Back in the day when people paid for news and then the internet came along and we stopped or something like that.

That was actually never true.

I think something that we talk about, and I think Cleo you've said this so well, so I'm just going to steal it from you right here in front of your face.

Fundamentally, we are little many media companies.

We don't just have complex reporting, but then we have to make beautiful videos.

We know that many more people are getting their news from social media.

And the question is, is social media capable of educating people?

Today we're bringing you a conversation between Johnny Harris and Cleo Abram. It's the first of our new Creators on Creators series. And I'm joined here by Nate from the published press. Nate, why are we starting with Johnny Harris and Cleo Abram for this Creators on Creators series? Yeah. So at the beginning of 2024, there was kind of this sentiment that the media industry was facing an apocalypse. You know, digital media sites like BuzzFeed News and Gawker closed down. If you remember, Sports Illustrated was accused of publishing AI-generated stories. And one report even recorded 2,681 layoffs in the media industry in 2023.

But there are bright spots, despite all the uncertainty, starting with a pair of video journalists,

Cleo Abram and Johnny Harris.

And, you know, Cleo and Johnny are longtime friends.

They met back when they both worked at Vox, and they trade ideas and talk on the phone regularly.

So in March, we called them up to get their perspective on this media apocalypse narrative.

They talked about what it means to go independent as a journalist, the potential of crater-led media businesses, and Johnny's love for Moss.

Yeah, Johnny, we got to talk about that. What's up with the, what's up with the Moss

obsession? You guys will hear that in this episode. I do find this all to be extremely

interesting because the world of YouTube is the modernization of media. And when I look at

Johnny and Cleo, I see documentarians or video essayists. And I don't

come from a journalism background. So this conversation was really interesting for me to understand

the concept of jumping from a Vox to independent journalism. And what does that mean to people like

you, Nate, people who went to journalism school?

Yeah. And I think, too, just even, they clearly think about this all lot. They think about

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