The big news in the media world this week was Ezra Klein’s decision to start his own media property, jumping from the Washington Post, where he found fame as creator of its popular Wonkblog.
As he gets busy running a business and not just writing a blog, Mr. Klein should remember two words: Michael Arrington.
Mr. Klein is the latest in a long line of successful writers who have paddled away from their old-media motherships. But will he succeed?
He might want to review the experience of Michael Arrington, who was one of the first to strike out on his own.
Back in 2010 – ages ago in media-time – Mr. Arrington was king of the tech blogosphere as founder of the popular blog TechCrunch. He sold it to AOL, a year later had a falling out with management and left to start his own title, the aptly named Uncrunched.
And that was pretty much the last anyone heard from him.
Now, sure, that’s perhaps a little unfair. I’m not a close follower of the tech scene, and I am sure Mr. Arrington is still an influential voice whose views are eagerly sought. And he may have sold whatever AOL shares he received and decided to ease up on the gas. Still, even now he surely gets pitched by countless PR agencies and is invited to every new-product launch in Silicon Valley. He probably still gets calls from hopeful venture capitalists looking to create some buzz for the dog they just added to their portfolio.
But it says something that I still follow TechCrunch, just as many others do. It has about 1.5 million monthly visitors to its site, while Uncrunched has about half as many. Building a fully armed media property – with blogs, news coverage, research, product reviews, conferences, videos and more – is not so easy, even in an industry as lively as technology. (The newly launched Re/code will be fascinating to watch.)
There are lots of new models taking root in the news business today, and lots of experimentation. Buzzfeed and Quartz are having a run at serious news, and Yahoo has added some heavyweight writers in the past year. And there’s my favorite, Andrew Sullivan, whose ad-free model just finished a successful first year. (Few of these ventures are making serious money yet, as this great piece by Michael Wolf points out.)
The debate between whether the parent company is stronger than an individual writer is likely to continue, even as every reporter rushes to burnish their personal “brands” with blogs, TV appearances and books.
The media evolution is going to be great fun to watch, and some great journalism is going to get produced along the way. Once you get past the cat videos, that is.