doing layoffs of whatever the number is this morning.

Sara: 00:10:03

I think I.

Sara: 00:10:03

Reported 143 or something like that, but they also added that to their headcount last year and they expect to add that to their headcount this year.

Sara: 00:10:11

It's really just that they're removing jobs that are not serving them.

Sara: 00:10:15

You know, they did big layoffs that targeted print, last time, so, or two times ago, so I think that's part of it.

Sara: 00:10:21

and then the other thing is on this election, the one thing I totally agree, it was a wake up call that there are alternative voices that are, you

Sara: 00:10:28

know, In many ways, more powerful and reach more people and a more diverse set of people than traditional media.

Sara: 00:10:34

But the one thing I will say, I did go through and I charted every single media appearance, both on the Trump side and the Kamala Harris side during the general election.

Sara: 00:10:41

So August to November and There were definitely more traditional media appearances on both sides than non traditional by far.

Sara: 00:10:50

In particular, like, Donald Trump was on Fox like every day.

Sara: 00:10:53

Kamala Harris was doing a ton of traditional radio.

Sara: 00:10:56

Donald Trump had an interview with the New York Post.

Sara: 00:10:58

So it's not, you know, and by comparison, they each did a few podcasts.

Sara: 00:11:02

But it was not as extreme as some people would say, but I do think your broader point is right.

Sara: 00:11:08

Like the tipping, we have reached the tipping point where I think most people in America are getting the news and information just as much, if not more, from these, alternative media sources.

Sara: 00:11:18

It definitely begs the question of what is the role then of what A traditional media company is, and I

Sara: 00:11:24

also think it's going to force us to redefine ourselves as do we want to be a traditional media company or not?

Sara: 00:11:28

I think that's why firms like Puck are doing very well because they are trying to kind of sit somewhere in the middle.

Brian: 00:11:34

Well, I mean, that's why I wanted to bring it sort of full circle here because like Axios is doing something very similar.

Brian: 00:11:40

I mean, with you, right?

Brian: 00:11:42

Like at the end of the day, I mean, Jim has, has said this, you know, you're going, you're going to be elevating.

Brian: 00:11:50

You know the you're one of the stars there i'll say it's there Okay, and like you're going to be elevating these people because there's a ton of leverage in what You know

Brian: 00:12:02

particularly like individuals can not just like do who are like highly productive and like you're like Everywhere at once.

Brian: 00:12:09

I don't know how you do that exactly but also like who have A tie to an audience, right?

Brian: 00:12:16

while people, you know, say, Oh, did you see that?

Brian: 00:12:19

And like, you know, Axios, like a lot of times they said, did you see Sarah's thing on X to me?

Brian: 00:12:26

Right.

Brian: 00:12:26

And there, that kind of thing has a lot of power in the marketplace.

Brian: 00:12:30

And then on top of that, I feel like, which is very different now from when I was coming up is people are.

Brian: 00:12:37

The people who are really good in this field are naturally ambidextrous and they can do They can not just like write but they can podcast They can host events

Brian: 00:12:49

And you know, and I think you're sort of seeing that the people who are able to do a bunch of different things Have a lot of leverage in the marketplace.

Brian: 00:12:58

So you've got this weird thing where There's all these layoffs and everything, but at the same time, there's this bifurcation within the

Brian: 00:13:07

overall content field, where if you do get through and you do have all of those prerequisites, and it is a power law, you've never had more options than ever.

Sara: 00:13:17

I couldn't agree more, and I thank you for the kind words, although I will say, like, there, the way that, you know, our industry might speak about me is the way that, the foreign affairs industry

Sara: 00:13:27

would speak about Barack Ravid, or the politics industry would speak about Alex Thompson, and so we're trying really hard to make sure that The right reporter is speaking to the right audience.

Sara: 00:13:37

And I think that helps to build what you're describing as star power.

Sara: 00:13:41

It's really just like a focus within Axios of making sure we're hyper serving the right audience with the right content.

Sara: 00:13:48

And the other thing I'd note too, is there is this big, This, this is happening across a lot of industries.

Sara: 00:13:53

I look at, my father was a doctor and one of the things he was so good at Brian is he would bring us to the same restaurant every Friday growing up.

Sara: 00:14:01

It was like a local in town, Italian diner, because he was so good at shaking hands with the patients that he would see and then meeting their parents.

Sara: 00:14:09

Oh, you're, you're in your seventies.

Sara: 00:14:11

Oh, like, you know, that person might need a hip gun, right?

Sara: 00:14:14

And then going to Jets games and socializing with people.

Sara: 00:14:17

And it became a skill that he wasn't just good at an operating room, but he was really good at being a community builder and that translated to business.

Sara: 00:14:24

And so I think that that is a skill that is not just for the media industry, but our industry in particular was so precious for so long that we viewed that.

Sara: 00:14:34

As being non journalistic for a long time, right?

Sara: 00:14:37

Like you weren't committed to the craft if you were to focus on audience building.

Sara: 00:14:41

And now I think our industry is catching up to what others have done and seen for a long time, which is recognizing that it actually can make you better at your job.

Sara: 00:14:49

If you can build community, you can learn from your community.

Sara: 00:14:51

You can get scoops from your community.

Sara: 00:14:52

And so for me, I view a lot of these efforts, as ability.

Sara: 00:14:56

My ability to improve journalism, and I'll give you one other example of that.

Sara: 00:15:00

With a lot of the B2B products that I just described to you, the thing I'm the most excited about, Brian,

Sara: 00:15:05

is that when you force yourself to go and sit through hours and hours of SEC filings, you're going to break scoops.

Sara: 00:15:12

If you go and force yourself to skip, sit through using bots or whatever technology you can, all of the policy updates on big tech platforms, You're going to break something.

Sara: 00:15:20

You're going to find something.

Sara: 00:15:21

Same thing with doing these ad economic supports.

Sara: 00:15:23

I once, you know, scooped through, scoped through a lot of data and found something no one else had found, and it was a huge scoop.

Sara: 00:15:29

So for me, this is about yes, like, developing closer relationships with the community, catering the work to do what they care about, but I

Sara: 00:15:37

ultimately think at the end of the day, it does support big J journalism, and that's something I'm thrilled about.

Brian: 00:15:43

I mean, again, I think this is the sort of, there was this, Julia Angwin at, at her, I think it's Jordan Steen Center about what sort of capital J journalism, can learn from influencers.

Brian: 00:15:54

Cause I think they, influencers, creators, whatever you want to call them, like have been held at like, Like, I went to like, journalism school, which I wouldn't recommend it for anyone listening.

Brian: 00:16:02

but like, there was always the broadcast people and there was the print.

Brian: 00:16:05

There was the print people, you know?

Brian: 00:16:07

And like, you knew the broadcast people.

Brian: 00:16:09

And like, you know, the print people were like, well, they've got good teeth and nice hair.

Brian: 00:16:14

And it was sort of looked, I don't want to say looked down upon, maybe it was, maybe it was in my circle, but, you

Brian: 00:16:20

know, it was looked at as like sort of, okay, well, that's, that's kind of not as like substantive in some ways.

Brian: 00:16:26

And I think packaging is incredibly important.

Brian: 00:16:28

I think packaging has changed quite a bit from, you know, The packaging of like the magazine and like the perfect like shot I mean once like covid made everything like a zoom call And and you

Brian: 00:16:39

see this with a lot of the podcasters and the youtubers some of them have really high production values, but like That's not like that's not the packaging.

Brian: 00:16:50

They're able to package like I I go back to this guy like coffee zilla Do you know him?

Sara: 00:16:55

I don't, but it sounds like somebody I would

Brian: 00:16:57

gotta check out CoffeeZilla.

Brian: 00:16:58

He's like 26, 27 or something.

Brian: 00:17:01

He was like a chemical engineering student, at Texas A& M.

Brian: 00:17:04

And he tried some YouTube channel and didn't totally, but then he got on to like, he just like, digs into like, online scams.

Brian: 00:17:11

And he just like, he's broken like, A bunch of different like online scams, mostly in crypto, just because

Brian: 00:17:17

the supply I think is really high, but like now beyond crypto and he packages it incredibly on YouTube.

Brian: 00:17:25

Like the product is way more attractive than.

Brian: 00:17:31

You know, I feel like a lot of times within like the journalism industrial complex It's like blaming the audience for not being you must

Brian: 00:17:39

are very serious like reporting here deserves your attention Well, he's doing investigative work, right?

Brian: 00:17:45

He's not credentialed.

Brian: 00:17:46

This isn't credentialed profession but he's packaging it in a really interesting way Like he has like a robot bartender who sometimes comes in to do a little exposition like it's different You Right?

Brian: 00:17:57

And I think for a long time, you know, the industry didn't look at that as something less substantive, if you

Sara: 00:18:05

I, I think that the industry was very caught up in writing for itself and writing for prizes and, you know, it goes, it harkens back to the thing I said at the top of this conversation.

Sara: 00:18:18

I.

Sara: 00:18:19

I feel as though I want to create a product for the people who are like me, who just needed to know the information faster to do their jobs.

Sara: 00:18:25

That's why I try to write at like a first grade reading level, but it also harkens to what you're doing here, right?

Sara: 00:18:30

Like we're talking on a podcast, you write a newsletter.

Sara: 00:18:32

It's no longer about having like the big web blog because people don't have time to sit at their desktops and read those long web blogs.

Sara: 00:18:38

But if you take a look at a lot of traditional media, like they basically copy for a long time, it's gotten better.

Sara: 00:18:45

They just copy and pasted their print format and put it on their website.

Sara: 00:18:48

The internet because it was all about how they perceived product and it was written for themselves and You know, the numbers don't lie.

Sara: 00:18:55

That does not work You're not going to have a sustainable audience by doing that So people are trying to shift but I will tell you brian One of the reasons these

Sara: 00:19:02

alternative media personalities are doing a good job Is they're not weighed down by this massive bureaucracy that makes it really hard to change Like if tiktok

Sara: 00:19:12

goes away tomorrow, these creators are like, all right, i'm going to shift to reels You All right, I'm gonna start putting more on my podcast on YouTube.

Sara: 00:19:18

You know, they're just gonna shift.

Sara: 00:19:20

Big media companies, they hire departments, they have union issues.

Sara: 00:19:24

It's just very hard to shift.

Brian: 00:19:26

Yeah.

Brian: 00:19:26

And that's the part that I think is going to be interesting in the year to come.

Brian: 00:19:29

I mean, already this year, we've seen instances of, you know, well known people departing you know, whether it's at the Washington Post, was a Jen Rubin and Norm, that's Norm Eisen, are, are splitting out.

Brian: 00:19:42

And some of that is that, you know, billionaire, billionaire, Backlash which you talked about we can talk about that in a little bit.

Brian: 00:19:47

Ashley Vance is going out like on his own Piers Morgan is like, you know, he's he's a youtuber now.

Brian: 00:19:55

Um

Sara: 00:19:55

I mean all the Megyn Kelly is killing it.

Sara: 00:19:58

SiriusXM and Tucker Carlson is on his own and I mean, I think a lot of, this is what I hear from talent agents.

Sara: 00:20:05

They're all saying to me, people who represent TV people, they're like, they want to go to the companies like

Sara: 00:20:11

yours where they can develop their own audience, where they can be in touch with 21st century modern products.

Sara: 00:20:18

Because it's not that, you know, TV used to be super glamorous, but the inability to reach people where they are in a digital era has made people nervous for their safety and security.

Sara: 00:20:29

And I say this as a TV contributor.

Sara: 00:20:31

it's, it's a real concern.

Brian: 00:20:33

Well the salaries also are coming down because they you know when the ratings are smaller like I mean Everything gets compressed and so like,

Brian: 00:20:40

you know, youtube looks more attractive if you're taking like a 40 or 50 percent haircut At least that's my theory

Sara: 00:20:47

yes.

Sara: 00:20:47

But you know what's interesting, Brian, is if you can do the direct to consumer thing, well, you can make more money.

Sara: 00:20:53

I mean, I, I look at what Oliver Darcy is doing.

Sara: 00:20:56

I think he's doing a fantastic job with his subscription newsletter, and I think it's be, I think it's very commercially successful as well.

Sara: 00:21:02

And that's a testament to if you take the risk, sometimes the reward can be even better.

Brian: 00:21:08

right.

Brian: 00:21:08

that's why I think, you know, this year is where, you know, sort of quote unquote, mainstream media, institutional media, whatever you want to call it, sort of comes to terms with alternative media.

Brian: 00:21:18

What do they take from it?

Brian: 00:21:19

What can they learn from it?

Brian: 00:21:21

you know, you don't want to go too far in the direction.

Brian: 00:21:24

Like, I don't think like everyone needs to be an internet personality, God forbid.

Brian: 00:21:29

Right.

Brian: 00:21:29

And I think.

Brian: 00:21:30

You gotta, you gotta, you gotta play to your leverage and your strength.

Brian: 00:21:34

And if you're a journalistic organization, like don't overthink it.

Brian: 00:21:37

Like your strength is journalism.

Brian: 00:21:39

Like, you know, like let's

Sara: 00:21:41

doing a good job?

Sara: 00:21:42

ESPN, I think, is doing a pretty good job.

Sara: 00:21:45

You know, so they, they struck the Pat McAfee deal.

Sara: 00:21:47

And then they brought on Shams from The Athletic.

Sara: 00:21:51

And, you know, when I interview their executives about it, Mark

Brian: 00:21:54

A, Stephen A is

Sara: 00:21:56

Stephen A, exactly.

Sara: 00:21:57

They, they'll tell you, like, we don't fully have this fleshed out on what a talent contract looks

Sara: 00:22:02

like for someone like Shams, versus, like, a TV producer, you know, or, or like a, a digital reporter.

Sara: 00:22:09

But they recognize that they can't overthink it, and they just need to get these people in the door and start creating products around them.

Sara: 00:22:15

I think you're going to start to see a lot more of that.

Brian: 00:22:17

Yeah.

Brian: 00:22:18

And you think about like how different this is.

Brian: 00:22:20

That's a great example, because if you think about how different this is, then, Ten years ago, five years ago, I mean, like Bill Simmons was being was being sidelined because he popped

Brian: 00:22:31

off about Roger Goodell, then you go to like recently, like Pat McAfee, like, went after Norby Williamson, like crickets, Norby, then ended up like, you know, shuffling towards the door.

Brian: 00:22:41

It's like there has been a, a, a, Bit of a power shift, I feel like and, you know, these organizations, all of them are going to have to figure out how they how they, you know, incubate.

Brian: 00:22:55

I don't know what the word is.

Brian: 00:22:56

The journalists hate the word talent.

Brian: 00:22:58

I feel like, because it sounds very like I'm going to be in my trailer kind of Hollywood thing.

Brian: 00:23:04

But if anyone has a different term for it, all ears, but they're going to have to figure out a way to accommodate their talent.

Brian: 00:23:08

Like, I mean, for instance, like the Washington post, you know, what are they, they're doing there, they now

Brian: 00:23:12

have like a talent unit, like, I mean, some of this is just like on, you know, it's just like semantics and whatnot.

Sara: 00:23:18

Yeah.

Sara: 00:23:18

I mean, my view on that is do really good journalism and the rest falls into place.

Sara: 00:23:24

Do you need to put a little bit of effort in to be multimedia efficient?

Sara: 00:23:29

Yes.

Sara: 00:23:30

But I think the, the number one focus should be the journalism and you know this better than anyone, Brian, there's

Sara: 00:23:35

nothing more cringey when someone is trying to be in quote talent or a star, but they don't have the goods to back it.

Sara: 00:23:42

Like that does not work.

Brian: 00:23:43

Yeah.

Brian: 00:23:44

No, you need to have, you need to have, I hope you need to have substance, like, right?

Brian: 00:23:48

Like, I mean, there's, there's ways to have, I always said like, you know, personality and, and that kind of thing are like side dishes.

Brian: 00:23:55

They're not an entree.

Brian: 00:23:56

And this is not a tapas restaurant.

Brian: 00:23:59

Carrie can probably attest that I regularly tell people this is not a tapas restaurant.

Brian: 00:24:04

We need main dishes for stories.

Brian: 00:24:06

We don't just need a bunch of little sides.

Sara: 00:24:09

totally.

Sara: 00:24:10

The thing that's hard though, I will say as somebody who's trying to be multimedia and every single journalist

Sara: 00:24:17

has to create their own menu of, if you will, and, we don't all have good skills across all platforms.

Sara: 00:24:24

So I'll give you a good example of that.

Sara: 00:24:26

I am personable and I love to hang.

Sara: 00:24:29

But I'm not like a witty.

Sara: 00:24:30

I'm not like funny.

Sara: 00:24:32

So me, I'm not going to be one of those people that builds a huge audience on threads because I have good hot takes.

Sara: 00:24:38

That's just not my vibe.

Sara: 00:24:39

I'm also not somebody who's like good at taking pictures.

Sara: 00:24:42

So like, you're not going to see me crush it on Instagram.

Sara: 00:24:45

But can I post a scoop with a good hashtag on LinkedIn?

Sara: 00:24:49

Yes, that is where I can thrive.

Sara: 00:24:51

So it's like, I, I, I lean in where I know I can.

Sara: 00:24:54

I'm good on stages.

Sara: 00:24:55

I'm bad on podcasts, even though you, you, I don't know why you invite me back, but

Brian: 00:24:59

you're very good on podcasts.

Sara: 00:25:00

Oh, you're kind.

Sara: 00:25:02

You're kind.

Sara: 00:25:03

But, you know, it's like you kinda, as a journalist, have to figure out what are the places where you can shine

Sara: 00:25:07

and where you can't, because if you try to be everything, everywhere, all at once, you learn nothing to no one.

Brian: 00:25:13

Yeah, that's like the, it's like the personal peanut butter manifesto.

Brian: 00:25:17

There was this like famous memo that Brad Garlinghouse wrote when he was at Yahoo.

Brian: 00:25:21

Now, he's, he runs Ripple now.

Brian: 00:25:23

He's in crypto.

Brian: 00:25:24

But he wrote it with, yeah, during like Yahoo, like right when it was like sort of falling apart and beginning to fall apart.

Brian: 00:25:31

He said, we're like, we're like a piece of bread that where you smear the peanut butter, like so far to the edges, it becomes like almost like you can't even taste it.

Brian: 00:25:40

And you know, I think people can, can, can fall into that trap.

Brian: 00:25:44

but let's talk about like how you see, first of all, do you think that we'll continue to see, you know talent, whatever well known people like like leak out to these this independent path I mean like

Brian: 00:25:56

substack I went back, you know, it's almost been five years from when ben Smith wrote that article about like how I think it was his first column with the

Brian: 00:26:06

new york times about how you know, the new york times was like, you know, very Had a lot of trepidation about Substack, you know, stealing their, their thunder.

Brian: 00:26:13

Now that didn't really happen, but like, Substack has continued to like, sort of, you know, attract people.

Brian: 00:26:19

Paul Krugman is on there now.

Brian: 00:26:21

Nate Silver went over there.

Brian: 00:26:22

I mean, there's, there's a thriving ecosystem there.

Brian: 00:26:25

I mean, there's some parts of Substack I don't totally like as, as a, as a person who left there, but, You know, and then Beehive is, is, is, you know,

Brian: 00:26:33

they've got Oliver Darcy over there and, and a few others and, and they're gonna look to build up this kind of thing.

Brian: 00:26:38

But then like, you know, YouTube and people just kind of piecing it together.

Brian: 00:26:42

I mean, is this, do you think this, this has further legs this year?

Sara: 00:26:47

I do.

Sara: 00:26:47

So I think what's happening is people develop brands while they're at these big institutions.

Sara: 00:26:52

And then once they reach a critical enough mass where they feel confident, then they can move over and go independent.

Sara: 00:26:59

And the risk is not as big.

Sara: 00:27:01

They know there's an audience that will come follow them.

Sara: 00:27:04

And so the calculation you have to make is one, like, am I going to be, doing enough things that I wanted to do that I couldn't do previously to make it worth it?

Sara: 00:27:13

Two, am I going to be making, enough money to sustain my salary and if you're independent, you know, paying for health insurance and all of those things.

Sara: 00:27:19

And then three, do I have the resources I need to do the right journalism?

Sara: 00:27:22

I think that third consideration is a big one because I know for me, as someone who sits in a newsroom, having access to Mike Allen's brain, having

Sara: 00:27:30

access to newsroom lawyers, having access to colleagues who have specialized, you know, sources in other areas, I

Brian: 00:27:37

Yeah.

Sara: 00:27:38

That's what fuels what I do.

Sara: 00:27:40

So for me, I, those are all things I'd have to weigh.

Sara: 00:27:43

But if you are somebody who, is willing to make, has evaluated those trade offs and went to make the risk, you now have the option.

Sara: 00:27:51

Like the, the difference, Brian, is that people didn't use to have the option.

Sara: 00:27:54

And then the other thing I'll also say about this is it used to be that if you were a journalist and you lost your job, you went and you freelanced for other news organizations.

Sara: 00:28:02

Now I find what's happening is if you're a journalist and you lost your job, you can get another job in a more sustainable field.

Sara: 00:28:10

Like you can go into PR and still write a sub stack or you can go and just write books and do paid speeches and write a sub stack and make money that way.

Sara: 00:28:17

And.

Sara: 00:28:18

That's a sustainable career.

Sara: 00:28:20

That didn't exist like 10 years ago.

Sara: 00:28:23

So now people have more options.

Sara: 00:28:25

And for a lot of folks, that's actually more attractive than going to another newsroom that might do another round of layoffs in a year.

Brian: 00:28:32

Exactly.

Brian: 00:28:33

I mean, I, I just like the, I couldn't agree more because all of the paths that were seen to be safe, safe and safer have become almost more perilous, to be honest with you.

Brian: 00:28:45

Like, I mean, there's a lot of trade offs to, you know, going out on your own and hanging out a shingle, like running a business is a pain in the ass.

Brian: 00:28:52

I don't care what anyone says.

Brian: 00:28:54

and there's just a lot more uncertainty, but at the same time.

Brian: 00:28:58

Not a lot of certainty, like these people are cutting people nonstop, like, and so like, like, if you want certainty, this is, this ain't, this ain't the place for you.

Sara: 00:29:07

yes, and there's another thing that's happened in the Trump era that's, changes the calculus, which is an organization that was once perceived as

Sara: 00:29:15

so prestigious and uniform universally admired now has become mired in politics and ways that could damage your ability to do good journalism and sourcing.

Sara: 00:29:24

An example of that would be, I think that, you know, for example, the New York times is excellent journalism, gold standard journalism.

Sara: 00:29:32

However.

Sara: 00:29:33

It is harder if you're working there to get Republicans to take you seriously and to talk to you because of the way that that publication has been demonized in the Trump era.

Sara: 00:29:41

There's just no question about it.

Sara: 00:29:43

So now as a journalist, you have to make considerations based off of the reputations that legacy media has.

Sara: 00:29:51

And I think about these next four years.

Sara: 00:29:53

It's going to be very hard for some of these legacy media organizations to get the same kind of access.

Sara: 00:29:58

not saying that you need, necessarily need access to do great journalism, but I mean, it helps.

Sara: 00:30:04

If you think about it, all these CEOs going down to Mar a Lago to take meetings, knowing who's going into Mar a Lago requires you to have sourcing in Mar a Lago, access in Mar a Lago.

Sara: 00:30:13

So, I do think it's a tough time for mainstream media as well, given some of those political dynamics.

Brian: 00:30:19

Speaking of the political dynamics, I mean, how, when it comes to alternative media, so like, use, let's just use Manosphere in some ways, like

Brian: 00:30:27

this collection of podcasters, YouTubers, Independent writers upstart publications like like daily wire like it seems pretty clear that One they're very male, right?

Brian: 00:30:43

I think that's why it's called manosphere two they're more conservative and we're in a Than than mainstream media, right?

Brian: 00:30:50

They're we're in a period of both populism And I think a, a, a cycle where we just, the, the, the populace has moved, right.

Brian: 00:31:01

I mean, I didn't,

Sara: 00:31:03

I mean, the, the exit

Brian: 00:31:04

I was alive during the Reagan sort of revolution, but I wasn't like super astute into politics.

Brian: 00:31:09

Cause I was like

Sara: 00:31:10

You hate D.

Sara: 00:31:11

C., Brian, we've gone over this.

Sara: 00:31:12

No, but you're, you're totally right, like, the election proves this, you know, like, the vast majority of U.

Sara: 00:31:17

S.

Sara: 00:31:17

states shifted to the right, and I do think that the media personalities that are ascending, Reflect what you're saying, especially because if you think about

Sara: 00:31:24

the main social discourse platform for a long time Which was X is now owned by Elon Musk and a lot of the changes that he's made to the platform intentionally

Sara: 00:31:32

elevate those types of perspectives But I also think that a lot of the trust has been broken with mainstream media and as a result There is an audience

Sara: 00:31:42

thirst For these types of voices, like they're not just you, you're not just willy nilly becoming big for because they're, you know, close to Trump.

Sara: 00:31:50

It's because people want their point of view.

Sara: 00:31:52

And there's something about there's something to be said about what the mainstream media should learn from that.

Sara: 00:31:59

I think For one, no, no matter what, any journalist, anyone who considers themselves a journalist, needs to be truth based and fact based.

Sara: 00:32:07

But the way you deliver it needs to be done in a way that has deep respect for all perspectives.

Sara: 00:32:13

And I think that has been something that, the mainstream media didn't quite understand up until this last election, how much that matters.

Brian: 00:32:21

And that's a tough lesson to learn.

Brian: 00:32:23

I mean, it's, it's, it's presentational, but it's something kind of deeper.

Brian: 00:32:26

I believe like the, the New York times actually had a good piece.

Brian: 00:32:29

I think it was today.

Brian: 00:32:30

I don't know if you saw this, like it was masculinity, podcasts and like Trump voters and they, they had, You know, it

Brian: 00:32:36

was, it was neatly packaged, but it, they had, basically a focus group, mostly of, of middle aged men, to be honest with you.

Brian: 00:32:43

but one of the questions that they had asked the focus group was what builds trust and the people you listen to regularly, because, you know, they asked, I think there was a group of, 12.

Brian: 00:32:53

Okay, and they asked, do you consider podcasts one of the main forms, one of the main ways that you get information about the world?

Brian: 00:32:59

And 10 out of 12 raised their hands to this.

Brian: 00:33:03

And then the follow up question was, was this about what builds trust in the people you listen to regularly?

Brian: 00:33:07

One of the answers was, it has a lot to do with common sense.

Brian: 00:33:10

Right a lot of what's in newspapers and the drive by media It's just not common sense facts there and I was like, okay, I can kind of see that I mean sometimes I read stuff and i'm like, you know, but the

Brian: 00:33:21

other one that I think was really um kind of spot on Was john 45 from pennsylvania I'm looking for hosts that approach a topic out of curiosity, and I think that is something that a lot of times people

Brian: 00:33:37

wave around like authenticity a lot, and I'm like, I don't, it's really hard to say what, you know, does that mean you can, you sometimes say offensive things?

Brian: 00:33:45

but, I think curiosity is what it is.

Brian: 00:33:48

And it's just sometimes it's real or perceived curiosity, right?

Brian: 00:33:51

Like, because sometimes, I believe that people perceive that the mainstream media has arrived at, the decision and they're just assembling facts to, to, to support that.

Brian: 00:34:02

Do you know what I mean?

Brian: 00:34:03

And like,

Sara: 00:34:03

agree more.

Brian: 00:34:04

With Joe Rogan, I think a lot of people have tried to like understand what is the appeal here, because, you know, you, you listen to him,

Brian: 00:34:13

look, a lot of people are like highly educated will listen to Joe Rogan and be like, really, this Oh God.

Brian: 00:34:20

And I think what it comes down to is he's, he's.

Brian: 00:34:23

You know, genuinely, at least he presents, is genuinely, like, curious about things and about how things work and why they are.

Brian: 00:34:31

Now sometimes that leads into the just asking questions kind of stuff that all of a sudden you're like, did we land on the moon?

Brian: 00:34:38

But, you know, I do think that that's a good point to take, really.

Sara: 00:34:42

100 percent and I will say what trips me up all the time.

Sara: 00:34:46

It's hard for me a lot of times to have personal politics because when you're genuinely curious, you can very much see, especially on policy matters.

Sara: 00:34:55

The benefits, and challenges to many different points of view.

Sara: 00:34:59

I feel this way all the time when I'm covering like media policy with the FCC, I can a hundred percent see why somebody wants to prioritize one thing.

Sara: 00:35:07

If you're a democratic commissioner and another thing, if you're a Republican commissioner, the problem, Brian, is that in the era of.

Sara: 00:35:13

big traffic and clicks on Facebook, the media industry became addicted to the hot take because that was what fueled that type of engagement.

Sara: 00:35:22

And I don't think that we have been able to wear that muscle down.

Sara: 00:35:26

I think we're still stuck with, okay, what is going to be the hot angle that can get people's attention?

Sara: 00:35:34

And typically it's a hot take and that's an opinion that you're trying to backfill.

Sara: 00:35:38

And if we were more focused on curiosity, You might not get as many of those, like, very clicky headlines, but you can have more interesting conversations.

Sara: 00:35:47

I think podcasts, too, is a good medium for having interesting conversations and being curious.

Sara: 00:35:51

It's really hard to do that in 280 characters, where for a long time, that's where the media Business got its traffic, right?

Sara: 00:35:59

Teeny little snippets of text.

Sara: 00:36:02

So, if we're moving into new mediums, like podcasts, that can allow for longer form conversations, or sub stack, right, like independent newsletters that can

Sara: 00:36:10

allow for more conversational type of text, or even video like YouTube, vlogs, There should be a room for more sort of like curious discussion and I

Sara: 00:36:21

do think that some media companies do it I think I love what Lulu, Garcia Navarro is doing at the New York Times.

Sara: 00:36:26

That's essentially just you know, a podcast where she's interviewing people about you know Answering interesting questions overwhelmingly These, a lot

Sara: 00:36:35

of media companies, they are perceived by average Americans as just trying to get clicks, big headlines, hot takes, and it is at this point a huge turnoff.

Sara: 00:36:46

And also, let's not forget, it's such a huge trust problem that even if they're not trying to do a hot take, and that is genuinely the truth, at this point people just don't believe it.

Brian: 00:36:56

yeah, yeah.

Brian: 00:36:58

What is your, what, how do you think, because I think like some, like when, when we talk about alternative media, a lot of it is like smaller, and there's so many different advantages in that they don't

Brian: 00:37:08

have what you were describing before, that there's, there's a massive apparatus that is involved in publishing, and, and most of it is, is, is really needed, right?

Brian: 00:37:17

Like, I mean, the apparatus I often miss it.

Brian: 00:37:19

Like it, it saves you from yourself.

Brian: 00:37:21

Sometimes there's all kinds of things that, that happen in publishing that have nothing to do with actually producing the content, even though I'm biased, I think producing the content

Brian: 00:37:31

is the most important job, but, you know, I think, you know, when you have a different like cost base, when you go independent, it just, it's tremendous.

Brian: 00:37:39

There's just so much advantage.

Brian: 00:37:41

You can not only, you can move faster.

Brian: 00:37:43

Like you said, you know, you're.

Brian: 00:37:45

You, you don't, you're not carrying these like massive, like costs that a lot of these companies are, are trying to unwind.

Brian: 00:37:53

Now we're seeing some people who you either like stay super lean and just like focus on margins and have like great businesses like there's tons of people on Substack who have like amazing businesses

Brian: 00:38:04

and basically have No cost outside of the the 10 percent to substack and like 3 percent or whatever 2 percent to stripe, you know And that's that's great.

Brian: 00:38:14

Like those margins like work really well But there's others who want to build like new public new new media companies like free press and What is your outlook

Brian: 00:38:24

because I'm interested in how they end up building these companies free press seems like they're going on a very traditional path if you ask me, but

Sara: 00:38:32

Yeah,

Brian: 00:38:32

interested in your take on this.

Sara: 00:38:34

look, every matter in the universe starts with one atom.

Sara: 00:38:37

So everyone has to start small to an extent, right?

Sara: 00:38:40

And the question becomes, how big do you want to get?

Sara: 00:38:46

in relation to your goals.

Sara: 00:38:48

So if you're somebody who says, I want a reward, I want to pay out, but it doesn't, but I don't need to be the next great publishing executive that's changed the world.

Sara: 00:39:01

Then I look at businesses like punch bowl, like the anchor, like payload, like the rebooting, where they are niche, they are cost efficient.

Sara: 00:39:10

They reach a great audience.

Sara: 00:39:12

If any of those businesses decided to expand out from where they were, you know, if Punchbowl wants to move from congressional news to doing greater lobbying in Washington news, if the

Sara: 00:39:20

rebooting wants to move from, you know, marketing digital media to also take on a little bit more of tech, if Anchlor wants to move from Hollywood into really

Sara: 00:39:28

getting into culture and people and music and all those types of things, You all have developed enough trust that you have licensed to expand that way.

Sara: 00:39:38

The question becomes how big do you expand before you sell or before you decide that this is where you would like

Sara: 00:39:45

to plateau and stay and the decision you make will impact your legacy depending on what you want it to be.

Sara: 00:39:52

Like I said, if you want to be the next great publishing executive that goes down in history books, you're going to want to expand your legacy.

Sara: 00:39:58

It almost infinitely, right?

Sara: 00:39:59

Be a big media company.

Sara: 00:40:01

If you're somebody who, Oh man, like Mike, I got debt.

Sara: 00:40:04

My kid's got to go to college.

Sara: 00:40:05

Like I just need a few million, like go niche, sell it to a trade pub.

Sara: 00:40:10

Get your few million, do your three year earn out.

Sara: 00:40:13

And then you can go do whatever you want.

Sara: 00:40:15

It just depends on like what your personal goals are and what you're trying to achieve.

Sara: 00:40:19

Where I see companies get stuck is when the founding teams and the management teams are not aligned on what that goal is.

Sara: 00:40:26

And one person wants to sell and one person wants to grow.

Sara: 00:40:29

That's where it can get really, really ugly.

Brian: 00:40:31

Yeah, BuzzFeed.

Brian: 00:40:33

that was the John, John Steinberg wanted to, to, to, and John was right, he wanted to sell to, to, to Disney, and, and Jonah did, wanted to replace

Sara: 00:40:41

And, and by the way, one thing that's fascinating with binary decisions like that, you.

Sara: 00:40:47

Yes, you can aggregate as much data, and educate yourself as much to make the best decision possible, but you will never know what would have happened if you made the other call.

Sara: 00:40:57

It's almost impossible.

Sara: 00:40:58

And so there's always this, you know, hindsight is 2020 vision type of thing when it comes to the growth.

Sara: 00:41:05

Oh, if we had just sold now, or if we had just held out, we could have exited here.

Sara: 00:41:10

It's, it's a very, very difficult and delicate dance.

Sara: 00:41:13

But I do think the ones that are the most successful are the ones that I've identified as a cohesive unit, as a founding team, we are all aligned

Sara: 00:41:22

and we want the same thing out of our exit when that is either we want money or we want to grow really big.

Sara: 00:41:27

Those are the most successful companies.

Brian: 00:41:29

So you, you've, you've reported on, Daily Wire.

Brian: 00:41:32

Right.

Brian: 00:41:32

And this is like a really, this is one that's like really fascinating to me because they're, they're very ambitious as a

Sara: 00:41:39

Mm

Brian: 00:41:39

Um, and they've got a lot of different business lines that I don't think, you know, regular people like fully understand.

Brian: 00:41:48

Right.

Brian: 00:41:48

And, and they're under monetized.

Brian: 00:41:50

I can tell, like, I mean, just by the people who are advertising, like, I'll listen to, like, Ben Shapiro sometimes, and he'll just, like, you know, break

Brian: 00:41:57

in and start telling me about some kind of, like, prepper gear, you know, and I'm like, hey, I appreciate the hustle.

Brian: 00:42:03

and, you know, every, I honor all revenue, Sarah.

Brian: 00:42:06

But,

Sara: 00:42:06

are.

Sara: 00:42:07

Corporate, corporate's starting to creep in.

Sara: 00:42:08

I will give the right wing media that.

Sara: 00:42:11

In the Trump era, first of all, Republicans have been putting a lot of pressure on the advertising community.

Brian: 00:42:16

That's why they're super well positioned.

Brian: 00:42:18

That money that would always be going not just to Axios and Politico and stuff like that's gonna start to go to these like more conservative manga site.

Sara: 00:42:25

correct, and if the audience is there, then it absolutely should.

Sara: 00:42:29

And, when it comes to someone like the Daily Wire, They do have a very clear vision, they want to do entertainment, and they, the problem with entertainment is that it's a low margin game, like

Sara: 00:42:40

production is really, really expensive, but they see a world where the biggest game out there, especially for kids entertainment, is Disney, and there is no real conservative alternative.

Sara: 00:42:51

So they found a white space, they are going after it, and I also think what they have done very well is they've They grew this massive audience on, on Facebook through paid acquisition.

Sara: 00:43:02

That massive audience helped them build the massive podcast audience that once the Facebook distribution became less relevant, it was okay

Sara: 00:43:10

because at this point they now have the podcast audience and they're using the podcast audience to hawk this now the subscriptions to daily wire plus.

Sara: 00:43:17

So they've been very, very smart and strategic.

Sara: 00:43:20

And I will tell you, Brian, one of my big pet peeves with like media there's so much attention sometimes on like the

Sara: 00:43:26

big three cable news networks, the big three broadcast networks, and the legacy media companies, and the big papers.

Sara: 00:43:32

Because people don't want to explore sometimes the partisan media because it's partisan or because it's private.

Sara: 00:43:38

And to me, that's where some of the big, big media opportunities are coming from.

Sara: 00:43:42

You know, even Rumble just raised hundreds of millions of dollars quietly, like a couple weeks ago.

Sara: 00:43:47

I mean, they're publicly traded, but That is a story that didn't get as much pickup and attention as I would have expected, and it's huge.

Sara: 00:43:54

So there's a lot of those kinds of

Brian: 00:43:55

Yeah.

Brian: 00:43:56

I mean that's an example of like honestly like a lot of the sort of the echo chamber to some degree because it's like, you know, we all, Like I love Puck, but we all read Puck.

Brian: 00:44:06

It's like we probably give it more attention than it like, you know, because that, that's always been the case.

Brian: 00:44:11

And I think that's where I think the, the election was a needed, like sort of wake up call that there is an alternative media, you know, system that is not being built.

Brian: 00:44:21

It's being built.

Brian: 00:44:22

Built and it is continuing to grow and some of it is MAGA media.

Brian: 00:44:26

Some of it is like MAGA adjacent media.

Brian: 00:44:29

Like I don't consider.

Sara: 00:44:30

Christian media is having a moment.

Sara: 00:44:33

I will tell you, Brian, this is why I'm so passionate about this membership, because we want to create a Scoops

Sara: 00:44:39

insights reporting that caters to business decision makers that need to do, make decisions off of sound, sober insights.

Sara: 00:44:49

And to me, sound, sober insights means you don't let your personal opinions about any of these companies.

Sara: 00:44:56

Impact your ability to describe their business success or failure.

Sara: 00:45:00

That is, I think what's been really missing for a lot of people in this industry, if daily wire is valued at well over a billion dollars, which

Sara: 00:45:07

I reported, that is something that a lot of institutional investors want to know and need to know.

Sara: 00:45:14

So we want to provide them with that information, but I think you're right.

Sara: 00:45:17

A lot of traditional reporting has kind of shied away from elevating that because they, tend to do reporting sort of amongst themselves.

Sara: 00:45:25

And, and, and, and, and that's, that's valuable as well.

Sara: 00:45:29

We just, you kind of need to go a little broader.

Brian: 00:45:31

yeah, no, I, I, I completely agree.

Brian: 00:45:34

And I think, you know, these, I think these companies will get a lot more focused this year because, you

Brian: 00:45:40

know, just the way things are going, like pressure exists everywhere and the pressure on everyone.

Brian: 00:45:48

Ad budgets are, they're going to move into this area.

Brian: 00:45:52

It's just an easy choice.

Brian: 00:45:53

There's a reason.

Brian: 00:45:55

Look at how much money Trump has been banking in this inauguration.

Brian: 00:45:58

Like they're, they don't even have perks to give people.

Brian: 00:46:02

They're like, yeah, thanks for your million dollars.

Brian: 00:46:04

You get nothing like, I mean, that is just the way it works.

Brian: 00:46:09

And you know, if, if your choice.

Brian: 00:46:12

As group M or someone else is to get hauled before, Jim Jordan's, like whatever commission he has going on, whatever hearing he's going to have,

Brian: 00:46:22

or if it's to like, CTC to cut the check you're you're just gonna ctc like and and and It is kind of catch up, you know, there is a lot more.

Brian: 00:46:33

you know, there there's a lot of audiences there The reality is the the mainstream media has lost a large portion of of the the populace and those people are Actually getting information.

Brian: 00:46:46

It's just it's from different places at the end of the day last thing I wanted to get your your take on

Brian: 00:46:51

because like i'm trying to overcome like an addiction to x like What what is your where where do you see x go?

Brian: 00:46:59

I mean, I would love to you to say like you can safely ignore it So I never have to open it up again and see like another fight video or something about some immigration outrage in europe that

Brian: 00:47:09

has nothing to do with me and I guess Sorry, it's happening or whatever like good luck dealing with it, but I kind of feel like he in some ways pulled this off

Sara: 00:47:19

Totally pulled it off, and I'll tell you, I, I rely on X, I like X, especially if you're a sports fan.

Sara: 00:47:25

You know, you're still gonna go to X for most of your live sports insights and award shows, I'm going there for

Sara: 00:47:31

updates on what's happening and who's watching, walking the red carpet, it's still the primary social discourse app in

Brian: 00:47:36

do my little snarky tweets I used to be able to do a little snarky tweets that got lots of likes about like sports and like little you know things

Sara: 00:47:42

and you can't because they're just not getting engagement.

Brian: 00:47:45

Yes, there's no point.

Brian: 00:47:46

It's just, it's all like, it's all like outrageous.

Brian: 00:47:48

It's funny because I, I miss that part of it and there still is utility to it and particularly, you know, during like the NFL playoff games and whatnot.

Brian: 00:47:57

But like, I find like posting their kind of point.

Sara: 00:48:01

Well, I think that the market will always adapt.

Sara: 00:48:02

So if somebody like you feels like that platform can no longer serve that need, other platforms will rise to serve the

Sara: 00:48:09

need, whether or not they can build enough traction to actually grow to serve an audience is the big question.

Sara: 00:48:18

I think you're going to see more niche platforms serving niche audiences.

Sara: 00:48:21

For example, blue sky, blue sky is like now the platform for journalists.

Sara: 00:48:24

That's what it feels like.

Sara: 00:48:26

Threads feels like it's the platform for sort of everyday people who don't want to talk about politics.

Sara: 00:48:31

X is still the place where people go, as you said, for current events and outrage.

Sara: 00:48:34

So, I, get, combat, I agree.

Sara: 00:48:37

And I, I, you know, I actually think X's biggest challenge is going to be that technologically speaking, they,

Sara: 00:48:43

they laid off so many people that there's just too many kinks in the platform that they have to get through.

Sara: 00:48:47

For example, if your account gets hijacked, There's no customer service.

Sara: 00:48:51

You're never getting that account back.

Sara: 00:48:52

That's actually a serious problem for them.

Sara: 00:48:54

They want to grow their business.

Sara: 00:48:55

So I think that there's going to be room for alternatives.

Sara: 00:48:58

I don't know that anyone's going to, you know, unsurface Elon especially if he gets his hands on Tik TOK, although I'm very skeptical of that.

Sara: 00:49:04

But, I still use it.

Sara: 00:49:05

And I also was never an ex hater by the way, like all these people, and maybe it's because I've gotten to know Linda Yacobino very well.

Sara: 00:49:12

And I kind of understand their vision a little bit, but there was so many people that were saying like, you know, this is unusable and this is whatever, but they were saying that on X, right?

Sara: 00:49:20

They were still posting it on X.

Sara: 00:49:22

So I've tried to never come out swinging hard and say like, you know I'm not using this and this isn't going to

Sara: 00:49:27

work and this isn't great but what I do think is if they can't address market needs which are both product, right?

Sara: 00:49:32

Like again, it's a huge issue if you get locked out of your account and you have no way to get it back or if you feel like it's not secure or it's not loading well And if they can't address

Sara: 00:49:41

engagement concerns, if people don't can't feel like they can build community, like you were just saying, then people will go elsewhere and they're going to have a problem for now, though.

Sara: 00:49:48

There's just not a quite a good elsewhere yet.

Brian: 00:49:51

It's interesting.

Brian: 00:49:51

Like I, 'cause I think my issue of it was, was more like, it was too good, it was too addictive.

Brian: 00:49:56

Like it played to, like, it's my weakness.

Brian: 00:49:58

It's not like, you know, and it played to my weaknesses.

Brian: 00:50:00

I, I would always, I would compare it to like menthol cigarettes.

Brian: 00:50:04

I mean, I don't smoke, but if I did like, menthols are not good for you.

Brian: 00:50:08

and I would just find that I would get pulled into too many directions 'cause like, I wanna use it.

Brian: 00:50:14

To like, you know, for media news, like, but like, I want to use it for that, but I, I feel like it's, It's made to sort of pull you into rabbit holes.

Brian: 00:50:25

And, for those of us who have weaknesses, like next thing you know, it's like three hours later and I'm like, what newsletter?

Sara: 00:50:32

I mean, I hate to say this, but that actually means that they're improving the

Brian: 00:50:35

Yeah, that's

Sara: 00:50:36

they need to be working on engagement.

Sara: 00:50:38

And for you, that rabbit hole might be media news for somebody else.

Sara: 00:50:41

That rabbit hole might be sports news.

Sara: 00:50:43

I think the bigger challenge that they are struggling with, As a user, the discovery is not great.

Sara: 00:50:49

When I go to search something that just happened, I used to be that it was very easy to navigate the most recent tweets about it.

Sara: 00:50:56

Something has changed and it's harder for me to figure those types of things out.

Sara: 00:51:00

So it's a less useful tool as a journalist for research for me, but you know, they are private now, Brian.

Sara: 00:51:06

So one of the challenges is I can't actually get an estimate, a real number of what that sort of engagement looks like.

Sara: 00:51:13

there are tons of third party estimates.

Sara: 00:51:16

You know, of course, Elon debunks all of them, that suggests that, engagement has gone down.

Sara: 00:51:21

But, you know, it's still, if you ask SimilarWeb, or SensorTower, or anyone else, it's still far more engaging than any alternative that's tried to unseat

Brian: 00:51:29

But I would say it's arguably.

Brian: 00:51:31

As influential, if not more influential now than it was.

Brian: 00:51:36

And that's like, you know, engagement is one thing and like reach and whatnot, but ultimately most media,

Brian: 00:51:43

not most media, but a lot of media is about influence and particularly influence, like when it comes to power

Sara: 00:51:50

it.

Sara: 00:51:50

It comes down to what the in the in owner wants, though.

Sara: 00:51:53

And you're right, Musk wants, you know, Must want influence but if you if you were measuring success on financially is this doing well, it's not

Brian: 00:52:01

no, but like he's playing a totally different game.

Brian: 00:52:03

Like, so, and I think that's, that's also, and we can go on forever and I'll let you go, but like, you know, a lot of, I think

Brian: 00:52:09

the challenge of a lot of this alternative media for mainstream media is the business models are completely different.

Brian: 00:52:14

Not only if you have like an incredibly low cost base, but think about something like the all in podcast.

Brian: 00:52:20

The, they don't need to sell ads.

Brian: 00:52:22

I mean, they'll do their little like, you know, events or something like this, but they're an incredibly influential.

Brian: 00:52:28

Media property, like very influential, right?

Brian: 00:52:32

But they don't have the pressures.

Brian: 00:52:34

They don't have, they draft off of the mainstream media that they, that they, complain about nonstop.

Brian: 00:52:42

I mean, they're the ones doing the reporting to, to give them fodder to sort of draft on top of.

Brian: 00:52:48

I mean, I do some of that with you, but like, I mean, the, the reality is like, that is a really difficult challenge for.

Brian: 00:52:55

You know, journalistic media to deal with.

Brian: 00:52:58

And that's why more of it is going to go behind paywalls.

Brian: 00:53:02

And that's why you got to sign up for, for, media trends.

Brian: 00:53:05

Exact.

Brian: 00:53:06

What is it?

Brian: 00:53:06

What's the name of it again?

Sara: 00:53:07

Media trans executive and I will just say the one thing thank you brian for being my hype by my hype man there is one challenge though, which is Media companies, the way that they

Sara: 00:53:16

were traditionally designed, were to be agnostic of, sort of the reporter and to have systems and infrastructure in place to continuously cover a beat or cover a do put out information.

Sara: 00:53:26

Well, with some of these podcasts, they're one personality driven.

Sara: 00:53:30

What happens when that person gets sick?

Sara: 00:53:32

What happens when that person wants to retire?

Sara: 00:53:33

What happens?

Sara: 00:53:33

That person gets too old or dies.

Sara: 00:53:35

There goes the brand brand goes with it.

Sara: 00:53:37

whereas mainstream media companies, they are brand first.

Sara: 00:53:40

To ensure that the brand doesn't die with the person.

Brian: 00:53:42

and that is kind of crazy if you think about it.

Sara: 00:53:48

I like love catching up with you wherever you ever are in the world.

Brian: 00:53:51

Okay.

Brian: 00:53:52

Sarah, on that note, thank you so much.

Brian: 00:53:54

I really appreciate you taking the time.

Brian: 00:53:56

always fun.

Sara: 00:53:57

Thanks, Brian.

Sara: 00:53:58

I hope you let me come visit in Miami where it's not super freezing like it is here in DC.