Media

1. Newsom’s new nemesis
2. Mixed Signals
3. X is back
4. Kaleidoscope hires
5. WaPo takes
6. Ethics dilemma

The resistance will be SuperChatted.

On Friday, former CNN host-turned-YouTuber Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort were arrested and charged with blocking access to a church and violating the civil rights of parishioners after the duo followed a group of anti-ICE protesters who interrupted a Sunday service in Minneapolis.

The move, coupled with the recent seizure of a Washington Post journalist’s electronic devices, amounted to a new but sadly familiar front in the Trump administration’s ongoing war against the media. The reaction followed the same playbook as other moments when President Donald Trump has stepped over the line: Press freedom groups gave the standard strongly-worded condemnations, some media organizations issued warnings, and the media’s critics cheered.

Lemon’s actions, and those of his allies in new media, were more interesting.

Almost immediately after the news broke Friday morning, Lemon’s livestream was up and running with what became a nine-hour YouTube telethon stream of the new independent media resistance to Trump. The show featured former cable news-hosts-turned-Substackers like Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan, Jim Acosta, Joy Reid, and Katie Phang. It showcased prominent ex-Republicans and ex-Trump administration officials like Miles Taylor, Olivia Troye, and Tim Miller. It had new Democratic media creators like Jennifer Welch of I’ve Had It and Adam Mockler, political candidates like Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and even Oscar-winning actor Jane Fonda.

It was a glimpse into how news media works now: With Lemon in jail and incommunicado, his team kept the action going. The stream racked up 717,000 views, and many who watched chipped in by becoming paying members of Lemon’s YouTube community via the Super Chat monetization function. In the end, Lemon gained several thousand new YouTube subscribers, and his videos have seen a significant boost in viewership in the days since he was arrested.

Lemon came on Semafor’s Mixed Signals last year to explain his forced transition from cable news anchor to YouTuber, and now has the unfortunate honor of being our first podcast guest to be charged with a federal crime (that we know of).

At the time, he said he was on track to make more money on YouTube than he did as a cable host. He acknowledged he wasn’t there yet, and it may be a while. But by the perverse new media incentives, his enemies in the Trump administration may have just gotten him a bit closer.

Also today: Behind the scenes of another mutually beneficial media feud between the California Post and Gov. Gavin Newsom, and an interview with the TV executive behind Heated Rivalry.

The Post vs. Newsom

The California Post launched last week as a West Coast sister to Rupert Murdoch’s conservative New York tabloid, with hopes of shaking up a declining news scene and shifting the media narrative in a state that’s been dominated by Democrats for decades. And it has been eager to pick fights with Gov. Gavin Newsom — a rivalry the pugnacious governor and his staff have embraced both publicly and in communications behind the scenes, according to emails shared with Semafor.

For example, the Post published a story saying Newsom had been “roasted” by Bill Essayli, the Trump-appointed US attorney for the Central District of California, and christened him “California’s top federal prosecutor” over a fraud investigation. But Newsom’s deputy comms director hit back, arguing “The New York Comic Book” had exaggerated “Little Billy’s” involvement in the case.

The governor’s office sent at least four requests for corrections to the Post, one person familiar with the situation told Semafor. Somehow that was even fewer than Newsom’s public calls for corrections; the governor’s X account tweeted at the Post seeking corrections five times. One Post staffer acknowledged it had made minor corrections, but argued to Semafor that the tabloid had not materially changed any of its stories.

Murdoch and News Corp. have been investing significant resources into the Post, hiring some 80 staffers and launching with an app, a website and a daily print edition. Murdoch’s calculus: There’s a niche of Californian readers fed up with Democratic single-party leadership and eager for the Post’s fiery brand.

Cohan on ‘Mixed Signals’

On this week’s Mixed Signals, Bell Media CEO Sean Cohan joins Ben and Max to unpack the success of Heated Rivalry and how the gay Canadian hockey romance became an overnight cultural sensation amidst Hollywood’s heralded vibe shift, as major production companies in the US have increasingly catered to broader or more conservative tastes. Cohan also talks about Bell’s strategy of using licensing deals to reach new audiences, the enduring power of a well-told romance, and why Canadian storytelling is only getting started on the global stage.

X is back

There’s really no disputing it at this point: After a dip in its cultural relevance at the end of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the site formerly known as Twitter is back. The platform, which dominated US and much of global politics a decade ago, seemed to be receding into a kind of time-capsule-like, Pretoria-inflected insane asylum. But Elon Musk’s social media-and-AI platform is now undoubtedly at the beating heart of news again, helped by a series of product improvements under new chief Nikita Bier. It’s where MAGA-dominated US politics organizes, where sophisticated conversation about artificial intelligence takes place, and where big news still breaks: At the moment, you can find examples of bots at their weirdest and sweetest, as AIs talk to one another on an agent-only social network called Moltbook.

Over the weekend, as I wrote, X offered a contrast between curious and cooperative AI agents speculating about their own consciousness; and obsessive, hyperpartisan humans chasing Epstein obsessions down dark rabbit-holes. I noted the vibrancy of X on the platform itself, to which the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci replied: “It’s pretty good ‘again’ the way The Kit Kat Club was pretty good again once the, uh, remaining patrons acclimatized to the new order.”

— Ben Smith

Podcast brand staffs up

Kaleidoscope, the New York media company behind On Musk from Walter Isaacson, the critically acclaimed podcast No Such Thing, and shows from John Legend and Lance Bass, is acquiring a podcast company and filling out its executive ranks as it hopes to break further into video, in its quest to become the National Geographic of podcasting.

On Monday, Kaleidoscope plans to announce that it has hired former Condé Nast creative director Maria Paz Mendez Hodes to be its first head of video, as well as David Weissbourd as director of editorial and creative operations, and Agne Numaite as director of strategy. It has also acquired boutique podcast marketing agency The Listening Party, and is appointing founder Christy Mirabal to be Kaleidoscope’s new head of marketing. Kaleidoscope also told Semafor that it had “formalized a long-term partnership” with creative studio Second Lane.

“Kaleidoscope’s ambitious growth mission encompasses a sizable editorial slate expansion, new multi-platform delivery of our award-winning science and technology storytelling, and IP development that will resonate with brands, partners, and audiences around the world,” Oz Woloshyn, co-founder of Kaleidoscope, told Semafor in a statement.

Four takes on the Post

In an effort to persuade The Washington Post to reconsider another round of impending layoffs, the paper’s White House reporters wrote a letter to owner Jeff Bezos, I reported last week. We’re waiting to see if it works.

Meanwhile, here are four other takes on the drama at the Post:

Puck: “This nightmare is a reflection of [CEO] Will [Lewis’] own strategic inconsistency and managerial incompetence in the two years since he took the helm. Yes, the Post needs to be profitable, or at least break even, but presumably there’s a path to sustainability that doesn’t require an annual mass slaughter.” — Dylan Byers

Status: Staffers discussed soliciting support from essentially anyone who might be able to grab Lewis or Bezos’ attention. Some even pitched reaching out to “Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, who portrayed Post legends Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham in the 2017 film The Post.” — Oliver Darcy

CNN: “The great unknown: Is [Bezos] reading/listening? An old friend, watching the Post’s pleas go unanswered, texted me last night and asked a provocative question: ‘Is Bezos doing a catch and kill with an entire paper?’” — Brian Stelter

Breaker: “Something happened politically. Trump came back. Bezos read the tea leaves as so many other billionaires have. And they’ve said, ‘You know what? My main business is not The Washington Post. My main business is Amazon.’” — David Remnick of The New Yorker, to Lachlan Cartwright

Ethical standards

Only 28% of Americans say journalists hold themselves to a “high” or “very high” ethical standard, according to a Gallup poll out this month. For comparison, that puts members of the Fourth Estate somewhere between funeral home directors (32%) and advertising practitioners (10% — sorry, Cannes Lions crowd!). Still, that’s a jump from 2023, when a mere 19% of Americans thought so highly of us. “Journalist” was also one of the most polarizing professions surveyed, highlighting a partisan split that has persisted into Trump 2; even though the White House and Pentagon press corps are now stocked with MAGA favorites, 68% of Republicans still said journalists ranked “low” or “very low” in ethics, versus 20% of Democrats.

— Graph Massara

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• Hollywood Reporter editor Maer Roshan was among the select few media figures in attendance at the Kennedy Center premiere last week of Melania, the new documentary on the first lady directed by Brett Ratner. Roshan’s attendance irked a few members of the Penske Media staff who felt that being at the screening gave the appearance of a bit too much coziness, as other outlets were apparently blocked from seeing the film. On Friday, the publication ran a piece on the film that attributes details to “eyewitnesses at the premiere,” though it did not note its own editor’s presence in the crowd. Roshan told Semafor in an email, “As editor of THR I regularly attend a ton of events and premieres that we cover — I’m not personally name-checked every time we write about them.”
• Speaking of Melania: The movie is on track to gross $8 million in its opening weekend, a huge debut for a documentary. While apparently the film put up some strong ticket sales in big red-state cities, in New York, many of the film’s first weekend viewers were members of the media.
• Disney’s board may soon select Bob Iger’s replacement: theme park chief Josh D’Amaro, per Bloomberg.
• Lachlan Murdoch has been spending more time with Fox and News Corp. journalists in recent days. He was at the launch party for the California Post, and dined with the Fox News DC team at St. Anselm, per Jeremy Barr.
• David Zaslav was spotted at a discussion of the film Wall Street at 92NY over the weekend, where star Michael Douglas acknowledged him from the stage.
• All of your favorite tastemaking Substackers and creators are probably being managed by the same guy.
• I (Max) was seated next to the former 2000s child star Frankie Muniz at the breakfast rollout earlier this week for Yahoo’s new Candy Crush collaboration, part of the company’s larger revival of its games business. The former (and future) Malcolm in the Middle star is the face of the relaunch, which has a ’90s visual coding and is clearly aiming to reach nostalgic millennials. It was slightly uncomfortable and amusing to see him a bit out of place at a table of journalists, where the primary conversation was the current media environment, but I did try to bring him into the conversation by asking him if he played daily games from publishers (he does).