Why TV News Anchors Like Joy Reid and Don Lemon Are Moving to Substack

Should Jim Acosta wear a tie?

In the last two months, from the former anchor Leaves his job to the CNNMr. Acosta transmits online several times a week, usually from his dining room, using his iPhone. Often, he is solving the problems in real time, away from the lucid desk and sophisticated cameras of his CNN set.

A question he has to face is how many “frills” to add to his interview With artists of the caliber of Pete Buttigieg, former transport secretary, or Hakeem Jeffries representative of New York, the best democrat of the Chamber.

“The magic is not killing or joking with this organic nature of the show,” said Matt Hoye, an executive producer just hired by Acosta and a 30 -year -old veteran of the CNN, who is leaning against “no” on the addition of ties but “yes” on the graphics.

The flows of “The Jim Acosta Show” Live on Scassack, a platform that has recently cemented as a port for blocked television anchors.

In January, the start-up is better known for e-mail newsletters gave all users The possibility of publishing live videos. Now it hosts a handful of cable stars abandoned by their traditional media works between stored formations, wage cuts and other disputes. On Scarsack, where politics is the Most popular and profitable categoryAnti-trump publishers performed particularly well.

Joy Reid He started posting regularly to climb in March, after his MSNBC show has been deleted. Friday, the former anchoring of the CNN Don Lemon He joined scarce after a year of live streaming on YouTube. They join for tapper for established graphics, such as Mehdi Hasan (the former MSNBC conductor) and Dan rather (the face of Onemime of CBS News), together with various expatriates of the CNN: Norm Eisen, Jessica Yellin, Chris Cillizza, Elise Labott and Alisyn Camerota.

This new TV diaspora has a central proposal: the future of news is casual. Sometimes very casual. The anchors can lose the seats and cling to their stellar power again, as long as they give the modern public what they want. “The most important thing in my business is now authenticity”, like the Fox News Host star transformed into YouTube Megyn Kelly recently said The New York Times.

“Jim Acosta’s people don’t really care if Jim Acosta is wearing pancake make-up,” Molly Jong-Fast said, which is both a MSNBC political analyst and a normal guest in poor shows.

Last Wednesday, Mr. Acosta finished his 30 -minute interview with the representative Jeffries talking about university basketball. So a small orange ball materializes in the host’s hand, delivered by his hungry beagle of recovery, Duke. His visible house plants had previously been leisure on Fox News, to which Mr. Acosta objected soberly.

Last month, in his birthday weekend, Don Lemon used his YouTube channel to transform into streaming and lunch – both lasted almost an hour – e a partyDuring which she sang Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” parts in a karaoke microphone.

“People don’t really care if they are in a coat and bind themselves to the north lawn of the White House or in a study with air conditioning in 30 rock,” said Jeff Zucker, Former President of the CNN and former head of many of these journalists now independent. “They just want to go out and hear from someone he likes and trust.”

Katie Couric, who started an independent average company in 2017, found the accelerated decline of “sometimes shocking” linear television, said: “I used to anchor the” CBS Evening News “and” The Toray Show “and I’m doing Instagram lives now”.

Today, however, with some dozen employees and a newsletter that approaches one million subscribers, more often it believes that the Legacy media are “late for the party”. The transmission on social media is “authenticity on steroids”, said Mrs. Couric, who recently paused shopping for an Oscar party dress to live a breaking-night discussion on Ukraine, parking on the showroom sofa of a fashion brand, who wears any trick, underlined.

Mr. Lemon, who was external At the CNN in 2023, a few months after making observations on the age of Nikki Haley who were widely considered sexist, he said he had been courted almost immediately by a Scarsack. Instead he accepted in 2024 to bring to New show at X With Elon Musk as his first interview guest.

That interview Growing up tenseAnd when Mr. Musk subsequently canceled their 1.5 million dollar agreement, Mr. Lemon intended cause which is in progress. (“He is crazy to be in dispute with the richest man in the world,” said Lemon, even if he said he didn’t think about it very often.)

In the meantime, Mr. Lemon has grown his YouTube channel to over 656,000 subscribers, loading his shots, “Lemon Drops”, together with the interviews with the conservative podcaster Candace Owens and the representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat.

“At the beginning, you are frightened, as,” Oh no, I am no longer in the great broadcast, “said Mr. Lemon, who initially recorded his YouTube videos from an expensive and professionally enlightened study -” Cable News Lite “, he said – until he realized that the lots that filed a lot of bonuses in his living room, with his dogs who bark, were more received from subscribers.

“You don’t need all those things you think you need,” he said.

In December, Mr. Lemon added a paid subscription option to his YouTube channel, with options ranging from around $ 3 to $ 50 per month. A representative refused to reveal his belonging numbers. But Mr. Lemon said that the show is profitable, mainly through the sharing of YouTube advertising revenues. He also earns income through sponsorships on social media and corporate language commitments that he said he was unable to accept while working for the CNN.

Ms Reid, who lost His MSNBC slot about a month ago is still experiencing the “strange disconnection” of life without a television program and a team of producers, he said.

He is “only tired,” he said, and working through his next steps, Mrs. Reid said in an interview: “What do I want to do? What am I good? What can I do to contribute to the world?” For now, he has landed to write about democracy to an audience of about 118,000.

Mr. Acosta, whose subscribers increased after encouraging the CNN spectators in his Signature Do not “bow to a tyrant”, now it is among the first 20 publishers of scamarts in politics. Catherine Valentine, who recruits and love these political and television personalities for Scadack now calls this “Jim Acosta model”.

Among his 287,000 total readers, Mr. Acosta has more than 10,000 paid subscribers, although he also refused to provide specific financial data. When he was asked at the beginning of March if he was approaching the sign of $ 1 million annualized revenue, Mr. Acosta laughed: “Are you writing a story, how, look at all these greedy transmission journalists who collect?” (He also replied: “I’m coming there.”)

Acosta has also explored partnerships of additional content, such as a podcasting agreement, to increase its poor presence. But he still talks about a Scarsack with the reverence of a former college radio conductor who experiments “Garage Rock” – or at least one “model submarine enthusiast”, he said.

“It seems to have come across this really interesting hobby that I would like to know before, but I didn’t do it,” said Acosta. “And I don’t know if the CNN would have allowed me to have a presence.” (A current CNN anchoring, Jake Tapper, uses Stopack, but more as social media feed, republishing the clips of the CNN.)

Some networks have tried to incorporate more random and chaotic internet offers in their elegant ranges, as when Espn acquired the free wheel “Pat McAfee Show” or Fox News has developed a show with “a podcast style signature“Around Will Cain.

But many still place restrictions in the presence of their employees on platforms such as Scamart, said Marc Paskin, a talented agent who represents journalists as a co-open of news and broadcasts at the United Talent Agency, where Mr. Lemon is a customer.

“There has always been fear of the cannibalization of an audience,” said Paskin. “The truth of the matter is that these things should be seen as a partner”.

Until 2026, Mr. Lemon still has a contract with the CNN that limits its transmission opportunities with competitors. Will he return to television then? Maybe if someone made it a “great offer,” he said. But maybe not.

“The longer I do it, the more it becomes satisfactory, the more it becomes profitable and I start to love him the more,” he said. “I think the people who are in the Legacy media will now have to understand what we are doing here.”