This story was originally published in On Background with Mark Stenberg, a free, weekly newsletter that explores the key themes shaping the media industry. You can sign up for it here.
When the news media startup Caliber first launched in October 2022, I was initially skeptical.
Originally called The News Movement, the brand embraced a commercial and editorial strategy that knowingly ran counter to the prevailing wisdom of the time.
Rather than shepherding social audiences toward owned-and-operated websites, it was content to meet them where they were, deploying vertical video that met followers in their feeds. It eschewed any form of subscription revenue, offered no newsletters, and barely produced any written material.
Three-and-a-half years later, the company has evolved, though only a bit.
The News Movement launched a holding company, called Caliber, to house its growing portfolio of media brands, which now includes The Recount, the lifestyle newsletter Capsule, and its creative studio Caliber Collective.
One of its cofounders, Will Lewis, also left the company to become the chief executive of The Washington Post, a departure that felt like inauspicious at the time but now appears to have been a blessing in disguise, given his uninspiring tenure at the publisher.
But other than that, the core mission of Caliber remains unchanged.
The media brand believes that traditional news organizations have for too long worked to bend consumers to their legacy modes of output, rather than create content that people actually want to consume.
That creed made Caliber an early and fervent adopter of vertical video, which has become ubiquitous in the years since its launch. Now, nearly every major news outlet has a dedicated tab on its app devoted to scrollable video, a concept Caliber embraced from the outset. It might have taken a while, in other words, but eventually the industry caught up to Caliber.
So when Ramin Beheshti, the cofounder and CEO of the company, invited me to their office in Flatiron to demo an early version of its new vertical video app, SaySo, I tried to be less skeptical this time around.
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The product, which Beheshti teased last fall, presents users with a daily Digest, a collection of vertical videos designed to surface content tailored to the interests of users. A separate Explore page allows users to find new creators on their own accord.
At launch, only 30 or so creators are participating in SaySo, a small number but one that reflects an important element of the product, which is that all of its content creators are vetted by Caliber.
These creators, whose followings range from 200,000 to 4 million, do not yet create content exclusively for SaySo; instead, when they are distributing their vertical videos, they can upload them to SaySo as another point of distribution. While the number of categories covered will expand, at launch most of the content deals with politics, climate, lifestyle, and urban planning.
Critically, the Digest product presents users with a finite number of videos—for me, it was around 12 per day. The point, per Beheshti, is not to keep users glued to their phones, but to inform them quickly and in an accessible fashion with news content from trustworthy sources. (Notably, the endless scroll itself has lately come under legal scrutiny, following landmark legal cases against Meta and Google in recent weeks.)
SaySo has no immediate monetization plans; while it focuses on fine-tuning its product and growing its audience, it will probably not generate any revenue this year.
When it does come time to flip the revenue switch, the primary product will likely resemble a freemium model, with users paying for additional features, like more Digests or enhanced access to creators. Rather than traditional display or native advertising, certain product features might be underwritten by sponsors, similar to the Apartment Therapy model.
The concept behind the product is compelling enough, but adoption will likely still be challenging. Most people only use around six apps on a daily basis, Beheshti admitted, so spurring user uptick will present its own set of hurdles. Caliber has a small advantage in that it can use its other brands, including TNM, The Recount, and Capsule, to promote SaySo, but its ability to amass users will largely depend on the degree to which its creators promote it.
The creator base, which the company aims to grow to 100 by the end of the year, will be incentivized to promote SaySo because it offers them a share of the revenue generated, according to Beheshti. While platforms like TikTok and Instagram are great for exposure, they typically offer meager payouts to all but their most popular creators, an oversight that SaySo hopes to use to its advantage.
Regardless of its success, the launch of SaySo shows Caliber is doubling down on its core thesis, which holds that companies need to serve content in the ways their audiences prefer to consume it. If leaning into vertical video was the first iteration of that, then this deeper embrace of creators is the natural step in that evolution.
Of course, Caliber is not completely alone in its effort to work more closely with creators. Across the media ecosystem, news brands have been reassessing their relationships to renegade newsgatherers.
Some, like the Vox Media Podcast Network, have built creator networks that complement their core businesses. Others, like Morning Brew, have experimented with turning their corporate staff into talent, while outlets like Wired, Bloomberg, and The New York Times have worked to treat their reporters more like talent, hiring on-camera coaches and launching franchises attached to top attractions.
But few have so openly welcomed external creators into their company as Caliber will with SaySo.
The product represents the latest new boundary to have been crossed, with news media now openly directing their audiences to consume content from independent creators. It is a platform play, obviously, so there is an editorial distinction between The Recount, for instance, and SaySo, but consumers are unlikely to be so discerning.
In 2025, I argued that the overarching media trend of the year was the creator-ification of media companies, that in the future the media ecosystem would become indistinguishable from a constellation of creator collectives. We are still several years away from that point, but products like SaySo affirm to me that it is our end destination.
Consumer trust and affinity for individuals is orders of magnitude higher than it is for institutions, but operating as an individual creator requires that the entrepreneur hold a variety of roles at the same time: producer of content, along with salesman, marketer, insurance haggler, landlord, etc. Few creators want to take on all of those mundane responsibilities, which is why media companies will persist, if only as infrastructure for the creators themselves.
With SaySo, Caliber is betting that the creator model of media will eventually supplant the nameless, faceless monolith that has defined media for decades. Even the Economist is putting its reporters on camera, if you needed any more proof. The question is not whether or not Caliber is right about this prediction, but whether or not it is right about the timeframe.
Talking Heds
A Banner Day for the Gazette: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one of the oldest newspapers in America, was set to shutter next month after more than two centuries in operation. But on Tuesday, the nonprofit organization behind The Baltimore Banner announced it had acquired the Post-Gazette, granting the Pittsburgh institution a stay of execution. Immediate reception to the news has been, understandably, positive, but some significant questions remain outstanding. The Post-Gazette was shuttered, in part, after a protracted labor dispute between its union and its ownership, but The Baltimore Banner is not a union shop. Baltimore Banner president and CEO Bob Cohn told me that he plans to “follow the wishes of the newsroom,” so time will tell. Relatedly, The Banner itself has not yet achieved breakeven financial status, now in its fourth year of operation, and is financing the tie-up via a $30 million infusion from the philanthropist behind its nonprofit. Naturally I hope for the best, but neither publisher is out of the woods just yet.
Sporting at The Journal: The Wall Street Journal announced on Wednesday the launch of a new event, The Next Sports Economy, which will debut in July. The move is the latest in a series of experiential launches from the Dow Jones property, but its subject matter is particularly telling. The business of sports has grown perhaps without parallel in recent years: Franchises are now asset classes for private equity firms, the 12-figure price tag of distribution rights are threatening to bankrupt broadcasters, and domestic leagues are increasingly eyeing global expansion. Against this backdrop, The Journal has been relatively conservative in its coverage of the space, ceding the territory instead to upstarts like Front Office Sports, on3, and Sportico. Amongst industry insiders, though, there has long been speculation that The Journal will simply buy its way into the beat by snapping up one of these outlets, but such a likelihood now seems less certain given its decision to establish a tentpole franchise of its own.
A YouTuber Becomes a Media Co. (EXCLUSIVE): On Friday, the YouTube creator Jesse “Jesser” Riedel launched a new parent company, called JesserCo., whose aim is to house an expanding stable of brands that currently includes a media business and apparel line. The expansion is notable because it offers yet another template for how a YouTube creator might become a media brand. Through his videos and apparel, Riedel reaches more than 45 million followers, has more than 10 billion views, employs 45 full-time staff profitably, and is bringing in at least $20 million in revenue—a healthier business than many traditional media operations—and last month, he signed a deal with Tubi to create original content for the streaming service. Depending on how JesserCo. weathers this expansion, expect to see many more such startups in the near future.
Soccer Outlet Scores World Cup Splash (EXCLUSIVE): You might not have heard, but the World Cup is coming to America this summer. Just about every media company on the continent has a plan to capitalize on the moment, but one—a roll-up of international soccer brands that operates as Footballco.—has a particularly ambitious vision. The company, whose North American business is helmed by the former revenue leader at Bustle Digital Group, Jason Wagenheim, is launching a two-week activation in Brooklyn, called House of Goal, which will see the brand take over an Industry City location and schedule round-the-clock programming for its projected 200,000 visitors. The event hopes to generate a seven-figure revenue and dramatically boost brand awareness of Footballco., whose U.S. outpost only launched two years ago but is on pace to bring in around 20% of its projected $100 million in annual revenue.
Food52 Vet Goes Mule (SCOOP): The former CEO of Food52, Erika Ayers Badan, launched a new media venture this week, called Mule Media. The company, which combined with likeminded brands The Local Mom Network and Work Like a Girl, aims to foster a community for women at all stages of their career. The name, which reads somewhat unflatteringly at first glance, is a nod to the intelligence and pragmatism of mules, according to its website. Badan stepped away from Food52 after it was acquired out of bankruptcy in February by America’s Test Kitchen, a turnaround job she took after shepherding Barstool Sports through a multimillion-dollar exit. Mule Media joins a competitive space, competing against ventures like She Media, Female Quotient, and theSkimm, to name a few, but it would be unwise to count her out.
Pulled Quotes
“Virtually all of the time, most Americans are mad at you about the economy and there’s little you can do about it.”
Semafor’s Ben Smith, on the paradox of American politics
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“No one buys hate merch. No one goes to a show if they hate you. No one supports your next venture if they’re not on your side”
Jomboy Media founder Jimmy O’Brien, on why positive media makes money
READ MORE
“I was thinking about the degree to which the voice of an author is really fiction, because there’s all this editing and moving stuff around, and so you end up with a document that bears little relation to the actual conversation.”
Novelist Ben Lerner, on his idea for a misremembered interview to act as the basis of his book
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“What’s stopping Netflix, which wants more events, to get [Sunday Night Football] for 18 straight weeks?”
MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, on streamers eating the live sports market
READ MORE
Quote/Unquote
Andrew Burmon is the founder of the newsletter Upper Middle, a highly original exploration of the psyches and lifestyles of a specific swath of American professionals, whom he refers to as Oat Milk Elites. I met Andrew at a dinner hosted by 1440 last fall, subscribed to his newsletter, and have been following his work since then.
The newsletter, which launched in September 2024, has around 140,000 subscribers and monetizes its readership, in part, by inviting them to participate in surveys, the results of which are shared in editorial projects and, of course, with the partnering brands. He built the email and website using Claude Code and this week unveiled a sweeping redesign of both products.
Before creating Upper Middle, Burmon helped launch a number of brands in the Bustle Digital Group portfolio, including Inverse and Fatherly. He now lives in rural Litchfield County with his wife and young son.
This interview has been edited.
Mark Stenberg: Where did the idea for Upper Middle come from?
Andrew Burmon: It came from two directions: First, the experience of working in media and the minor ego death that had been my career. The other: My wife is an ER doctor and epidemiologist, so she suffered through Covid in a real way. That prompted me to look around at my friends, many of whom are lawyers or similar professionals, whose careers were not going the way they had envisioned, largely because the economy has been restructured around financialization and the very rich. So I had the idea of: How do we talk to that experience?
Mark: You monetize it, in part, through surveys. How does that work?
Andrew: When you sign up for Upper Middle, you are prompted to sign up for Upper Middle Research. You can make money taking surveys there, which aims to create a culture of survey-taking and data-sharing that informs the whole project. A lot of what I’m trying to do is explain water to a fish, taking this group of urban, well-educated, W-2 employees to step back, think critically about their life experience, and try to understand why they feel the way that they do.
Mark: How much revenue does that generate?
Andrew: Six figures. March was my first month over $40,000. My goal for the year is to top $400,000 and put all of that back into the business.
Mark: You run this entirely on your own, but the design is highly stylized. How do you do that?
Andrew: I use Beehiiv to deliver my emails, but I built an AI wrapper on top of it that helps me move a lot faster. For that I used Claude Code. So instead of entering everything free-form into Beehiiv, I basically fill out a form and it generates the newsletter for me.
Mark: Every week the newsletter feels very original. Where do you get your ideas from, or do you take inspiration from any other newsletters?
Andrew: In a previous life I was the editor of Spy for Penske—this was not Graydon Carter’s Spy, but still. I think there used to be a lot of publications that were aimed at an effete audience that, frankly, were unapologetic about it; they were having fun with it. I think a lot of media people started to feel that that was unacceptable, and maybe over-indexed on afflicting the comfortable. I think it is important to empathize with people that entered into their personal and professional lives expecting one thing, got something different, and are squaring that with the huge internalized expectations they have for themselves.
Mark: What is the end goal for Upper Middle?
Andrew: I think there are two sides. The first is the basic media side, which is the hope that I grow this to over 500,000 subscribers. North of that, we start to get into the land of the dream. After that, once you have a community of people and the data to prove they are leading similar lives, you can serve them in different ways. In those lines of business the margins are much better, so long term I think I will orient that way.