How to Save the Media

A clear-eyed examination of why modern media lost public trust—and what it will take to earn it back.

Social networks tore apart a media industry that had taken two hundred years to build, swapping broadsheets and broadcasts for algorithms and addiction feeds. Now what?

The media is in chaos even though its fundamental job hasn’t changed. The demand is still there: people still crave great stories and robust reporting. And there’s no shortage of supply: there are more creators than ever. But the old models built to connect the supply and demand no longer work.

As a young journalist, Hamish McKenzie knew the ground he was stepping onto was already shaky, and that was even before he worked for and then tangled with Elon Musk. When he teamed up with Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi to found Substack, he believed that new infrastructure and new business models could usher in an era where independent voices have power and audiences have a say.

In How to Save the Media, we get to ride along, witness to an industry in metamorphosis. We’re there at the Hotel Chelsea, barside with whiskey-drinking legends of newsrooms past. We’re there at Cannes Lions, where sweating ad executives on luxury yachts are busy divvying up the very revenue that once kept newsrooms alive.

And we’re there as pioneers of the new creator economy wrestle with the promises and pitfalls of what they’ve built.