Should Jim Acosta wear a tie?
For the last two months, since the former anchor quit his job at CNN, Mr. Acosta has been broadcasting online several times per week, usually from his dining room, using his iPhone. Often, he is troubleshooting in real time, far from the high-gloss desk and sophisticated cameras of his CNN set.
One question he faces is how many “frills” to add to his interviews with the likes of Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary, or Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top House Democrat.
“The magic here is not killing or messing with this organic nature of the show,” said Matt Hoye, Mr. Acosta’s newly hired executive producer and a 30-year veteran of CNN, who is leaning “no” on adding neckties but “yes” on graphics.
“The Jim Acosta Show” streams live on Substack, a platform that has recently cemented itself as a harbor for stranded television anchors.
In January, the start-up best known for email newsletters gave all users the ability to publish live video. Now it is home to a handful of cable stars marooned from their mainstream media jobs amid reshuffled lineups, salary cuts and other controversies. On Substack, where politics is the most popular and lucrative category, anti-Trump publishers have been performing particularly well.
Joy Reid began regularly posting to Substack in March, after her MSNBC show was canceled. On Friday, the former CNN anchor Don Lemon joined Substack after a year of livestreaming on YouTube. They join established chart-toppers, like Mehdi Hasan (the former MSNBC host) and Dan Rather (the onetime face of CBS News), along with various CNN expatriates: Norm Eisen, Jessica Yellin, Chris Cillizza, Elise Labott and Alisyn Camerota.
This new TV diaspora has one central proposition: The future of news is casual. Sometimes very casual. Anchors can lose their seats and still hold on to their star power, so long as they give modern audiences what they want. “What’s most important in my business now is authenticity,” as Fox News host-turned-YouTube star Megyn Kelly recently told The New York Times.
“Jim Acosta’s people do not really care if Jim Acosta is wearing pancake makeup or not,” said Molly Jong-Fast, who is both an MSNBC political analyst and a regular guest on Substack shows.
Last Wednesday, Mr. Acosta ended his 30-minute interview with Representative Jeffries by talking about college basketball. Then a small orange ball materialized in the host’s hand, delivered by his fetch-hungry beagle, Duke. His visible houseplants had been previously mocked on Fox News, to which Mr. Acosta soberly objected.
Last month, on his birthday weekend, Don Lemon used his YouTube channel to stream himself having breakfast and lunch — both lasted nearly an hour — and a party, during which he sang parts of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” into a karaoke microphone.
“People don’t really care if they’re in a coat and tie on the north lawn of the White House or in an air-conditioned studio in 30 Rock,” said Jeff Zucker, former president of CNN and former boss to several of these now-independent journalists. “They just want to hang out and hear from someone they like and trust.”
Katie Couric, who started an independent media company in 2017, has found the accelerated decline of linear television “at times upsetting,” she said: “I used to anchor the ‘CBS Evening News’ and ‘The Today Show,’ and I’m doing Instagram Lives now.”
Today, however, with a few dozen employees and a newsletter nearing one million subscribers, she more often feels legacy media is “late to the party.” Broadcasting on social media is “authenticity on steroids,” said Ms. Couric, who recently paused shopping for an Oscar’s party dress to livestream a breaking-news discussion on Ukraine, parking herself on the couch of a fashion brand’s showroom, wearing no makeup, she pointed out.
Mr. Lemon, who was ousted by CNN in 2023, a few months after making remarks about Nikki Haley’s age that were widely viewed as sexist, said he was courted almost immediately by Substack. Instead he agreed in 2024 to bring a new show to X with Elon Musk as his first interview guest.
That interview grew tense, and when Mr. Musk subsequently canceled their $1.5 million deal, Mr. Lemon filed a lawsuit that is ongoing. (“It’s crazy that I am in litigation with the richest man in the world,” Mr. Lemon said, though he claimed to not think about it very often.)
In the meantime, Mr. Lemon grew his YouTube channel to more than 656,000 subscribers, uploading his own takes, “Lemon drops,” alongside interviews with the conservative podcaster Candace Owens and Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat from Texas.
“At first, you’re frightened, like, ‘Oh no, I’m not on the big broadcast anymore,’” said Mr. Lemon, who initially recorded his YouTube videos from a pricey, professionally lit studio — “cable news lite,” he said — until he realized that the chatty bonus videos he filmed in his living room, with his barking dogs, were more positively received by subscribers.
“You don’t need all those things that you think you need,” he said.
In December, Mr. Lemon added a paid membership option to his YouTube channel, with options ranging from about $3 to $50 a month. A representative declined to disclose his membership numbers. But Mr. Lemon said the show is profitable, primarily through YouTube’s advertising revenue share. He also earns income through social media sponsorships and corporate speaking engagements that he said he wasn’t able to accept while working for CNN.
Ms. Reid, who lost her MSNBC slot about a month ago, is still experiencing the “strange disconnect” of life without a television schedule and team of producers, she said.
She is “just tired,” she said, and working through her next steps, Ms. Reid said in an interview: “What do I want to do? What am I good at? What can I do to contribute to the world?” For now, she has landed on writing about democracy to an audience of about 118,000.
Mr. Acosta, whose subscribers surged after he encouraged CNN viewers in his sign-off message to not “bow down to a tyrant,” now ranks among Substack’s top 20 publishers in politics. Catherine Valentine, who recruits and wrangles these political and television personalities for Substack now calls this the “Jim Acosta model.”
Among his 287,000 total readers, Mr. Acosta has more than 10,000 paid subscribers, though he too declined to provide any specific financial figures. When asked in early March if he was approaching the $1 million mark in annualized revenue, Mr. Acosta laughed: “Are you writing a story, like, look at all these greedy broadcast journalists cashing in?” (He also answered: “I’m getting there.”)
Mr. Acosta has also been exploring additional content partnerships, like a podcasting deal, to augment his Substack presence. But he still speaks about Substack with the reverence of a former college radio host experimenting with “garage rock” — or at least a “model submarine enthusiast,” he said.
“It feels like I’ve stumbled upon this really cool hobby that I wish I’d known about sooner, but I didn’t,” Mr. Acosta said. “And I don’t know if CNN would have allowed me to have a presence.” (One current CNN anchor, Jake Tapper, does use Substack, but more as a social media feed, reposting CNN clips.)
Some networks have tried to incorporate more of internet’s casual and chaotic offerings into their sleek lineups, as when ESPN acquired the freewheeling “Pat McAfee Show” or Fox News developed a show with “a signature podcast style” around Will Cain.
But many still place restrictions on their employees’ presence on platforms such as Substack, said Marc Paskin, a talent agent who represents journalists as co-head of news and broadcasting at United Talent Agency, where Mr. Lemon is a client.
“There has always been a fear of cannibalization of an audience,” Mr. Paskin said. “The truth of matter is that these things should be viewed as partners.”
Until 2026, Mr. Lemon still has a contract in place with CNN that limits his broadcasting opportunities with competitors. Will he return to television then? Maybe if someone made him a “great offer,” he said. But maybe not.
“The longer I do this, the more satisfying it becomes, the more profitable it becomes and I start loving it more,” he said. “I think the folks who are in legacy media now are going to have to figure out what we’re doing over here.”
