business of media

When thinking about where content goes, ask yourself: Are any potential gains in distribution worth the potential losses in control over what you own?

At the heart of this transformation, perhaps, is the reality that news media at scale may have been a collective fiction. In the platform age, consumers create their own content mixes, usually based on trusted or affinity-aligned sources. The very notion of a newsroom —a one-stop, always-on bodega of information spanning politics to sports, manned... See more

It is, in fact, objectivity’s self-appointed defenders themselves who have led its erosion. Rather than emphasize a fair reporting process , they focused obsessively on the appearanceand performanceof supposed personal objectivity, wielding the term to police personal expression—not journalistic work—in both public and private contexts. Their north... See more

changes to the policy map erased the legal boundary lines that had historically kept the owners of private communications infrastructure from simultaneously engaging in adjacent lines of business, including advertising and the production of news and entertainment programming

the collapse of traditional boundaries between content types, creators, and consumers into a singular, networked experience. This "media singularity" represents not just an evolution in how we create and consume content, but a fundamental rewiring of how information, entertainment, and human connection intersect

Everyone becomes a pundit in their own feed, performing their identity through commentary and reaction. This isn't coincidental; it's the logical endpoint of a system optimized for engagement above all else.

The math driving this convergence is singular: engagement equals distribution equals survival. Find it at any cost.

In this newsletter age, especially with Substack, it is hard for some people—to convince them that it would be a better idea to start a co-op with other people rather than just go alone. Because if you do Substack and you get a decent number of subscribers, you can make a lot of money.

So I do think that is somewhat of an impediment to this kind of... See more

even the most successful creators at the very head of the popularity curve are increasingly using media—their videos, posts, or podcasts—as marketing for something else. This “something else” is often bigger than the media business itself.

The tweet, the article, the video were never the point. They’re just portals. What matters is what they convene, which is the conversation, the ritual, the shared experience. That’s where the value is. That’s where the business is. Media thrives when it’s built as infrastructure for belonging, not just assets to monetize. Until the industry stops... See more