Good morning. The trailer for Toy Story 5 just dropped, and Woody is up against a smart tablet threatening to render him obsolete.

Throw some Italian brainrot on there and Woody doesn’t stand a chance. Sorry, pal.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Newpress, the media company founded by ex-Vox video journalists Johnny and Iz Harris, just announced its next project: a news platform made for “creator-led, community-driven journalism.”

“It’s our answer to a world where a handful of platforms run by the richest man now decide what billions of us see, read, and believe,” Johnny said in the launch video.

How it works: Newpress operates like a membership platform, where users join for free or pay $5/month for bonus content. Its network of journalists including Johnny, Sam Ellis, Christophe Haubursin, and Max Fisher will curate stories and members can chime in with their perspectives, questions, and expertise.

Inside the network: Newpress owns Johnny, Ellis, Haubursin, and Fisher’s respective channels and pays each journalist a salary with a revenue share. Journalists are also supported by a network of Newpress editors, producers, animators, with business operation support and editorial feedback. Johnny said Newpress plans to expand its network of journalists, though it's unclear in what capacity. 

Building community: “Anyone that’s followed me for a while knows I’ve loved crowd-sourced journalism. That’s what ‘Vox Borders’ was all about and over the years I’ve always leaned on the community to make my journalism better,” Johnny said. “Newpress is just that vision put onto a platform with a lot of resources and people to help make it happen.”

One astrophysics degree + five years working for the largest STEM creators on YouTube = 60K subscribers in one week. At least, that’s the equation that worked for Emily Zhang.

Zhang’s new YouTube channel Rabbit Hole seeks to answer life’s most mundane questions such as, “why do office chairs have five legs?”

How she got here: Zhang started at Veritasium in 2021 assisting founder Derek Muller, and worked her way up to writing and directing videos for the channel. In 2024, she left Veritasium to freelance for other STEM creators like Cleo Abram and Mark Rober. 

“I don't think I would have been able to do it without having first worked for a creator and then also having gone freelance,” Zhang told us. 

By learning video strategy and production processes from around ten different channels, she gained the confidence to start Rabbit Hole. 

“The whole point of [Rabbit Hole] is being accessible to everyone. That's what I want,” Zhang said. “I think a lot of people watch creators aspirationally. And I really don't want this to be aspirational. I want [people to] watch it and relate to it.” 

And viewers definitely relate. Zhang’s channel monetized in less than 24 hours, and now sits at 63K subscribers and 580K views between two videos—with the only promo being a community post on Veritasium’s YouTube page.

Looking ahead: Zhang plans to continue freelancing, which funds her Rabbit Hole videos. Although her channel is growing quickly, she intends to continue answering small questions in big ways.

Comedy media company Dropout is on a run of nostalgic business experiments. Earlier this month it released two seasons of its game show, Game Changer, on Blu-Ray (which has since sold out). 

Starting February 18, Dropout is taking a page out of broadcast television’s playbook with a 24/7 channel on its streaming service, DropoutTV. Unlike creator FAST channels, Dropout’s channel will be ad-free, as it's supported by paid members.

“When you log onto DropoutTV, you’re bombarded with choices of what to watch [...] Well, choose no more,” Dropout CEO Sam Reich said in the announcement video.

Big picture: Broadcast viewership has declined in the streaming era. Yet with an over-abundance of content, some viewers crave the lean-back experience it provided. 

“If this proves to be popular, we’ll look into doing even more with it—multiple 24/7 channels, special broadcast, event weekends, bonus programs,” Reich said.

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.