The Scene
As trust in news declines and business models evolve, media power is being reshaped by mergers, regulation, and ownership battles. Meanwhile, creators are redefining mainstream success with new formats, distribution models, and tones.
Semafor’s annual Trust in Media Summit convened the industry’s most influential leaders in the heart of Washington, DC, for candid, forward-looking conversations led by Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith and Media Editor Max Tani, moving beyond the headlines to explore what comes next.
The View From The Washington Post
“Great journalism is central, but the journalism alone isn’t enough,” Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray tells Semafor’s Max Tani.
“I came here to try to do what I can to help the Post grow and thrive, not to oversee a steady decline,” Murray said.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has “expressed complete support” for the paper’s legal defense of reporter Hannah Natanson, Murray said.
The View From Meet the Press
Meet the Press moderator and Meet the Press NOW anchor Kristen Welker responds to criticism of her first interview with President Donald Trump in his second term:
Welker says she hopes future presidents will follow Trump’s lead in giving reporters his personal cellphone number.
The View From The FCC
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr tells Ben Smith he anticipates bringing a broadcast network to court.
“I don’t have any regrets” about Jimmy Kimmel, Carr said.
“I think they’re doing a great job,” Carr said of CBS under Paramount CEO David Ellison.
The View From The White House Correspondents’ Association
The WHCA “works behind the scenes” on behalf of its members, but there’s “pressure from outside groups for the association to respond to anything that the president does,” Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich told Semafor’s Ben Smith.
The View From Substack
“Substack is social media,” co-founder and Chief Writing Officer Hamish McKenzie told Max Tani. “But social media doesn’t have to be maddening.”
“It’s not something that I would have said, it’s not the way that Substack would have expressed it, and I think it’s definitely not a truly defensible comment in the totality of it,” McKenzie said when asked about Polymarket’s statement that “journalism is better when it’s backed by live markets.”
The View From Deborah Turness
“I don’t accept the charge that it was a sign of institutional bias,” former BBC News CEO Deborah Turness told Ben Smith on her resignation over a Trump documentary edit.
Could the BBC survive a similar backlash to public funding as the one that NPR and PBS have faced in the US?
The View From Axel Springer
“Totally,” Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner said when asked if there are elements of Trump’s media critique he agrees with.
Döpfner said he shares Axel Springer’s post-WWII guiding principles, but takes pride in the fact “that so many people in our company do not write what [Friede Springer] or I or other people in the top leadership think is right.”