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How an advanced degree gives creators a competitive edge

Court reporting is one of the oldest beats in journalism, and yet the Creator Economy has unleashed a flood of legal coverage that's more in-depth and nuanced than just about anything you'll see in the mainstream press:

YouTube has long appealed to attorneys across specialties—immigration, real estate, divorce—as a place to share their expertise and increase business. Those covering viral cases tend to get the most viewers. Channels like Legal Eagle, with over three million subscribers, and Law & Crime Network, with over six million, are some of the most popular; [Emily] Baker currently boasts some eight hundred thousand subscribers. Other channels like LegalBytes, NatalieLawyerChick, and LawyerYouKnow operate on a smaller scale but with highly engaged audiences.

This is a great example of how having an advanced degree — in this case, a law degree — can give creators a competitive edge in an extremely crowded market. It's not a coincidence that some of the biggest channels are run by former prosecutors and defense lawyers.

We're seeing this same phenomenon play out all across the Creator Economy. Some of the biggest finance channels are run by former Wall Street bankers. The biggest health channels are run by doctors. The biggest car channels are run by professional mechanics. I just think it's really cool that we now live in an online ecosystem where virtually any career path can be a gateway into running an independent media company.

Did the sports media bubble just pop?

Major League Baseball and ESPN announced recently that they did not reach a licensing deal and that, for the first time in decades, ESPN won’t be broadcasting any baseball:

“Given that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN’s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable. As a result, we have mutually agreed to terminate our agreement,” the league said in a statement.

For a while now, I've been predicting we're in a sports media bubble that’s soon due for a significant correction. To quickly summarize my thesis: sports broadcasting rights were heavily subsidized by non-sports watchers who subscribed to the cable bundle, and now that the bundle is collapsing, it's only a matter of time before it's no longer economically viable for media companies to license games.

I think MLB is merely the first casualty in this correction; its ratings had already been on the decline, and it was only a matter of time before ESPN decided the ROI just wasn't there — at least at the price it was paying. I doubt MLB will find another buyer at the previous rates, and if it does it'll likely be a company like Apple or Amazon, both of which could treat these broadcasts as a loss leader to sell more iPhones or toilet paper.

Ultimately, this will lead to most of the major sports leagues just moving 100% of their broadcasts to their owned-and-operated streaming platforms. And I think, deep down, they all know this is where the market is headed — hence why they've heavily invested in their own media operations.

Cable news stars keep building their own successful media businesses

Back in August, media reporter Oliver Darcy left his job at CNN to launch a paid newsletter, and he’s already generating enough in revenue to hire another full-time reporter:

Status has accumulated more than 70,000 total subscribers since August and is on track to surpass $1 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2025. Darcy declined to comment on how many subscribers are paying members …

… This week, he brought on longtime CNN editor Jon Passantino, who oversaw media coverage and CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter. Darcy plans to add more employees down the line, and launch a podcast later this year.

There is some irony that, in the span of time it took CNN to plan its paywall rollout, one of its reporters managed to launch a paid newsletter and grow it to $1 million in revenue.

This is a bad apples-to-apples comparison, but CNN has 3,500 employees, so if they managed to create anywhere near the same amount of value as Darcy, then that would results in $3.5 billion in subscription revenue.

One interesting thing about Darcy's strategy is that he chose to paywall the vast majority of his content. His Sunday newsletter — usually some sort of Q&A with a media executive — is free, but all his weekday newsletters have a pretty strict paywall. While he does plenty of news curation, I'm fairly certain that his exclusive scoops have driven the vast majority of his paid conversions. He's become one of the go-to reporters for media staffers who want to anonymously dish dirt on their employers.

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Did the Crime Junkie podcast really need outside investment?

Crime Junkie just raised money at a $250 million valuation:

Flowers raised $40 million from The Chernin Group, the investment firm of media mogul Peter Chernin that also backed Barstool Sports and Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. The deal valued her company, Audiochuck, at about $250 million, according to people familiar with the terms. That makes Audiochuck one of the most valuable podcasting startups in the world.

Flowers could have funded the effort herself. Audiochuck, named after her dog, turned a profit of about $45 million last year, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential matters. Flowers declined to comment on any financials.

It's pretty incredible that a bootstrapped true crime podcast is generating $45 million in profit. It seems strange though that she sought outside investment given that she has more than enough funds to fuel any expansion on her own. She says she took the investment to tap into investors' expertise, but I find it hard to believe that was worth the trade-off of giving away equity in her company. $45 million is a pretty big war chest, enough to hire any outside expertise that she needs.

Why do right-wing social platforms keep suing advertisers?

I somehow missed this when it was first filed, but the right-wing video platform Rumble is attempting to sue major brands that refuse to advertise with it:

In Rumble's complaint, initially filed in a Texas court in August, the platform alleged that advertisers and agencies "collectively agreed to restrict the output of digital advertising on social media platforms" through the WFA's now-defunct initiative, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

Rumble's lawsuit said this conspiracy resulted in higher advertising costs, reduced earnings for content creators, and inhibited the platform's growth and profitability.

I just find it so patently absurd that a platform could consider it a viable option to sue advertisers into sponsoring it. Not only is it a blatant affront on free speech, but it does nothing but antagonize the very companies it wants as partners. Even in the rare cases where a company caves, it's likely to spend the bare minimum amount to escape further pressure.

The irony, of course, is that Twitter and Rumble, the two companies that have tried this legal strategy, always tout themselves as "free speech" platforms. As usual, "free speech" is just code for "conservative speech."

Some good longform content

I still get angry when I think about the time a Roy Wood Jr. live comedy set was ruined by the drunk couple sitting next to me. The guy is among the funniest comedians working today. His comedy is unapologetically progressive, and yet he manages to deliver in a way that doesn't turn off conservative audiences. [NYT]

Nearly every major AI company is launching "deep research" tools that cite their sources and purport to go much more in-depth than previous generations of chatbots. The problem is that when reporters check those citations, they come across plenty of articles that were very obviously generated by AI. The snake is eating its own tail, and the problem is only going to get worse. [New York]

Most of the books about the 1929 stock market crash are dry and academic. The financial reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin set about searching for diaries, letters, and memoirs so he could tell a more zoomed-in, character-driven version of the 1929 crash, similar to more recent books like The Big Short. Somehow, he managed to do all this while also writing for the New York Times and co-hosting CNBC's Squawk Box. [Puck]

The Baltimore Sun used to be one of America's great newspapers, but, like a lot of city dailies, its business cratered over the past 20 years, which forced round after round of layoffs. Then in 2024 it was bought by a pro-Trump billionaire who immediately began to use the outlet to support his local pet issues. This triggered a city-wide revolt, with Baltimore not only voting down his initiatives and candidates, but also shifting their financial support to a nonprofit rival called the Baltimore Banner. [Rolling Stone]

Content creators are constantly being accused of using AI to create their images and videos, even in cases when no AI was used. Some are now calling for the creation of some kind of authentication service that accesses a camera's metadata and confirms the photo's origin. In fact, there are already apps that do this, but they're mainly marketed to the insurance industry. [Howtown]

ICYMI: How Big Cabal Media became one of the fastest-growing news outlets in Africa

My other newsletter: The best longform journalism we consumed this week

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Behind the paywall

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4. Substack is trying to compete with every facet of the social web

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The $1.26 million live stream...