The Media Mosaic
Navigating the fractured media environment
Back in October during the final stretch of her presidential bid, Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for interviews with Fox News and 60 Minutes, while also appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The View. Combined, these traditional media appearances garnered about 20 million views in living rooms across the country.
President Donald Trump’s interview with Joe Rogan yielded 40 million views in three days.
The Trump-Rogan podcast dwarfing traditional media in power, reach, and influence — interviews that were once considered the crème de la crème — is evidence of a highly-fractured media environment that I like to call The Media Mosaic. Simply put, there are more avenues for people to get information than ever before.
As someone with more than a decade in the communications world, particularly within the tech startup space, I know The Media Mosaic isn’t that new. It's been playing out across both the tech and political ecosystems for some time now:
In politics:
Jake Sherman, a former Politico reporter known for his legendary scoops on Capitol Hill — so much so that some members of Congress have quipped that they learn about congressional leadership’s plans from Sherman before the leaders themselves — started Punchbowl News in 2021 with former Politico colleagues Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan. Reportedly, Punchbowl News was on track to earn nearly $20 million in revenue in 2023.
The Free Press, started in late 2021 by former New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss, who, with much fanfare resigned from the Times in 2020, has accrued more than 600,000 subscribers since its launch.
In tech:
Eric Newcomer is a former Bloomberg technology reporter who set out on his own and began writing on Substack (his excellent newsletter on the tech ecosystem is worth reading). In 2023, Newcomer told Axios that his Substack revenue was over $1 million in 2023.
The Dwarkesh Patel Podcast is one of the more popular tech podcasts around. He’s interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI Chief Scientist, among other technology luminaries. His interview with Sarah Paine, Professor of History and Strategy at the Naval War College, garnered more than 1.5 million views.
Undoubtedly, the trend is accelerating. There are, without exaggeration, hundreds if not thousands of examples of successful, niche distributors of information.
Mike Allen, Executive Editor of Axios and keen observer of tech and politics, agrees with me:
“How you get news and information shattered into scores of pieces based on your age, politics, income and information dependency. This will make a common reality increasingly elusive — and change how consumers get informed, candidates campaign, and businesses grow or decline. The net result: Traditional media grows weaker and less relevant by the month.”
Startups can learn a lesson from the Trump/Harris dynamic. Rogan’s audience, built over 15 years, represents a specific niche (I know, I know — 40 million views doesn’t seem like a niche, but it is!) of devoted fans.
On the other hand, “traditional cable news” in the aggregate is ostensibly geared towards all 330-ish million people in the country, and viewership is declining. I’d be willing to bet there aren’t many cable news superfans under the age of 65 out there.
For early stage B2B and B2G startups in the initial stages of their communications journey, the axiom to navigate The Media Mosaic is to find the niches that move the needle. The people who will actually drive growth and improve the health of the business — directly and indirectly — often represent a tiny, miniscule, nigh infinitesimal sliver of the overall population. With that in mind, founders and comms flacks should:
Ruthlessly prioritize identifying the groups of people who actually matter. Instead of clout-chasing a name brand outlet for no strategic reason, align communications goals with business goals.
Focus on identifying the pieces of The Media Mosaic — the newsletter, the podcast, the influencer, the vertical media outlet, the traditional online news outlet, the who-or-whatever — that can reach those specific people. Worry less about the cache of the outlet, and care more about the value of the engagement.
Repeat step two. A lot. Over time, you’ll cultivate an external brand and a foundation upon which breadth of coverage will come. You’ll land the big WSJ feature. Your LinkedIn post will really take off. You didn’t build your product overnight; it took years of building and iterating with customers and partners. Comms is the same.
Conceptually, every action in an early stage startup is fraught with opportunity cost. Time is a founder’s most valuable resource, and if you focus on the wrong things, your startup will die. You cannot afford to waste time and energy talking to millions of readers or viewers or listeners who do not contribute to business growth.
Find your people. Talk to them. Worry less about everyone else.
And successfully navigate The Media Mosaic.
Shoutout to Emily Ann Hill for providing feedback and editing this essay. Check out Junetail Creative to see how Emily can help improve your writing and, for small businesses, develop an unforgettable brand experience.