Channels with Peter Kafka

• The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell on Why Republicans Won the Attention War

  In some ways, the Bulwark feels like other small publishers in 2025: it’s found growth and profit by pushing itself out on any platform it can find. But that wasn’t the plan when the company started in 2018. Back then, it was a non-profit cofounded by Republicans who couldn’t stand their party’s embrace of Donald Trump, and wanted a place to organize, debate and push back. Over the years the site turned itself into a for-profit, and found success selling Substack subscriptions — it’s currently on pace to do more than $12 million a year from those alone, says CEO Sarah Longwell. But it has really caught fire in recent years by embracing YouTube. “The thing that made the biggest difference was when we decided to turn the cameras on,” she says. I talked to Longwell this week about the Bulwark’s evolution, and the tension between running a mission-driven company and one that wants to make money. And since Longwell still does political consulting and focus group work, I also talked to her about the state of the art when it comes to political media — and why she thinks Republicans are so much better at it then Democrats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• The Man Who Fixed The New York Times Wants to Fix CNN

  Would you pay $7 a month to stream CNN? Because CNN CEO Mark Thompson would like you to do that. I know, I know, I’m skeptical, too. But Thompson has been here before: At his last job, as CEO of the New York Times, he helped shepherd that company’s subscription business, which had a gazillion naysayers at the start. And now the Times’ business model is the envy of everyone in journalism. Can he do it again? One big difference is that the Times launched its paywall all the way back in 2011, before everyone was asking consumers to pay for monthly subscriptions for everything. I also have a hunch that the Times brand registers more deeply for its audience than CNN does for its. But now we’ll get to find out. Meantime, all of this is happening as CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery is likely to get sold, yet again. Which means all of the work Thompson and his team are doing could get upended by a new management regime. But that’s the future. For now, it’s very much worth listening to Thompson make the case for CNN, and TV news in general. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• The End of Mass Media—and What Comes Next

  We spend a lot of time on this show talking to people who run media companies. We also spend a lot of time talking to media reporters. So here’s our one-man Venn diagram: Brian Morrissey runs The Rebooting, where he podcasts, writes and hosts events, all geared at making people in the media business smarter about the media business. If you want to hear from a guy who understands the big picture, but also the practical realities of operating, he’s your guy. Brian has been preaching the gospel of small media for some time, so we start there: What is the upside of running a scaled-down media company these days — and what happens to all the businesses that spent years chasing scale? And yes, Brian and I also talk about AI, and what it will and won’t do for (and to) media. But we also spend a lot of time talking about Google, and the enormous power it currently has — particularly when it comes to the company’s Discover feature, which drives an astonishing amount of traffic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• The PR Guy Who Says the AI Boom Is a Bust

  The AI story is changing fast. A few months ago, it was all promise and inevitability. Now even AI boosters are asking if the numbers make sense. Ed Zitron got there early. He runs a PR firm for a living, which means he’s supposed to help people sell their stories. But he’s become best known for tearing tech’s biggest stories apart. And he’s been pushing at the economics behind the AI boom, via his newsletter and podcast, for some time. We talk about how he built a career out of skepticism, why the media keeps falling for big tech’s favorite stories, and what happens if the AI party ends early. (And yes: I wrote the paragraphs above with an assist from ChatGPT — mostly so I can imagine Zitron fuming when he reads this.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• Why the Guardian Doesn't Need a Billionaire to Thrive

  In lots of ways Guardian Media Group is facing the same problems as every other news publisher: A tricky ad environment, platform problems, looming AI threats. One big difference: The Guardian also has a $1.5 billion trust backing the non-profit, which seems way, way better than being owned by a run-of-the-mill billionaire who might want to meddle with the paper. But CEO Anna Bateson says the Guardian needs to be a self-sustaining publisher. So it has been steadily, and successfully, getting readers to shoulder the load, via donations, which now account for 40% of the company's revenue. We talk about how and why the Guardian switched its business model; why it still wants ad money; how the British, lefty news shop is trying to break into America yet again, and why asking readers for donations is, and isn't, like asking them to pay for subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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