Since everyone is down on media companies these days, let’s run through what’s good news about many of them. 1) Our democracy may have crumbled this year had NYT, WaPo & CNN not existed, incredibly important role of all three as we end 2017.

Yes Vice and Buzzfeed may have missed targets BUT both are past the stage of escape velocity & have a long future. And doing important journalistic work in between their main body of work.

Subscriptions look like a reasonable part of media’s future, as a section of people become more aware of the fragility of media & importance of supporting selected set of them.

Audio journalism became a real thing. Podcasts have hit the mainstream, and allow another way for media to be built.

Murdoch is getting old and likely selling off everything.

Male patriarchy & privilege in media is finally getting a big dent in it, though hopes of it ending once and for all is still a bit of a long term dream.

Next week about 30 vertical media company founders are gathering in NYC, each one of their companies growing fast with little money raised & almost all of us profitable, doing deep meaningful work & a big part of the lives of those who care about them.

High-energy high-metabolism media startups like Axios & Cheddar are making early dents in media landscape. And existing ones like TheDailyBeast & others are finding renewed purpose & energy.

The seminal magazines for the last century New Yorker & The Atlantic are still as seminal as ever and likely to be so well into this century.

The jig is up on platforms and despite their death grip, that may be the best news of all in media.

Really great thread. Thank you

Is that an informal network, or part of an organized group?

Semi-informal, part of the Verticals Collective group I & others founded. Drop me an email, you should be on it: ra@skift

That would be amazing. Email incoming.

Can my company join if we fit those parameters?

good thread

1) is so grotesquely wrong it disqualifies you and the merit of anything you say thereafter

Democracy survives despite the machinations of orgs like WaPo, NYT, and CNN not because of them.

agree although both have legacy problems, vice of misogyny and buzzfeed of cats-that-look-like-hitler. buzzfeed still pumps that crap out next to great @JasonLeopold stuff, and vice at least seems to be upping the quality ratio to a major degree.

If you can’t get consumers to pay for you directly or have tech/wireless/broadband platforms pay you licensing for your brand/content; you are shit out of luck. Ads alone will not scale.

Had they done their jobs in 2016, there would have been no danger in the first place

Our democracy did crumble. They helped.

hey i don’t know if you heard, but we managed to elect a confessed serial perpetrator of sexual assault as president in 2016

Feels like we are coming to an end game. Need all media to keep strong.

lmao at such an idiotic assertion