Life on the other side: Refugees from ‘old media’ flock to the promise of working for themselves

NEW YORK (AP) — Six months ago, Jennifer Rubin had no idea whether she’d make it in a new media world. She just knew it was time to leave The Washington Post, where she’d been a political columnist for 15 years.

The Contrarian, the democracy-focused website that Rubin founded with partner Norm Eisen in January, now has 10 employees and contributors like humorist Andy Borowitz and White House reporter April Ryan. Its 558,000 subscribers also get recipes and culture dispatches.

In the blink of an eye, Rubin became a independent news entrepreneur. “I think we hit a moment, just after inauguration, when people were looking for something different and it has captured people’s imaginations,” she says. “We’ve been having a ball with it.”

YouTube, Substack, TikTok and others are spearheading a full-scale democratization of media and a generation of new voices and influencers. But don’t forget the traditionalists. Rubin’s experience shows how this world offers a lifeline to many at struggling legacy outlets who wanted — or were forced — to strike out on their own.

Tough business realities, changing consumer tastes

The realities of business and changing consumer tastes are both driving forces.

YouTube claims more than 1 billion monthly podcast views, and a recent list of its top 100 shows featured seven refugees from legacy media and six shows made by current broadcasters. Substack, which launched in 2017 and added live video in January, has more than doubled its number of paid subscribers to participating content creators to 5 million in less than two years.

Almost immediately after he was cut loose by ABC News on June 10 for an anti-Trump tweet, Terry Moran headed for Substack. Two former hosts of NBC’s “Today” show — Katie Couric and Hoda Kotb — announced new media ventures on the same day last month.

“I think you’ve seen, really in the last six months for some reason, this whole space explode with people who are understanding that this is a really important way to convey information,” says Couric, who’s been running her own media company with newsletters, interviews and a podcast since 2017 and recently joined Substack.

Among the most successful to make transitions are Bari Weiss, the former New York Times writer whose Free Press website celebrates independent thought, the anti-Trump Republicans at Bulwark and ex-MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, who champions “adversarial journalism” on Zeteo.

Television news essentially left Megyn Kelly for dead after her switch from Fox News to NBC went bust. She launched a podcast in 2020, at first audio only, and SiriusXM picked it up as a daily radio show. She added video for YouTube in 2021, and gets more than 100 million viewers a month for commentary and newsmaker interviews.

This year, Kelly launched her own company, MK Media, with shows hosted by Mark Halperin, Maureen Callahan and Link Lauren.

While they thrive, the prospect of layoffs, audiences that are aging and becoming smaller and constant worry about disappearing revenue sources are a way of life for legacy media. Moving to independent media is still not an easy decision.

Taking a deep breath, and making the leap

“If I’m going to jump off a cliff, is there water or not?” former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd says. “I didn’t know until I left NBC. Everybody told me there would be water. But you don’t know for sure until you jump.”

It takes some adjustment — “At first I was like, ‘do you know who I used to be?’” Couric jokes — but some who have made the jump appreciate the nimbleness and flexibility of new formats and say news subjects often respond to the atmosphere with franker, more expansive interviews.

Jim Acosta, who traded a CNN anchor desk for a video podcast he does from his home after deciding not to make a move he considered a demotion, says he’s been surprised at the quality of guests he’s been able to corral — people like Hakeem Jefferies, Pete Buttigieg and Sean Penn.

Many podcasters succeed because they communicate authenticity, former Washington Post editor Marty Baron said in an interview at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Traditional journalists trade on authority at a time people don’t trust institutions anymore, he said.

Couric has seen it in some of the feedback she gets from subscribers.

“There’s some disenchantment with legacy media,” she says. “There are certainly some people who are frustrated by the capitulation of some networks to the administration, and I think there’s a sense that when you’re involved in mainstream media that you may be holding back or there may be executives who are putting pressure on you.”

Is there an audience — and money — on the other side?

Substack says that more than 50 people are earning more than $1 million annually on its platform. More than 50,000 of its publishers make money, but since the company won’t give a total of how many people produce content for the platform, it’s impossible to get a sense of the odds of success.

Alisyn Camerota isn’t making money yet. The former CNN anchor left the broadcaster after she sensed her time there was running out. Blessed with a financial cushion, she’s relishing the chance to create something new.

She records a video podcast, “Sanity,” from her basement in Connecticut. A former Fox colleague who lives nearby, Dave Briggs, joins to talk about the news. “It’s harder than you think in terms of having to DIY a lot of this,” Camerota says, “but it’s very freeing.”

Different people on the platform have different price points; some publishers put everything they do behind a pay wall, others only some. Acosta offers content for free, but people need to pay to comment or discuss. Zeteo charges $12 a month or $72 a year, with a $500 “founding member” yearly fee that offers access to Mehdi.

The danger for independent journalists is a market reaching a saturation point. People already stress over how many streaming services they can afford for entertainment. There’s surely a limit to how many journalists they will pay for, too.

“I hope to make a living at this,” Acosta says. “We’ll see how it goes. This is a bit of an experiment. I think it’s a valuable one because the stakes are so high right now.”

A strong point of view is one route to success

To succeed in independent media, people need a strong work work ethic, self-motivation and an ability to pivot quickly to deal with changing markets, says Chris Balfe, founder of Red Seat Ventures. He has created a thriving business ushering conservative media figures into the new world, including Kelly, Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan.

Balfe’s clients all have strong opinions. That’s a plus for consumers who want to hear their viewpoints reflected back at them.

“I think you need a point of view and a purpose,” Rubin says. “Once you have that, it helps you to organize your thinking and your selections. You’re not going to be all things to all people.”

That’s one of the things that concerns Acosta and Todd. They’re looser, and they certainly say what they think more than they felt free to do on television; a remark Acosta made on June 17, while appearing on Rubin’s podcast, about Trump marrying immigrants was criticized as “distasteful” by the White House. But at heart, they consider themselves reporters and not commentators. Is there enough room for people like them?

Todd has a podcast, a weekly interview show on the new platform Noosphere and is looking to build on an interest in improving the fortunes of local news. He believes that opinion can help someone build an audience quickly but may ultimately limit growth.

As Rubin did, they will find out soon enough.

“As it turned out,” she says, “what was on the other side was much more exciting and successful and absorbing than I could ever have imagined.”

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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.