After sitting down for CBS News on Election Night, Scott MacFarlane sat down for something more direct; Livestream midterm news for progressive publication MeidasTouch.
He will not allow anyone to manipulate the Magic Wall or the Great Board. It will not be promoted with the inflation of orchestral music. And he won’t be competing with his colleagues for valuable airtime. MacFarlane will be available to speak to his followers via broadcast channels starting at 7pm on Tuesday.
MacFarlane says that on a traditional TV network, his input would be selected by producers. This year, he says, “The voice we’re going to use is my voice. Without a script, without a teleprompter, I’ll just tell people what’s going on in a deadpan way.”
Dozens of independent journalists will do the same.
Coverage of Election Night returns has long been dominated by the nation’s major TV news organizations. But this year, so-called “creatives” (independent journalists and non-traditional experts) are looking to carve out their own slice of the audience.
In addition to MacFarlane’s MeidasTouch broadcast with former MSNBC host Katie Phang, former NBC News political guru Chuck Todd will speak with his colleague Chris Cillizza in a live broadcast they call “The Projection.” It will appear on YouTube, X, Substack, Decision Desk HQ’s Vote portal and Noosphere, one of many new subscription platforms offering access to the work of expert journalists. Piers Morgan, whose uncensored company earned millions in funding late last year, is flying in from London to host several nights of broadcasts in the nation’s capital. Two popular former mainstream TV anchors, Jim Acosta and Katie Couric, will team up to host a live broadcast from the University of Virginia, booking guests like Rahm Emanuel, Pete Buttigieg and Tara Setmayer. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon will greet guests like Joy Reid and Hunter Biden as he headlines a show at a bar in New York City. Even staid CSPAN is getting in on the frenzy, planning hours of coverage from progressive broadcaster The Young Turks and conservative commentator Patrick Bet-David.
Despite some hosts’ mainstream roots, many feel they can bring something to viewers that legacy channels can’t.
“This will be Murdoch-Ellison-free news,” Acosta says of the show he and Couric plan to produce, a direct reference to the Murdoch family ownership of Fox News and the Ellison family, which controls the newly formed Skydance, now controls CBS News and CNN. “Katie and I are free to let this fall apart.”
The ability to speak openly and with little institutional oversight is not the main reason why experts and independents come together. Many of these people see a huge opportunity to generate subscriptions, advertising, revenue, and attract larger audiences to a variety of outlets in an age where the media economy is certainly in flux.
“I think this is a harbinger of what we’re going to see in two years with more viewers, more high-profile guests, more anchors coming to platforms like ours,” says Rashida Jones, who was appointed CEO of Morgan’s company in March after running MSNBC. Advertisers, he says, are eager to sponsor Morgan’s appearances in Washington, D.C. A good Election Night showing, Morgan says, can only create new audiences and business.
Will there be enough of both to help all these companies grow? About 58% of U.S. adults view social media as an important way to stay current in the news cycle, according to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center. About 13% said social media is the most important way they get news. When Pew released a similar survey in 2022, 43% of Americans said social media was an important way to get news, while 5% said it was the most important way.
“The crowd will continue to grow,” Jones says. “This is the turning point for audiences coming to digital-first platforms.”
It’s not just independents who see a growing opportunity. Mainstream media is also sowing ground. Fox News broadcaster Fox Nation will air a three-hour live special led by the team behind the popular Ruthless podcast. One of the presenters, Josh Holmes, said he probably won’t be drinking alcohol, even though the event will take place in front of a crowd at a bar in Washington, D.C.
“We will try to keep a sense of humor about topics that people often approach negatively, and then offer a perspective on serious topics that we always consider confidential,” Holmes says. Holmes says the team does not see the live broadcast as competing with Fox News coverage led by Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer. “We’re wrapping it up, trying to give it some perspective.” Several “Ruthless” members have roles as strategic political advisors and can offer unique insights.
This year, NBC News is launching its first vertical video program, led by anchor and reporter Gadi Schwartz. He will be on the ground in Texas and speaking with various NBC News journalists in different parts of the country. Catherine Kim, executive vice president of NBC News, says the show will “really take a more conversational approach to how the night unfolded,” and will be featured not only on the company’s social media feeds, but also on Schwartz’s own social media feeds.
Independents who once had a strong foothold in legacy media may have a chance at survival. Couric and Acosta have booked their own guests and are taking a strong role in designing the look and feel of their Election Night programs.
“We both worked with legacy media for a long time, and I think that made the transition to digital a lot easier for us because we came with a somewhat established audience,” Couric says. “We want both of our audiences to intersect and come together on Election Night, hopefully it will be beneficial for both of us.”‘
The duo says they knew which elements of the news presentation to keep and which to discard. Important information must be conveyed. It’s not right to do this in an overly formal way.
“We want to make this different than what the networks are doing,” Acosta says. “We’re not going to be overly flashy and scripted or anything like that. It’s a lot more freewheeling.”
And potentially blunt. Couric says she was able to say things she would never have allowed herself to say while working on shows like “Today” and “CBS Evening News” for NBC and CBS.
“I think we’ve been liberated,” Couric says. “I don’t think our hands are as tied as network hosts breathing down corporate executives’ necks.”
Couric and Acosta can also relax, at least a little, because the program will be on their terms. “We’re going to dress much more casually than when I was covering the election for CBS,” Couric says. “It could be an open bar,” Acosta says.