Media

1. Fox’s acquisitions
2. NPR’s fundraising
3. Booker gets online
4. Mixed Signals
5. A Wolff’s den
6. A fond farewell

Why does anyone pay for news in 2025?

The most reliable reasons are the most obvious: A desire for a better understanding of the world. The need for insider intel to get ahead professionally. For some true sickos, a way to pass the time.

There’s another powerful, if unreliable, force: sentimentality.

NPR member stations have recorded record donations amid a clawback of hundreds of millions of dollars by the federal government, reflecting a swell of local pride among listeners. People tuned back into The Late Show in strong numbers following the announcement that CBS would be ending the show entirely next year, bringing to a close a franchise that has been a television staple for more than three decades.

Of course, audience nostalgia can only go so far. NPR and PBS and their member stations may raise enough to slow the bleeding this year and next year, but what happens after, if Republicans maintain control of Congress and/or the White House beyond 2028? Interest in Stephen Colbert won’t get people to stop drifting away from linear television in favor of looser, more contemporary comedy podcasts.

A lack of sentimentality probably saved Fox six years ago, when the Murdochs sold 21st Century Fox and much of the company’s cable assets to Disney at the top of the market. Now, as Ben writes this week, after years of keeping an iron grip on its in-house talent, the company has shifted its attitude, letting its stars move between digital media properties. It’s even building businesses around the Murdochs’ longtime nemesis, Google, in the form of YouTube.

Also today: Michael Wolff’s den, Cory Booker’s social media dreams for Democrats, and a job listing here at Semafor. (Scoop count: 2)

How Fox got ahead on the big media future

If you want a glimpse of the coming consolidation in digital media, take a look at Fox, Ben writes today. With deals for the Ruthless podcast, Brett Cooper’s show, Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Sports, and Red Seat Ventures (whose clients include Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Piers Morgan), Fox is creating a template for big media’s entry into the fragmented world of independent creators.

“In the past a lot of linear networks have needed exclusive deals to own the talent — but the creator economy doesn’t work like that and they need to coexist on those organic channels,” Paul Cheesbrough, the CEO of Fox’s Tubi Media Group, said in an interview with Semafor. It’s a remarkable turnaround for Fox, which was seen as dangerously small when it sold off its studio in 2019 — but which now appears nimbler than CNN and NBC’s networks, which are tangled in corporate restructuring, and more able than bigger conglomerates, and diversified billionaires, to stand up to pressure from President Donald Trump. The Murdoch businesses have made one allowance, however: “At this point in time, it’s hard to bet against YouTube,” said Cheesbrough.

NPR’s fundraising blitz

NPR and its member stations are experiencing a spike in large- and small-dollar donor giving following Republicans’ decision to claw back federal funds. Stations across the country hit or blew past their fundraising goals.

NPR CEO Katherine Maher said NPR could offer $8 million in immediate relief for badly-hit stations, and is working on setting up a bridge fund to help affiliates cut costs. But she cautioned that this outpouring of listener support is not a permanent solution to funding woes. NPR has heard from donors and philanthropic institutions that have not historically backed media organizations, she said, but who “recognize that public media funding is a critical piece of how their portfolio interests continue to get covered.”

“It’s really important that the funds be understood as something that is a one-time response,” Maher told Semafor. “It’s up to all of us to continue to build those relationships with people who have demonstrated newly that they’re committed to public media, but recognize that we have a long way to go in terms of achieving sustainability.”

Booker gets Democrats to log on

Sen. Cory Booker is strengthening Democrats’ weak social media muscles six months into his stewardship of the Strategic Communications Committee, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. The New Jersey Democrat has his caucus quadrupling its social media engagement, earning it 15 million new followers and doing appearances with social media influencers whose following far outpaces traditional media. “Our caucus was not understanding that we put so much energy into going on MSNBC, but more people are on these devices,” Booker told Semafor. The Democrats “lost young people, and young men in particular,” he continued, in part “because we weren’t on the platforms that they show up on.” Booker is encouraging his colleagues to flood the zone, especially on YouTube and TikTok — despite bipartisan security concerns about the latter: “I made a hard pitch on TikTok to my colleagues.”

How Scott Galloway mastered media

Scott Galloway has built a modern media empire, and he’s quickly becoming a leading voice for young men on the left. This week, Ben and Max talk to the Pivot co-host about how he turned a career in marketing into a new kind of media stardom, how much money his podcasts make, and why he’s so vocal about masculinity. They also talk about whether podcasts will become the new target for political campaigns and which Democrats are calling him up in anticipation of the 2028 election.

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

A sunny place for shady stories

If you want to understand the Jeffrey Epstein story — both his grotesque public success and the lack of a secret conspiracy — Michael Wolff, long the enfant terrible of the New York politico-media scene, is one of the few sophisticated and honest brokers. Wolff, who knew Epstein, recorded their conversations, and wrote about him in great detail in his 2021 book Too Famous, was kicked off X after sharing some of those recordings before the 2024 election and got little TV play for his most recent Trump book.

So his wife, the journalist Victoria Wolff, suggested a move to Instagram, where he’s now got more than 100,000 followers and is regularly going viral with knowing explanations of the president’s inner life. One reader points out a favorite feature of the project: Each video is filmed in a different part of the Wolffs’ Amagansett home. “At first I wondered if Michael talking about shady world affairs in various sunny corners of our idyllic Amagansett house might seem strange. But in fact it appears to be calming and reassuring for people. The pretty basket or light dancing on the wall holds people’s attention, and makes the news easier to digest,” Victoria said in an email. She recently started a spinoff account, @ouramagansetthouse.

Saying goodbye

We’ve got a bittersweet Semafor scoop to share: Our brilliant head of communications and part-time Mixed Signals guest host Meera Pattni will, after years on the front lines of media and PR, be setting out to build something of her own, aimed at shaking up the communications biz. Pattni, a onetime radio producer in London who’s held senior roles at Vice and Condé Nast, has played a central role in helping Semafor tell our story. We’ll miss her, but we’re proud to see her step into founder life — a path we know well. And yes, we’ll be watching for the launch scoop.

We are also, of course, now hiring for one of the really great jobs in communications, and the person we’re looking for is probably reading this newsletter. So if you’re strategic, publicity-minded, love journalism, and are eager to help the fastest-growing and most ambitious global news organization tell our story, please email Ben at ben.smith@semafor.com.

— Ben Smith and Justin Smith

Crain Communications has been informing some current and former staff that it recently discovered a “data security incident” that compromised employees’ personal information … In a note to staff last week, NPR said that the company’s threat intel providers said they had noticed a rise in “right-wing users celebrating the supposed ‘end of NPR.’” … Max was surprised by how many people were upset about The New York Times Magazine’s decision to cancel the monthly kids edition, which appeared to have quite a following … The great satirist Tom Lehrer, who let people believe he was dead for decades, has died.

Helping out on his family’s farm is a side job for Jeff Rowe, CEO of the agrochemical giant Syngenta.

But he tells Semafor’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson it gives him a valuable connection to the farmers who rely on his company’s fungicides, seeds, and digital tools, as he tries to humanize Syngenta in a country where many consumers increasingly distrust “Big Ag” and politicians view Chinese-owned companies with suspicion.

“We’re a big industry; we’re easy to hate,” Rowe admits.