Each few weeks, a job itemizing circulates via LinkedIn that stops journalists mid-scroll. A fintech firm looking for an editor-in-chief. A tech large poaching a senior Wall Avenue Journal editor to run its content operation. A healthcare startup promoting a head of content position at double what most masthead editors make. Noah Greenberg is posting all of them—and the engagement is, by his personal admission, a advertising and marketing ploy.
“The explanation I began posting on LinkedIn two years in the past was as a result of nobody had heard of us,” Greenberg, the CEO of content syndication firm Stacker, informed Fortune. “And I discovered that one low-cost trick was posting a listing of jobs for these sorts of folks as soon as a week.” He rejected the notion that he’s a one-man employment company for folks wanting to go away journalism, however he admitted, “it variety of caught hearth.”
However the trick is in service of a thesis that’s backed by a enterprise that’s grown from a $3 million run price to north of $10 million in underneath two years, all with out elevating a greenback of enterprise capital.
The LinkedIn bait is the argument
Greenberg was fast to make clear he’s not celebrating the loss of life of journalism. What he’s cataloguing is a structural shift in who funds it.
“The tech editor on the Wall Avenue Journal is now the managing editor at NVIDIA,” he mentioned, referring to Shara Tibken. “Robinhood has bought a number of newsletters. They purchased Chartr. They purchased MarketSnacks. They employed [former Verge, Vox and Bloomberg editor] Josh Topolsky to be editor-in-chief. I might laundry listing a hundred of them.”
When these job listings go viral (which they reliably do), Greenberg mentioned three sorts of folks slide into his DMs. There are journalists interested by making the leap, journalists who already made it and wish to evangelize, and journalists who’re livid at him for making some variety of equivalence between these jobs and journalism. “To me,” he mentioned, “it’s much less vital what it’s referred to as, and extra vital that the work exists.” He reads all of them, engages selectively, and keeps posting.
“I pull myself again,” he mentioned of the comment-section fights that sometimes ignite. “A very good pal of mine who obtained into a very public spat mentioned, ‘Roll in mud like pig, get soiled like pig.’”
The bootstrapped wiring beneath
Earlier than the LinkedIn persona, there was the corporate—and earlier than the corporate, there was the remark that launched it. Greenberg co-founded Stacker in 2017. The founding perception got here from watching information retailers quietly begin publishing content from manufacturers like Zillow and NerdWallet—not as a result of anybody was paying them to, however as a result of the content was genuinely good.
“NerdWallet had employed Maggie Leung from CNN,” he mentioned. “Zillow had employed a chief economist. And thru speaking with a lot of information retailers, we realized, ‘Hey, there’s some of these things that we’d love to publish, we simply don’t need to sift via 100 pitches to determine what’s legit.’”
Stacker grew to become the connector. Manufacturers pay Stacker to assist produce and distribute data-driven options; Stacker runs every bit via an in-house editorial crew earlier than it touches the newswire; and several other thousand information retailers — 90% of them native — pull from the feed without charge and with no obligation. Companions embrace McClatchy, Lee Enterprises, Grey TV and the Native Media Consortium. Whole income for what Greenberg calls the Stacker Join content distribution product exceeded $5 million final yr and is on tempo for $10 million in 2026, in accordance to information reviewed by Fortune. (It additionally makes income from a companies/studio enterprise and promoting promoting on its web site.) The corporate has by no means raised exterior funding.
Stacker’s in-house editorial requirements are stricter than some may anticipate. Instacart, for instance, can’t describe itself as “the primary meals supply service within the nation.” Experian can’t slip in a line recommending its credit-boosting product. A latest piece from a delivery logistics firm on the affect of tariffs went out untouched—as a result of the underlying information was actual and the story was newsworthy. “At our greatest, we’re hanging distribution as a carrot to incentivize [brands] to enhance the standard of their content,” Greenberg mentioned, “that’s the chance.”
The model journalist on the opposite aspect
Tracy Middleton spent 20 years in magazines—Males’s Well being, Girls’s Well being, editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal—earlier than becoming a member of Hone Well being, a males’s hormone well being firm, practically 5 years in the past to construct its editorial operation from scratch. She calls herself a “model journalist,” a time period she didn’t coin however has adopted. Her crew contains an government editor from Reader’s Digest, Prevention and U.S. Information & World Report and an web optimization/GEO specialist who went to journalism college—a “unicorn,” Middleton mentioned, as a result of she understands each optimization and storytelling.
The story Middleton mentioned she’s most proud of began with affected person information, not an editorial assembly. Shortly after becoming a member of Hone, she seen that a disproportionate share of the corporate’s members have been army veterans. She began asking why, and the reply turned out to be a medical story: traumatic mind harm, continual stress, and sleep deprivation throughout service all contribute to hormone imbalances—circumstances the Veterans Affairs Division, in accordance to veterans she interviewed, wasn’t adequately addressing. She referred to as the VA for remark, interviewed former servicemembers, engaged an impartial fact-checker, and printed a deep dive that learn like a function from any of the titles she’d labored at earlier than.
“I don’t suppose it’s the kind of story that a conventional outlet would inform,” she mentioned. “However I simply don’t know that they’d have been ready to with out the perception that we had of seeing all of these guys on the backend coming in who have been veterans.” It received an award from the Affiliation of Well being Care Journalists, which she pointed to as proof that model journalism might be impactful.
It’s exactly the type of instance Greenberg makes use of to make his case: unique, data-driven tales funded by a corporation with proprietary perception that no conventional newsroom had entry to. Whether or not it might have been printed with out Hone’s institutional curiosity within the topic is a query Middleton doesn’t sidestep. “I feel it’s such an attention-grabbing time. And it’s so humorous as a result of individuals are like, ‘Nicely, AI [is here] and content is altering.’ I used to be like, ‘Nicely, content has at all times been altering.’” Model-journalism content, to her, “has attention-grabbing issues to say and a point of view and a perspective.”
Anneken Tappe is aware of what she left behind. A former economics reporter at CNN and Axios, she now has one of these storytelling jobs that Greenberg posts about—at Chime, the fintech firm. She is clear-eyed in regards to the trade-off. “Being on a breaking information desk when one thing huge is going on in your beat is one of probably the most exhilarating moments in any journalist’s profession,” she informed Fortune.
However she mentioned her new position channels the identical expertise. “The instincts on how to discover and body a story don’t go away. I simply discovered a new dwelling for them,” she mentioned. “Company storytelling, model journalism, owned content is extremely attention-grabbing from a strategic point of view since you’re sitting very a lot on the pulse of your organization. You’re making use of the identical editorial muscle, however now the stakes are the enterprise itself.”
Collectively, Middleton and Tappe characterize the human face of the pattern Greenberg has been cataloguing from LinkedIn. One spent 25 years in life-style magazines earlier than discovering freedom in a startup’s affected person information. The opposite lined company finance for some of probably the most aggressive desks in digital information earlier than buying and selling the push for a seat contained in the machine.
Middleton mentioned she discovered Stacker via phrase of mouth and makes use of the wire primarily for distribution, discovering that platforms similar to Apple Information and MSN have been much less prepared to carry content arriving straight from a model. “Stacker was variety of the way in which round that,” Middleton mentioned, “to nonetheless give you the option to get onto these platforms not directly.”
Is it journalism?
Felix Simon, a analysis fellow in AI and information on the Reuters Institute for the Examine of Journalism at Oxford, has a exact reply to the broader query: no — however not in the way in which the loudest critics of model content normally imply.
“I don’t suppose this may be referred to as journalism, however merely the manufacturing of data,” Simon informed Fortune. Journalism, he defined, might be understood throughout three dimensions—as a course of, a career, and a subject—every of which includes lively dedication to a set of values and requirements. “A knowledge-driven function that gives correct data isn’t ‘journalism’ from a normative point of view,” he mentioned, “and certain wouldn’t be seen as such by most individuals.”
That doesn’t imply brand-funded content can’t meet journalistic requirements. Simon permits that it may—if the funding is clearly labeled, the creator recognized, and the provenance of the data clear. However a core expectation of journalism, he argues, is independence: “not being topic to different influences that would ‘corrupt’ journalism’s skill to say issues as they’re and communicate the reality, together with to energy.”
Greenberg disputed that this distinction is as clear as Simon suggests. “I don’t suppose that charging for your content as a extra conventional journalism enterprise prohibits you from having a bias,” he mentioned. He claimed that one pal who left a main publication to turn out to be model journalists doubled their wage and later mirrored that the institutional bias on the outdated outlet was simply as actual, however much less seen. Different occasions, when journalists go to “the darkish aspect,” he’s heard that “generally it’s a actually shitty expertise, as a result of it seems that you’re a marketer.” For a lot of model journalists as of late, that’s simply not true, he mentioned.
The PR veteran-turned-brand journalist and media reporter
To know the place the data ecosystem is heading, it helps to speak to somebody who has lived on each side of it. Meredith Klein spent 20 years in PR—Golin, Jet.com, Walmart, 4 years as U.S. head of shopper communications at Pinterest—earlier than launching Meredith & The Media, a Substack overlaying the indie media growth, in Could 2025. She is, as she describes herself, “a bottle of seltzer”—from New Jersey, excitable, sometimes profane and constitutionally incapable of being boring about an business she has watched rework from the within out.
From the PR aspect of the desk, Klein had a front-row seat to the give and take behind the church-and-state splendid that journalists declare they deal with as foundational. What’s modified, in her view, isn’t the presence of exterior pursuits within the data ecosystem. It’s the transparency of the transaction. The outdated mannequin obscured the connection between advertiser and editorial. The brand new mannequin — Stacker, model journalism, creator newsletters—makes it extra legible, even when imperfectly.
She launched her Substack partly to doc this transition and partly as a result of she noticed a chance in it. The indie media growth struck her because the second the legitimacy hierarchy definitively broke open. “I swear to God, when Joanna Stern left The Wall Avenue Journal and introduced New Issues,” she mentioned, “I virtually fell off my chair. I used to be like, ‘Okay, that is formally it—impartial media is having a second right here.’” In fact, she posted about it.
Now, she spends half of her time advising main firms on how to pitch Substack reporters the identical approach they’d pitch the Instances — with the identical embargo self-discipline, the identical unique consideration, the identical respect for the journalist’s viewers. “Everybody’s a writer,” she mentioned, and retailers just like the Journal and Fortune are competing in opposition to Substackers who usually are not (all) certain by the identical conventions earlier than getting their scorching takes off. We’re swimming in content, she mentioned.
“The velocity of creator journalism is killing,” Klein mentioned, relating a criticism from a reporter pal of hers. “She’s obtained to truth test it thrice earlier than she publishes … however she’s gonna be behind me or somebody who is likely to be like, ‘Oh my God, I heard XYZ was taking place.’” On this panorama, “everybody’s obtained a platform” and a few individuals are constructing huge communities, she mentioned. Her perception is that every one the different sorts of content “want to coexist.”
Klein’s description of Stacker’s worth to model shoppers is, on this context, each a validation of the mannequin and its most pointed unintentional critique. “It’ll appear like actual protection,” she mentioned. “You’re gonna be in every single place. You’re gonna present up in LLMs.” She mentioned critics might body it as “pay for play”—a new type of paid media that emerged as a result of the outdated arbitrage economics of digital promoting stopped working and types wanted one other approach via.
Middleton argued that the world of magazines, from her perspective, was not many miles eliminated. “Hasn’t that at all times been the case?” A scan of who owns most of the legacy media retailers, together with Fortune, reveals varied industrial pursuits on the masthead. “We at all times had this very noble church-and-state divide in journalism that everybody at all times talked about,” Middleton mentioned, “and I feel that shifted over time, and if it’s not useless already, these traces are actually blurred greater than it used to be,” nevertheless it has by no means been a black-and-white divide, in her expertise.
Simon’s response isn’t that conventional journalism was ever bias-free. It’s that structural independence—nevertheless imperfect—is the mechanism that makes accountability journalism attainable in any respect. “Industrial success within the final century helped allow the event of information media with a diploma of autonomy and independence,” he mentioned, “which allowed them to maintain public energy to account and supply impartial protection of occasions, together with writing tales and offering protection that appears at issues others may not need checked out.”
The humorous factor, Klein disclosed, is that she has caught the journalism bug. “This might be probably the most enjoyable I’ve had in my complete profession. Like I’m loving it,” she mentioned, earlier than including the everlasting reporter’s criticism: “I imply, I’d like to make a little bit more cash.”
The belief drawback
The disclosure query cuts to the guts of the mannequin. Many native newsrooms working Stacker content don’t seem to disclose to readers that a piece was produced or funded by a model. Simon calls that “problematic” with out qualification. “Transparency in regards to the manufacturing and the sourcing is inherent within the ethics of journalism and likewise anticipated by many audiences,” he mentioned. “This is identical purpose why information organizations disclose when one thing got here from a information company or when one thing is branded content—and likewise why these organizations get punished in the event that they fail to accomplish that.” Simon concluded that brand-funded content “erodes belief when it blurs roles,” particularly when it “appears to be like, feels, travels, and is promoted like atypical journalism.”
After which there’s the query: who studies the unhealthy information? If manufacturers are a main half of the storytelling setting, then how a lot of the rising quantity of content within the ecosystem will probably be an implicit model narrative? “I don’t have a good reply for the unhealthy information,” Klein mentioned when requested in regards to the tales that brand-funded retailers are constructed by no means to inform. “That’s positively simply how the back-end LLM swirl is going on.”
Thrilling, and barely worrying
Nonetheless, Middleton has a point that some worthy tales are being informed as a result of of the rising brand-journalism area, that wouldn’t exist in any other case.
Simon described the present second with a phrase that cuts nearer to the reality than both the boosters or the skeptics normally handle: “an thrilling however barely worrying time.” Thrilling, he mentioned, as a result of “it creates new alternatives and new potentialities,” referencing all of the worthwhile proprietary information, distinctive viewers insights and tales that a deep-pocketed model backer can assist the telling of. What’s worrying to him is that abundance can masquerade as sufficiency. “It may lead you to a scenario the place folks suppose, ‘we have already got what we want’—and I wouldn’t say that’s true. We are going to want crucial reporting.”
What the brand new ecosystem excels at is the “why it issues” story. The what-you-need-to-know. The journalism that gives key information and a proof of why it’s important fills a real hole. At greatest, it’s a variety of considerate and nuanced explanatory journalism that enriches a sure viewers with a sure want. It’s what Middleton describes as her editorial north star and Greenberg talks about as the brand new Pink Bull playbook. What it can’t do, virtually by design, is examine the entity funding it.
“You’ll need some infrastructure for that,” Simon mentioned. The crucial reporting perform — the type that appears at issues highly effective folks would somewhat go away un-investigated—requires an organizational construction constructed explicitly to pursue it, with out a monetary relationship that constrains what it may say. That sort of work doesn’t have to come from legacy retailers, Simon famous, pointing to investigative nonprofits like Bellingcat and ProPublica as proof that the perform can survive exterior conventional enterprise fashions. Nevertheless it has to come from someplace. And what Stacker and its shoppers are constructing, by their very own candid admission, is explicitly not that.
The brand new data weight-reduction plan
We’re, by virtually each measure, getting into an period of extra journalism—or not less than extra content that appears like journalism, reads like journalism and travels via the identical pipes as journalism. There are extra voices, extra information, extra proprietary insights was shareable options than at any earlier point within the historical past of the press. The financial mannequin that funds it—manufacturers spending on content as a long-game different to Google advert arbitrage, firms like HubSpot and Robinhood constructing editorial operations to domesticate readers who may at some point turn out to be clients — is coherent and, for now, rising.
Greenberg was cautious not to overstate what he’s constructed. “For the information retailers, we’re a actually nice-to-have. We’re not a need-to-have.” It’s an trustworthy evaluation of the wiring beneath the floor—genuinely helpful, onerous to replicate, and inherently incapable of the work that requires biting the hand that feeds.
“Content has at all times been altering,” Middleton mentioned. “The quantity of pivots that I’ve seen over time of doing this, like that is simply the subsequent one.” The historical past of journalism bears her out: the cocaine budgets and interest-free loans from the glory days of magazines have been underwritten by advertisers with their very own pursuits; the church-and-state divide was at all times extra aspirational than absolute; and the query of who funds the story has by no means had a clear reply.
What’s new is the size, the sophistication and the infrastructure routing it via newsrooms that will not inform you the place it got here from. You’ll learn extra. You’ll perceive extra context. You’ll get extra proprietary information was readable options than any earlier technology of information shopper.
Source link
#CEO #viral #thirsttrapping #journalists #content #jobs #hes #prove #point #Fortune
