The Rise Of Independent Journalism And What It Means For Entrepreneurs

I’ve covered the evolution of the media industry over the last several years, and the rapid growth of independent journalism is one of the changes that will have the greatest impact on the industry and for entrepreneurs in the coming years. 

Whether we’re talking about a one-person show all the way to an upstart media outlet, this is going to transform the industry from top to bottom, and entrepreneurs need to adapt now.

Earlier this year, Patrick Bet-David offered former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, a five year, $100 million dollar contract to host a show on his platform. While this kind of thing may seem unprecedented, it’s becoming far more common than most people realize, and it’s a sign of dramatic changes to the media industry. Journalists at several other media outlets have gone out on their own over the last several years as well, but the more interesting part, in my opinion, are the people who started from the ground level and worked their way up on their own. 

Unlike the journalists who leveraged an audience they built while at a major media outlet before going out on their own, these people started with no audience, infrastructure, or support, building it by creating the kind of useful and engaging content that their audience wanted — Bet-David being one of them, with his media company, Valuetainment. The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the most listened to podcasts in the world, with an audience larger than many traditional media outlets today. And Daily Flash has taken on the morning show format without the support of a traditional TV network. These are just a few examples that have all been launched from ground level.

The genie is out of the bottle. 

While traditional media isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, independent journalism is taking a larger and more significant role for entrepreneurs, and those who understand, adapt to, and leverage this will grow and thrive far beyond their competitors.

So how did we get here?

The Media Industry Has Changed Dramatically Over The Last Decade 

When the internet first started, it was mainly used by the military and academia, then, around the mid-90s, it was introduced to consumers. Soon after, media outlets began to get onboard too. This helped them to expand their audiences, but because nearly all content online was free, this started to cannibalize their paying subscriber base. After all — why pay for something if you can get it online for free?

Media outlets struggled to find the right approach. First, they plastered their websites with an obnoxious amount of ads, then they tried making visitors sign up to access their content, and eventually they put paywalls in place. Visitors who were used to getting content for free became pissed and they were quite vocal about it. 

These media outlets were essentially forced into a no-win situation. This led to cost-cutting measures — meaning layoffs, which meant the remaining journalists were now expected to take on a significantly larger, and in most cases, unreasonable workload. It also led to more clickbait-type content, because more engagement meant more page views, which meant more ad revenue. 

But with fewer journalists, working harder than ever and often being focused on a certain type of content, it has become more difficult than ever to get featured in the media. To put this in context, there are six publicists to every journalist today, and that doesn’t even take into account all of the entrepreneurs doing their own PR. It’s a battlefield out there today.

People Want Their Voices To Be Heard, And Others Want To Hear Them

People want to get their message in front of their desired audience. We’ve talked about how changes to the media industry have made this more difficult through traditional media. Social media offers another path, but unfortunately, with declining organic reach and growing censorship on most platforms, it’s often not a strong option for most people either. 

The real issue is much more foundational, though.

The world today has become a creator economy where your audience becomes, in a sense, a form of capital. A large and rapidly growing segment of the population wants to share their thoughts on everything from business, to pop culture, to politics, and more, and an even larger segment of the population eagerly wants to consume their content and is always looking for more. 

The beauty of this model is that it empowers entrepreneurs to monetize their content in multiple ways, and often more effectively than giant media conglomerates can, and in doing so, create a self-funding marketing channel that enables them to make money being themselves.

Technology Makes Content Creation And Distribution Easier Than Ever Before

Not too long ago, if you wanted to find out what was going on in the world, you had to buy a physical copy of a magazine or newspaper to read an article, turn on your TV and watch the news when it aired, or tune into your local radio station. 

When I first got on the internet in the early 90s, you had to code websites by hand in a no-frills text editor, upload your files via FTP to a web server, open it in a browser, and then you’d find out if your site looked and functioned the way you planned. Video wasn’t viable yet, and audio was limited to simple MIDI clips. The technology for the rich interactive experiences we enjoy today didn’t exist, and ecommerce wasn’t a thing yet. Today, though, all of that is instantly available on your computer or smartphone from literally anywhere. 

And not only is it easy to access that kind of information, it’s also easy to create it. Websites, graphics, videos, podcasts, and more, now can all be easily created, often with free software, and distributed to an audience of millions. The technology you have in your pocket today gives you more power than entire TV networks, newspapers, magazines, and radio stations used to have just a decade ago.

What Does This All Mean For Entrepreneurs?

As I mentioned earlier, traditional media isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. While some media outlets will absolutely go bankrupt, as many have recently, many more will remain, and a consolidation will take place. Public relations will still play a powerful role in building a successful company, but it will continue to become more difficult over the coming years. Entrepreneurs will need to have a solid and unique company, as well as an effective PR plan, and they’ll have to invest the time into building and nurturing relationships with journalists.

But they also need to start looking outside of the giant media brands to find these newer independent journalists and/or media outlets and work to get featured there as well. This lets them reach a new, and often, more engaged audience, and in many cases, it may be easier compared to traditional media.

And they also need to create their own media. The truth is that we all run a media company today, whether we realize it or not, and creating content allows us to not only create the exposure we need to grow our businesses, but also to build an engaged and loyal audience. This creates a powerful advantage over your competitors, and one that will give you a bulletproof marketing channel that helps your company better withstand adversity in the market.