Media

1. Right-wing women rising
2. White House hires Witty
3. Times op-ed changes
4. Diller for Cuomo
5. Dems pair up
6. Ratner’s next film
7. Meta on defense

Welcome to Semafor Media, where Max Tani is delivering a stack of scoops.

Before I started writing the media column at The New York Times in 2020, I reread all of David Carr’s columns, written between 2006 and 2015. At that time, many of his colleagues in legacy media were running scared from the internet. But what struck me was the curiosity and optimism in the late, great media writer’s work.

Max and I spend a lot of time talking these days about how to cover the media in what feels like a similar moment: big pronouncements that journalism is dead, along with curious signs of life all over. The traditional beat — midcap television companies in perpetual reorganization, newspaper chains in endless painful decline — has never been less compelling.

But the current explosion of new voices, across and outside the political spectrum, reminds me of the early aughts. Like the old blogosphere, it’s fragmented, of wildly mixed quality and ambition, and hard to track. Max writes today about Brett Cooper, the child actor turned right-wing YouTuber whose blend of cultural and political interests would have made her either a star or a target of early Gawker. Here, we’ll keep digging into the stories of their successes and failures, their business models and insights — even as established giants, from Fox to YouTube, circle. Do tell us what’s catching your eye.

Today’s newsletter is full of scoops at the intersection of politics and the media: Barry Diller likes Andrew Cuomo, the Times editorial page is thinking about local politics again, and a Democratic media operative and senator are dating. (Scoop count: 8)

If you missed our big summit 10 days ago, we discussed the highlights on Mixed Signals this week. And if you like this newsletter and are interested in a podcast with rich conversations on these big media questions … well, that’s also a good reason to check out Mixed Signals.

Conscience of a ‘cuteservative’

The last generation of conservative media, led by talkers like Rush Limbaugh, was built by and for older men (think Roger Ailes’ “leg cam”). But as figures from the “manosphere” enter the mainstream, female right-wing content creators like Daily Wire breakout star Brett Cooper, TurningPoint USA’s Alex Clark, and Jessica Reed Kraus of House Inhabit are building powerful brands catering to conservatism-curious young women. Their tools — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube — are cutting-edge, and their follower counts stretch into the multi-millions. But as Max reports in this deep dive, the substance of their content hearkens back to an earlier era of women’s media, when magazines like Cosmopolitan promoted a traditional ideal of feminine beauty and success.

There’s space for younger voices on the right, Cooper told Max — particularly those that have a political viewpoint but aren’t “just making people angry.”

Witty hired as White House photographer

The White House has hired Patrick Witty, an accomplished Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who left his role at National Geographic in 2017 after allegations of misconduct, Semafor has learned. Witty, who had also worked with The New York Times, Time and Wired, abruptly left National Geographic after it launched an investigation into him over allegations of misconduct, including making inappropriate advances towards female coworkers, Vox reported. Witty denied many of the allegations at the time, but apologized. He now writes the Substack Field of View about photography and has amassed a large following on Instagram, where he shares his own photographs and other iconic political images, as well as essays and commentary about them. Witty did not respond to requests for comment, and the White House declined to comment.

A shakeup at the Times op-ed desk

The New York Times is making major changes to its opinion section, rethinking the frequency and design of its editorials, the makeup of its editorial board, and its policy on endorsements. Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, deputy editor Patrick Healy, and publisher AG Sulzberger are contemplating having other editors in opinion getting more involved in the editorial board, and having fewer people on staff who solely write editorials. Publishing fewer, higher-quality editorials, the thesis goes, will lead to more audience attention.

The Times has also tasked editor Bill Brink and others, including its graphics team, with reimagining what a modern newspaper endorsement should look like. Having pulled back from local endorsements, the paper is now considering whether it should weigh in on more races across the country, including the Virginia governor’s race and the New Jersey governor’s race, as well as the New York mayoral primaries and potentially the general election.

The publication recently offered current writers on the editorial board — including Mara Gay, Brent Staples, Jesse Wegman and Farah Stockman — new jobs elsewhere in the opinion pages and the Times’ newsroom, or buyout packages if they want to leave.

Barry Diller backs Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral bid

Media mogul and Democratic donor Barry Diller is backing Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor. Diller told IAC staff at an off-the-record meeting on Thursday he was grateful to the former New York governor’s help in building the city’s Little Island public park. “I owe him gratitude for that, so I am supporting him,” he said, according to a recording shared with Semafor. “I think he’d be a very good mayor of New York. I don’t think (current mayor Eric) Adams will or should survive” politically. Diller also had scathing words for Democrats in Washington, citing their “pathetic and unfortunate” reaction to President Donald Trump’s address to the joint houses of Congress last week. “The Democratic Party is in complete disarray, there’s no leadership,” he said, adding that “these things have to get worse before they get better.”

Dem media leader dating US senator

One of the Democratic Party’s most notable digital media leaders is dating one of the party’s most media-friendly lawmakers, according to a Washington Democrat and a pointed Instagram post. Tara McGowan, the CEO of the network of digital media sites known as Courier Newsroom, has been linked to Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who recently separated from his wife. McGowan posted a selfie of the duo last week on her private Instagram, captioned “not postponing joy,” which was shared with Semafor. In recent months, Murphy has become one of the most visible Democratic lawmakers, speaking out against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk in television and digital media interviews and posting his own vertical videos across social media — taking a page out of a media playbook that McGowan and other Democratic digital strategists have pushed since Trump’s victory in November. McGowan did not return requests for comment, and Murphy’s office declined to comment.

Ratner takes on a (second) Trump documentary

The director Brett Ratner, who’s returning from Hollywood exile with a documentary about Melania Trump, is shooting on another high-profile project: a documentary about the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and some Muslim-majority countries during Trump’s first term. Our Mar-a-Lago source says Ratner’s film will include interviews with Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Ratner, who has been spotted at Mar-a-Lago, now lives in Israel and was reportedly a guest of Netanyahu at the United Nations in 2023. (A spokesperson for Ratner declined to comment on the new project, which we first reported in Semafor Principals.)

Meta braces for tell-all book

Meta is trying to prebunk the claims made by an ex-Facebook employee in what has been described as an explosive insider account. A document from the company first shared with Semafor runs through various details from Careless People, a new memoir by Sarah Wynn Williams, a former director of public policy at Facebook. The company is pushing back particularly hard on descriptions of its efforts to woo users in China and Myanmar, and the concessions the company considered as it attempted to operate abroad. The Meta document lays out how many of the details in the book were reported in The New York Times, Wired, and other business outlets. The company has been aggressively campaigning against the book all week. It shared information earlier this week with media writers Oliver Darcy and Brian Stelter, sent a letter to the book’s publisher, and dispatched spokespeople Andy Stone and Frances Brennan to criticize the book and its claims on X.

This week, Mixed Signals goes inside the world of independent creators with a two-part conversation: First, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie talks about his platform’s appeal for the resistance on the left, their move into video, and why they turned down Elon Musk’s offer to buy them. Then, former Mixed Signals co-host Nayeema Raza joins to talk about her foray into the new media landscape, what she’s learned about the space, and why her new show isn’t on Substack.

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

Jim Bankoff is CEO of Vox Media.

⁋ Publishing

Rhymes with ‘door’: Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt has a new book out next week, Revenge, chronicling the 2024 campaign and Trump’s return to power. It’s a narrative packed with tidbits about the president’s relationship with conservative media. One anecdote relates how, post-Jan. 6, at the nadir of the Fox-Trump relationship, Trump put Sean Hannity on speaker during a call in which the Fox News host begged Trump not to go after the Murdoch family. The book also chronicles the president’s last-minute musings about whether to nominate Fox hosts Maria Bartiromo or Harris Faulkner to be his running mate. And it includes the president’s confusion about how to pronounce Semafor before he was interviewed by our own Kadia Goba. (Hint: It sounds like seh-muh-for.)

⁛ News

Crossplay: The New York Times filed a trademark application last month for a new game called “Crossplay.” The media company posted terms and conditions for the game on the Times’ website, which suggest that the game will allow you to face off in the app against other players. It’s just the latest in a string of new offerings from the Times’ games section. As Semafor first reported last year, the paper has been testing a new game called Zorse, which remains only available in Canada. In an email to the Times, a spokesperson said it was the paper’s mission to “craft and publish best in class original games, puzzles and companion content for our solvers every day.” “Over the last three years, we’ve experienced remarkable innovation and growth in our games. As we continue to build the premier destination for digital puzzle games, we’re testing an exciting pipeline of new games this year,” the spokesperson said. “Stay tuned for more.”

Bumbling spies: Christo Grozev, the Bellingcat investigative star targeted by the Russians, tells the tale of the “bumbling wannabe spies” who targeted him on Russia’s behalf — a story by turns sinister and hilarious that can be told now that they’ve been convicted in London.

✦ Marketing

Assembly required: A veteran executive from Politico and The Wall Street Journal is launching a company to help corporate leaders better understand what their peers and competitors are doing. Executive Platforms, an events business, and Board.org, a communities business, have merged to become Assemble, CEO Aaron Kissel first told Semafor. The new company will be a “curated peer intelligence platform designed to connect senior business leaders with their most reliable resource: the wisdom of experienced peers.” It’s essentially a combination of summits for executives and communities for them and their teams that includes a “subscription-based business model where they advise each other.” As an example, Kissel noted that Assemble’s board focused on DEI has been meeting multiple times a week since the inauguration, as companies grapple with whether to rename, dismantle, or move forward with diversity initiatives.

⁌ TV

FCC won’t let me be: Congressional Democrats are showing that they are not pleased with the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. As Semafor first reported earlier this week, Senate Democrats announced a new bill on Wednesday that would prohibit the FCC from blocking mergers or regulating stations based on political speech.

The Four (million): At this rate, Fox will be the last network with an audience on cable television. The network has continued to post record ratings since Trump’s inauguration. The Five, the network’s flagship show, has had more than 4 million viewers for the last 40 days, according to Nielsen ratings shared with Semafor by Fox News.

Key figures in American tech have softened their support for H-1B visas after a revolt from President Donald Trump’s MAGA base, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti reported.

“We have been in a 60-year social engineering experiment to exclude native-born people from the educational slots and jobs that high-skill immigration has been funneling foreigners into,” tech investor Marc Andreessen said on a podcast last month.

Yes, the program is “rife with abuse,” wrote Albergotti — it’s also an open question how the US competes without it.