independent-media
(16)
The PR Firm That Stopped Spinning and Started Calling Things Out
For twenty-five years, Eric Starkman sold companies a reporter's eye for the sentence that would not survive scrutiny. Then he decided the more interesting business was scrutiny itself.
Emily Atkin Put Climate Journalism in Readers’ Hands
She entered the climate beat as a detour toward political reporting. Then Emily Atkin realized it was the political story - and built HEATED so she could report it without asking a newsroom for permission.
What Creators Can Steal From the Grief Podcast That Built a Reported $30 Million Company
Lemonada began with two women, two lost brothers and one costly narrative show. Six years later, a format pivot, host-read ads and famous-but-human conversations helped produce a majority-stake deal reportedly worth about $30 million.
Ghost
Ghost is an open-source publishing platform that lets writers, journalists and creators run a website, send email newsletters and sell paid memberships from one place. Built on Node.js and released under the MIT license, it is stewarded by the nonprofit Ghost Foundation and funded entirely by its users through Ghost(Pro) managed hosting - taking 0% of creators' subscription revenue.
The Ankler
The Ankler (Ankler Media) is an independent, subscription-driven media company covering the business of Hollywood and the collision of entertainment, media and technology. Founded as a one-man newsletter by Richard Rushfield in 2017 and expanded into a full media company with former Hollywood Reporter/Billboard chief Janice Min as CEO in 2022, it has grown into a multi-platform operation of roughly 15 newsletters, podcasts, video and live events - read by studio chiefs and moguls it covers, raised $1.5M at a $20M valuation via Y Combinator, and reportedly aiming for $10M in annual revenue in 2026.
Hamish McKenzie
Hamish McKenzie is the New Zealand-born co-founder and Chief Writing Officer of Substack, the subscription newsletter platform that has fundamentally reshaped how writers monetize their work. A former journalist and Tesla lead writer who wrote a book about Elon Musk's EV revolution, McKenzie pivoted from covering disruption to causing it - co-founding Substack in 2017 with Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi. Today the platform hosts over 50,000 earning creators and has raised $213 million total funding including a $100M Series C. McKenzie hosts The Active Voice podcast, delivered a TED2025 talk on the future of media, and is writing a book called 'How to Save the Media' due in 2026.
Substack
Substack is a subscription publishing platform that lets writers, podcasters, and video creators run paid newsletters and own the direct relationship with their readers. Founded in 2017, the company hosts thousands of paid publications, processes hundreds of millions in subscription revenue annually, and has become the default home for independent media on the internet.
Johnny Harris
Johnny Harris is an Emmy-winning American journalist, filmmaker, and YouTuber with over 7.5 million subscribers, known for visually-driven explainer videos on geopolitics, history, and international affairs. A former Vox senior producer and creator of the acclaimed 'Borders' documentary series, Harris left legacy media in 2020 to build an independent journalism operation that now employs 30+ people. In February 2026, he and his wife Iz co-launched Newpress, an algorithm-free creator journalism platform designed to give audiences a direct role in the journalism process.
Brian Morrissey
Brian Morrissey is the founder and editor of The Rebooting, a 92,000+ subscriber newsletter and podcast business dissecting the economics of modern media. After a decade shaping Digiday into the defining trade publication of digital media, he walked away in 2020 to build something leaner and smarter - a one-person editorial operation that doubles as a lab for sustainable media models. He also co-hosts People vs Algorithms with Troy Young and Alex Schleifer.
Eric Newcomer
Eric Newcomer is the founder of Newcomer, an independent newsletter and media company covering venture capital and startups from his perch in Brooklyn. A Harvard-trained philosopher turned tech journalist, he broke some of the biggest stories of the Uber era at Bloomberg before quitting in 2020 to build his own media business. His newsletter now generates over $3M in annual revenue, runs an invite-only AI summit called Cerebral Valley, and gives readers what he calls 'Your Seat at the Cap Table.'
Stephen Hackett
Stephen Hackett is a Memphis-based writer, podcaster, and co-founder of Relay FM - one of the most respected independent podcast networks in the Apple world. Through his blog 512 Pixels (running since 2008), his flagship podcast Connected, and co-hosting Mac Power Users, he has built a career at the intersection of Apple history, hardware archaeology, and independent publishing. He is also the driving force behind Relay FM's annual St. Jude Children's Research Hospital fundraiser, which has raised nearly $5 million - a cause deeply personal to him after his son Josiah survived pediatric brain cancer treated at St. Jude.
Mehdi Hasan
Mehdi Hasan is a British-American journalist, broadcaster, and media entrepreneur best known as the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Zeteo - an independent digital news company he launched in 2024 after departing MSNBC. A relentless interviewer and master debater who studied PPE at Oxford, Hasan has built a formidable track record at Al Jazeera, The Intercept, and MSNBC before going independent. His 2023 book 'Win Every Argument' became a New York Times bestseller, and Zeteo has rapidly grown to over 1.8 million YouTube subscribers and 450,000 newsletter subscribers within its first year.
Simon Owens
Simon Owens is a Washington, DC-based media industry journalist, newsletter writer, and podcast host who runs Simon Owens's Media Newsletter on Substack. Known for deep-dive reporting on how publishers create, distribute, and monetize digital content, he has interviewed over 1,000 media entrepreneurs and built one of the most-followed independent media newsletters, with 38,000+ Substack followers and 61,000+ LinkedIn followers. His work covers the creator economy, subscription models, local news, and the evolving business of digital publishing.
Doomberg
Doomberg is the pseudonymous green-chicken persona behind the most-read finance newsletter on Substack, with 373,000+ subscribers. Run by a tight-knit team of former heavy-industry executives and private-equity professionals, Doomberg delivers lateral-thinking analysis on energy, finance, and geopolitics - unapologetically pro-nuclear, data-driven, and fiercely independent. Launched in May 2021, the publication grew from zero to the #1 finance newsletter on Substack without spending a dollar on marketing, making it one of the most remarkable organic media success stories of the independent publishing era.
Isaac Saul
Isaac Saul is the founder and editor of Tangle, an independent nonpartisan politics newsletter with 500,000+ subscribers in 60+ countries. A former newspaper editor who contributed to CNN, TIME, HuffPost, and Vox, Saul launched Tangle in 2019 to fight news polarization by presenting the best arguments from left, right, and center on the day's biggest political debates. He's a Shorty Award winner, TED speaker, and one of the most trusted voices in independent political media.
Jordan Schneider
Jordan Schneider is the founder and editor-in-chief of ChinaTalk, the premier independent newsletter and podcast covering US-China tech and policy. A Yale-educated historian who earned a master's in economics from Peking University's Yenching Academy, Schneider has built ChinaTalk into a 65,000-subscriber powerhouse with over 1 million podcast downloads in 2025 alone. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a former 2023-24 AWM Scholar, with bylines in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Wired, and Lawfare. Based in New York and fluent in Chinese, Schneider synthesizes elite policy analysis with accessible storytelling, covering semiconductors, AI development, export controls, and the full sweep of US-China competition.