Inc.’s New Media Power Rankings: The 21 Press Stops Most in Demand by Founders

More than 100 PR and comms pros share their uncensored thoughts on which new media outlets move the needle for their clients—and which traditional ones can still deliver.

BY LISA BONOS AND DAVID LIDSKY, HEAD OF EDITORIAL STRATEGY, FAST COMPANY AND INC.

From left: Alex Konrad; Casey Newton; Harry Stebbings; John Coogan; Molly O’Shea; Steven Bartlett; Alex Heath; Jordi Hays; Eric Newcomer; Emily Sundberg; Dwarkesh Patel; Lenny Rachitsky. Photos: Getty Images (Heath, Newcomer, Newton, Stebbings, Sundberg); Ulysses Ortega (Rachitsky)

The four words that fill a communications professional with dread? When a founder or CEO tells them, “Our top target is …”

The media playing field, particularly for people specializing in high-tech PR, was stable as recently as just a few years ago: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and business magazines that have been around for decades. (Yes, including Inc.). 

Today, media is more like a minefield, with podcasts, video shows, and newsletters complicating the landscape. Some of these new-media outlets are helmed by journalists who went indie; others by founders or enterprising hustlers who seem to come from nowhere. Founders see their peers, idols, and rivals appear on these shows and in these newsletters, so they want in on the fun too. While mainstream media coverage is still a sign of credibility, there’s a coolness factor to appearing on a podcast that Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Altman has also done. Meanwhile, PR pros are left gasping for air, determining who’s hot, who’s not, and who’s even in the game at all. 

How do tech CEOs and investors decide when to sit down with new-media outlets like TBPN, which OpenAI acquired in April, and when to speak with traditional outlets? More than 100 PR and comms professionals responded to our survey asking which new-media outlets were their top targets for founders, which were up and coming, and which were in decline. We asked them for their options honestly, openly, and, in most cases, anonymously, so we could get a complete picture of new media’s ability to shape their clients’ narrative—and whether they could really replicate or replace the impact of a New York Times profile.  

We’ve ranked the outlets below based on how many comms people reported pitching clients to them, how many respondents chose them as their top targets, and mentioned them in their comments to us. The number-one spot is held by an outlet that was far and away the top choice of all of our professionals.

In this story, you’ll learn: 

The top 14 new media outlets, their value to founders and startups, and words of caution

What comms execs really think about new and traditional media today

How AI influences their judgment

The year-old newsletter and podcast that’s now a top target for startups

Where PR pros believe there’s a gap in the market

Which just-launched new media brand covering AI has PR pros most excited 

The state of new (and old) media

For all the hype surrounding new-media ventures, whether they’re from journalists going independent or new ventures from within the tech world, PR people know something that hasn’t fully gone mainstream in the conversation about the evolving media world. 

“Despite the growing interest in ‘new media,’ clients still continually name-drop legacy outlets as an example for their ‘dream home’ for a story, and will make it KNOWN if we don’t include them on a target list,” says one PR pro at a major global agency. “Axios, Bloomberg, Business Insider, CNBC, Forbes, Reuters, TechCrunch, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Information, Wired are all names that come up regularly.”

As another says bluntly, “Traditional media and trades are what drive real outcomes.” Their take on new media? “It’s mostly vanity-driven. Nobody outside Silicon Valley listens to tech or VC podcasts or reads their newsletters. Nobody.” (Another pro seconded the importance of trade publications: “This is the most impactful for startups trying to sell shit versus sway public opinion. It’s also the lowest risk.”)

We do love a strong take, but there is more nuance to how this all works. First, consider the founders and what they want. “My clients like going on TBPN and MTS because it reaches a lot of their peers: other VCs and founders,” says one. “There is a new generation of young AI founders, and by and large it’s difficult to reach them through legacy media,” notes another PR pro. “They’re listening to podcasts and reading Substack, so that’s where we need to be.”

“The product is the clips from the podcast,” says Ollie Forsyth, a 28-year-old venture capitalist with a Substack newsletter (New Economies) who has built a directory of new-media creators and is hosting a New Media Summit as a part of SF Tech Week. On Forsyth’s podcast, Big Ideas, he conducts hour-long interviews with CEOs and fellow VCs to get about a dozen one- or two-minute clips to distribute on social media, hoping one might go viral.

A PR pro elaborated on Forsyth’s observation, saying, “The value of new-media shows is ‘clips as a service’—same-day video content of your CEO, professionally shot/branded, for free. Easier, faster, and more effective than hiring a video team and scripting a video (or even than hiring a social media person).” 

What founders want then has to be balanced with what the big AI platforms want. Many respondents shared how being discoverable in AI searches plays a growing role in their considerations, and the LLMs are valuing traditional media highly. “Axios has gotten hotter since the MuckRack study found all three LLMs cite it regularly,” one PR person notes. “I advise clients to prioritize pitching podcasts that crosspost to YouTube for the same reason.” 

Even after identifying your top media targets, you have to ask: How are they showing up among the different LLMs? Says one respondent: “If a comms pro is torn between three outlets for a potential exclusive, I wouldn’t be surprised if one deciding factor is which outlet will give them the best AEO/GEO.” Traditional media that opts out of LLM search may find itself at the bottom of the list again. 

For humans, new media and traditional media are starting to resemble each other. “Traditional media wants to look more like new media: think podcast mics showing up on broadcast TV,” says Joe Ciarallo, head of U.S. communications for the AI startup Synthesia. “And new media wants to look more like traditional media, with elaborate, broadcast-quality sets.” Then there’s the challenge of getting an idea in front of people. Multiple survey respondents said big-name podcasts don’t respond to pitches, which means that it can be hard to land a mention or an interview in a founder or tech executive’s dream outlet. “Even ‘tech-friendly’ outlets have standards,” says one comms pro at a later-stage AI startup. “They’re not going to platform just anyone.”

One lingering difference: new media outlets that aren’t run by journalists tend to be far less adversarial. “As a PR professional, I love that it’s often softball easy questions where your spokespeople get to nail their key messages,” says one, “and as a lover of journalism … it scares me.”

PR folks also complain that new media is a bit too transactional and could stand to be more relationship-driven, like what they’re used to with beat reporters. “For a lot of new-media outlets,” says one, “you land a piece—usually an exclusive—then the relationship goes a little cold in-between big news moments.” 

Wow, public relations is a lot harder than it looks from the other side of the pitch! As one person notes, “Influence now lives in pockets, paths, and platforms that didn’t exist five years ago. Audiences don’t follow a straight line through traditional news mediums. They track a constellation of specialized sources that cater to their needs.” 

Here are 21 of those specialized sources, with the unfettered candor of communications professionals adding insight into why they’re valuable—and when.  

Founders: John Coogan, Jordi HaysFounded: 2024Platforms: X, YouTube, Spotify, Substack

What is it? Self-described as the “SportsCenter for tech,” TBPN (Technology Business Programming Network ) is an homage to ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network). Hosted by Coogan and Hays, both serial entrepreneurs, the show typically goes live Monday-Friday at 11 a.m. PT on X, YouTube, Substack, etc. It’s then distributed as a podcast and cut into clips for X, Reels, Shorts, and the like. The show used to run three hours, but since OpenAI acquired it in April for a reported nine-figure sum, TBPN’s output is often shorter and takes more days off than it used to.Notable gets: Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff, Mark Cuban 

Audience size: No. 9 for Spotify’s technology podcasts. On YouTube, where it has 141,000 subscribers, the audience for livestreams, clips of notable interviews, and Shorts has grown in the........

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