Just 18 months ago, the communities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades were virtually wiped off the map by devastating fires in Los Angeles. More than 16,000 structures—including many homes and businesses—were destroyed, and thousands of others badly damaged.

Like most people, before it happens to you, you sympathize, maybe donate or volunteer, and then you move on. What I learned firsthand was that for those who are in the communities where disaster strikes, it’s up to you to take action. It is easy to assume that if you aren’t a first responder, you don’t have the right skills to help. But communicators are uniquely suited to make an impact—the question is just how to use that expertise.

That’s where our Disaster Comms Playbook starts, a free resource designed to help any communicator facing a disaster with the blueprint to make an impact during a natural crisis. It’s the exact playbook we’ve used for dozens of affected businesses. The biggest lesson we took away wasn’t about the tactics, but about who needed help most.

Following a disaster, everyone thinks of storefronts, but individual professionals—the hairdresser who lost their in-home studio, or the bartender who lost their equipment and client base—were often the ones hit hardest. Lose your home, and you lose your entire base of business. The worst part is that insurance rarely covers it. They’re the easiest group to overlook and among the most in need.

From there, the guiding principles keep you focused: don’t start from scratch (most businesses already have a story worth telling), simplicity wins over scale, and go where the customers already are. Sometimes a local broadcast segment or neighborhood influencer can move the needle more than a tier-one placement.

That work became the LA Strong Comms Coalition—a group that includes JSA+Partners, Zeno Group, Weber Shandwick, Hustle & Co, and Karsha Chang PR, plus independents including Kate Walters, David Eckstein, Cara Mia DiMassa, Brittany Sykes, Kate Flannery, Stephanie Sedlak, and Emily Bernstein. We even brought in Call to Action Stories to help provide high-quality video for social media. Together we’ve supported dozens of businesses with more than $200,000 in free services.

Disasters will keep coming—whether fires, floods, or hurricanes. Washington and Oregon are living this right now. And businesses and lives that are destroyed will continue to need help beyond the first month or even the first year. So we’re sharing the full framework we’ve run in our new playbook with the hope that it can guide others to use their talents to support their own communities through recovery.

Please help us spread the word.

PR’s Big Question: AI Visibility

Conversations around AI visibility have a chokehold on the comms landscape. How are you approaching it? How does it make you feel? And does it even matter?

Respond to the brief, three-question survey below and we’ll share what fellow communicators are considering when it comes to AI visibility.

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Only one team gets to lift the FIFA World Cup. But in comms, victory isn’t a zero-sum game–anyone can win if they nail their story, know their audience, and hit the right timing.

Comms pros who only followed the action on the pitch may have missed vital learnings off-field. Here are three defining stories from the 2026 World Cup, and what communicators should learn from the biggest sporting event of the year.

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1️⃣ Sometimes the strongest PR strategy is to let an organic story shine.

This year, many individual player arcs eclipsed their team narratives. One player can single-handedly inform how the whole world sees a team or country. It’s these personal sagas that attract global fandom–regardless of a team’s performance on the pitch.

Before the World Cup even began, popular Argentine influencer Valen Scarsini identified New Zealand footballer Tim Payne as the least-known World Cup player based on his sub-5,000 followers on Instagram. After seeing this, fans worldwide mass-followed Payne, now with more than 5 million followers. That singular moment turned him into the team’s biggest social media star before he even touched the field, giving fans a familiar face to cheer for, even if they didn’t follow him before the tournament.

Even superstars benefitted from savvy comms. Norway had Erling Haaland, an established footballer who proved to be a dominant force not only on the pitch, but now also in the cultural zeitgeist. Haaland leading the team’s “Viking Row” celebration energized fans globally, but what cemented him as an icon was how he embraced fan conversations on social media. He leaned into lighthearted online memes comparing him to characters from the film “White Chicks” and the anime “Dragon Ball Z”–acknowledging, and fueling, the content. By the end of the event, he was one of the tournament’s most culturally relevant players.

The comms take–Let organic moments happen: Communicators often focus on crafting and controlling the narrative. As hands-on as we’d like to be, it can pay to take a step back and recognize the strength of an emerging, organic story–especially one with a relatable human element. Embracing and amplifying these organic, personal athlete stories–as well as the ways they’re shaping the fan experience–drove invaluable visibility that is hard to replicate.

2️⃣ Your representatives–and their reputations amongst your audience–matter.
FIFA’s first-ever World Cup halftime show tapped Gen Z-favorite pop acts like BTS and Justin Bieber to reach young fans, but diehard soccer audiences were unamused. News outlets and celebrities like The Cure’s Robert Smith or Oasis’ Liam Gallagher bashed the show, with TIME’s Judy Berman calling it “blandly, sappily crowd-pleasing.” The sentiment was clear: the show tried harder to engage new fans than it did to speak to established football fandom.

However, FIFA got the same concept right at the tail-end of the event. IShowSpeed, a massively popular American livestreamer known for his obsession with football, performed his song “World Cup (Champions)“ at the closing ceremony. IShowSpeed also provided FIFA with an inroad to young, digital audiences. But this time, it did so through a celebrity whose platform is inseparable from his genuine passion for the sport–a decision that underpinned its positive reception amongst viewers. He wasn’t just a creator FIFA paid to perform–he was a genuine mouthpiece for a generation of young fans.

The comms take–You can’t feign being cool: No matter what industry you’re in, your core audience knows when your brand is faking it. And trying to is the easiest way to damage the relationship between your brand, its representatives, and your audience. Communicators need to identify who the right people are to authentically champion your brand, and who should be sidelined. The easiest way to engage an audience is with a spokesperson who already understands and shares their perspectives.

3️⃣ Before you make your point, acknowledge the elephant in the room.
The US Men’s National Team (USMNT) guaranteed their way out of Group Stage play after winning early matchups in dominant fashion. But the team’s final matchup–a low-stakes match against Türkiye–turned their momentum on its head. The USMNT lost 2-3, still advancing to the next round of play, but on the heels of an embarrassing loss.

When USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino entered the press room after the game, he attempted to stick to a key message: advancing beyond the Group Stage was victory enough. But that didn’t stop reporters from focusing on how the surprise loss to Türkiye would impact the team going forward.

Reporters flocked to cover the loss, and Pochettino reacted boldly to their interest in the defeat instead of the team’s advancement beyond the Group Stage. “The mood is like we [are going] home tonight and Türkiye is staying,” he said during a post-game press conference. “I need to [remind] you and everyone that we won the group. Sorry guys, we won.”

However, the USMNT coach later acknowledged the flaw in his media approach. “What would you like me to tell you?” Pochettino asked reporters. “Whatever I tell you, it’s not going to convince you. A newspaper is going to write whatever they think or whatever they want.” Pochettino wasn’t too far off.

The comms take–You can’t control the questions, but you can control the response: An unexpected event can invalidate a prepared message. Rather than blindly sticking to the talking points, spokespeople need to master the art of the thoughtful pivot. Media were going to cover the USMNT’s loss regardless, but Pochettino forfeited the opportunity to share his perspective by dismissing the premise of their questioning. Instead, he should have acknowledged the defeat, then bridged to what the learning was and then a perspective on the road ahead.

Ellyn Briggs’ sports journalism career is still in the early innings, but her culture work is already a home run

In June, Ellyn Briggs filed her first story in her first week at her first in-house reporter role at Front Office Sports. The following day, LeBron James had shared the story on X to his 50-something million followers. The piece, which explored how AI is driving a rampant misinformation crisis in sports, was one of those stories that seemed destined to make a splash—amplification from one of the greatest athletes of all time just drove home the point.

While the story was technically her first as a full-time staff writer, Briggs is hardly a rookie. She has bylined more than 30 original stories as a contributor since 2023. Her reporting and analysis have turned up in places like NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNBC, Business Insider, Rolling Stone, and NPR.

Yet despite Briggs’ impressive pedigree, her reporting career is arguably still in its early innings—but not by her own volition. “I always wanted to be a journalist,” she told Talking Points, recalling the writing camps and competitions she’d been doing since elementary school. But in college her family talked her out of the major. “You need to get a real degree. You can’t study journalism,” was the gist, so she took a business degree at American University and came in through a side door: a research firm, then, nearly four years at Morning Consult, where the work was public-facing but still, as she puts it, “researchy.”

As it turns out, that research background is the throughline she sees across her work today—and if you’ve read her stories, it’s not hard to tell. Her reporting is detailed, meticulous, and original, and she has a problem of speaking to “too many sources” by her own admission. They are, in many cases, the types of stories that don’t ever see the light of day until someone like Briggs decides to dig into them—like how athletes are moonlighting as photographers, or how the USMNT coach’s plain blue shirt turned into a retail hit during the World Cup.

Her beat—which she describes as how sports intersects with culture, media, and consumer behavior—is deliberately roomy. “Each week I’m going down a different rabbit hole that’s totally different than last week,” she says. Those rabbit holes are wonderfully specific: how finance dealmaking paused in New York during the Knicks finals run, the viral ritual of mascots unmasking at graduation, a Boston dad adopted by Scotland’s World Cup fans, or the science behind post-game fireworks in Major League Baseball—from global supply chain management to specialized software.

It’s not the type of work you’d expect to see from a traditional sports business outlet, but it’s becoming more common. Other media outlets, from Vanity Fair to Politico, are also paying attention to the peripheries of sports, Briggs argued recently in her reporting. Sports, in her view, is one of the last monocultures—the rare thing she and a brother of opposite worldview still share. She isn’t a box-score obsessive, despite growing up with a dad who played professional baseball and playing sports her “whole life.” At the same time, a well-reported story in The Wall Street Journal will stop her cold. The magic, she says, is “blending the business with the sports.”

Briggs’ ideas arrive in all different places. The social feed, for one, is admittedly “not the end-all, be-all,” but it’s still “a good arbiter of what is happening in the world.” Nail salons, too, can be a great source for stories, especially if you live two miles south of Ohio State. One of those nail-salon conversations ended up seeding a story on how college athletic departments are turning into media companies, she tells us.

That nose for the overlooked story is newly valuable at a moment when AI is upending the economics of the media industry—the same forces, as it happens, at the center of a piece that caught the eye of LeBron James. And while AI-generated summaries are impacting search traffic in a way that’s forced publishers to rethink how they approach media, it hasn’t had much effect on how Briggs thinks about the job.

She’s not a “performance marketer,” nor is she interested in chasing trends to appease whatever the algorithm happens to be rewarding any given week. “There’s evidence in the market that people are interested and care about people who put out original work.”

That, in the end, is the bet she’s making. As long as people are approaching storytelling from a place of curiosity and interest, she says, there will “always be a market for that.” And the metric she thinks about isn’t search rank or page views, either, but connecting with other people through her work. “I really am more interested in people sharing my stories with other people than… showing up at the top of a search feed.” The good thing for Briggs, though, is that her work seems to be doing both.

There’s a lesson in that for communicators, too—a reminder that reach isn’t the same as reputation, and that impact is measured one reader at a time.

What we’re working on ☕

• [TrendHunter] Marky’s Caviar teamed up with Yahoo for National Caviar Day and celebrated the ritual of the caviar bump with limited-edition Marky’s x Yahoo caviar sets

• [GamesBeat] Subway Surfers launches in-game event featuring viral raccoon Jimothy

• [Los Angeles Times] LA Times Executive Award Nominee: Han Park

• [TechCrunch] Character.AI enters the microdrama arena with its own productions, but there’s a twist

• [Forbes] AI Startups Are Pivoting From Flashy Demos To Tech That Pays The Bills

• [Esports Insider] “The spirit of the FGC is still there”: Cuddle_Core talks old-school gatekeeping, grassroots to mainstream, and making a career out of Tekken

• [Associated Press] Microsoft beats Wall Street expectations with $90B in revenue

• [The Wrap] Is NBCUniversal Really a Buyer After Comcast Split?

• [CBS LA] HomeBound showcases efforts to help Altadena rebuild stronger after Eaton Fire

• [LA Business First] Pacific Palisades fire survivor opens general store to revive small-town feel

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

Steve Dowling has had a front-row seat at some of the most consequential communications moments in modern tech history. As VP of Communications at Apple for over 16 years, and later the first VP of Communications and Public Policy at OpenAI, he helped shape how two of the world’s most scrutinized companies talked to the world. Before that, he was a Washington producer and Silicon Valley Bureau Chief at CNBC. Today, he advises tech startups and co-hosts the podcast Communication Breakdown, which discusses strategies and tactics companies are using in high-visibility crisis and PR initiatives, with Craig Carroll, a long-time academic and founder of the Observatory on Corporate Reputation.

Steve was in the room for some of the most closely watched moments in modern tech history: the original iPhone launch, the debut of ChatGPT, and a string of announcements in between that most communications professionals would consider career-defining on their own.

What Dowling has accumulated across those roles isn’t just proximity to landmark product launches, but a finely calibrated sense of how audiences receive information, and how quickly things can unravel when communicators lose sight of that. The through line, he’ll tell you, was never the product. It was always the audience.

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That instinct was formed long before Apple. Dowling came up in journalism, where wire stories scrolled past on a terminal and you’d catch them by slug. Twitter felt immediately familiar when it arrived—”the internet equivalent of a newswire,” he called it, a constant stream he recognized on sight. The wire ticker became social media. The daily news cycle became news by the minute. What’s changed isn’t the orientation, he says, but the speed—and it keeps accelerating. “Acceleration has been a constant,” he said. “And the curve just keeps getting steeper.”

That acceleration is exactly what makes the “going direct” era so seductive, and so dangerous. Dowling published a piece on Axios Communicators on the trend of companies bypassing traditional media to speak directly to audiences through owned channels. He’s not against it, per se—he compares direct channels to CliffsNotes, those bright yellow study guides with the fine print disclaimer that they were intended as supplements, not replacements. “There are lots of things that you can do with social media and going direct that you can’t do through the media filter,” he said. “But it’s just not a substitute.”

The more pressing issue is what companies confuse in the process. Going direct gives you distribution. It doesn't give you validation. "Don't mistake that for instant credibility. We need to remember why you have this function at all—which is to deliver information through the media, and that means embracing the editorial process." Companies that go on offense against unfavorable coverage tend to find out the hard way. "The success rate is just too low." And when the instinct tips into trolling, the damage compounds. "As soon as you post it, you think, ‘oh man, I wish I hadn't said that.’"

The two lines from his essay that landed hardest were, he says, the two most obvious things he wrote. First: companies crave media validation. “Admit it. That’s what you want. Because for everybody who’s in this business and has their way, that’s a win. They’re like, ‘see!’” Second, and blunter: “We need the press more than they need us. They’re going to keep doing their job. If you want a shot at influencing how your company is portrayed, you’ve got to participate.”

Dowling spent time at OpenAI and now advises AI companies, which gives him an unusual vantage point on the industry’s communications failures. His diagnosis is empathetic but pointed. The people building these products are often so deep inside the technology that they risk losing the ability to see it the way a normal person does. “The stuff that is mind-blowing to the average person is old hat to them.” That gap produces what he called, borrowing a phrase from a recent Cal Newport op-ed, “doom trolling”—AI executives skipping the present tense entirely and narrating apocalyptic futures, leaving consumers behind in the process. When companies make AI sound inevitable and totalizing, they strip away the very sense of agency that might make the public more receptive. “It makes it seem like we don’t have a choice.”

His prescription is straightforward: pull back, meet people where they are, and stop extrapolating. The communicator’s job, whether at a keynote or in a crisis, has never been to make the technology seem bigger than life. It’s to make it land.

And since JSA+Partners is such an avid listener of the Communication Breakdown podcast, a few of our favorite recent episodes include Comms on Three Continents, Missives You May Have Missed, AI Commencement, and Special Deliveries.

Where does trust flow when everything becomes fake?

The open web is increasingly becoming a machine-to-machine environment. Cloudflare recently reported that bot traffic has eclipsed human traffic. AI-generated content now accounts for 35% of all newly published websites—up from effectively zero before ChatGPT launched in 2022. Agents sit between people and the information they used to find themselves. And as Fast Company’s Mark Sullivan wrote in February, we’re now approaching a “zero-trust reality” where content is “generated unless proven authentic.” Some would argue we’re already there—and the implications for communicators are becoming harder to ignore.

New Cornell research, highlighted in a recent 404 Media story, confirms that seeding a single Reddit comment with as few as 13 words of carefully phrased content is enough to impact what AI chatbots generate in their responses. The same goes for other user-generated content sites like Quora, Wikipedia, Facebook—giving people and brands direct incentive to pollute the spaces LLMs and human users alike have had, until now, every reason to trust the most. In sports, fake quotes and AI-altered photos of athletes spread rapidly on Facebook. More than half of long-form LinkedIn posts were estimated to be AI-generated in 2024—contributing to a growing “thought leaderslop” problem. The platforms are rightfully committed to moderating this, yet with so much to be gained—in generative search, engagement, thought leadership—anywhere information can be indexed will be difficult to fully address.

Trust and credibility, as a result, are becoming increasingly scarce—and that’s making them more valuable. More consumers are starting to take information online with a grain of salt, which is putting a greater emphasis behind people and institutions they can trust. The irony is that this moment has arrived after many years of American trust in mass media hitting new lows—last year, only 28% said they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the mass media, down from 40% only five years ago. But in a zero-trust paradigm, that is poised to change.

This shift reinforces what many communicators are coming to believe: that the value of earned media is having a resurgence. Established outlets and known, accountable journalists look very different when the validity of information online is much less guaranteed—whether it’s Reddit threads that no longer promise an unbiased human opinion, or AI-generated stories without editorial oversight or fact-checking. Individual tastemakers on Substack, YouTube, and podcasts will also stand to gain ground, and any other spaces built on direct relationships with human-authored content.

Soon, these may be among the only places where real trust and reputation can be sourced and built; communicators should take note, as it’s likely LLMs soon will too. AI will need to become better at weighting credibility signals to stay useful, while the public is already in the process of doing this themselves.

How creators, communicators are redefining Cannes Lions

“They used to be the cool kids invited to the afterparty, and now they’re hosting the afterparty.”

That’s how academic, entrepreneur and well-known podcast host Scott Galloway sees a small, but growing, cohort that has been influencing one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing events.

Enter: creators.

This year, the sheer number of attending creators continued to accelerate with an estimated 300 descending in Cannes—by that count, representing 2-3% of the event’s over 13,000 attendees. Despite their smaller scale, creators had an outsized influence (pun intended) on this year’s event.

As a result, the buzz around the Croisette is shifting with it. Cannes Lions and Adobe partnered to launch the LIONS Creator Beach, a new dedicated space for on-site creators to network and film content – and one of many creator-oriented hotspots. And creators not only showed up to own these spaces and speak on panels, but also brought with them an entourage of in-house and agency support to forge new partnerships and connections with brands.

As the worlds of entertainment, technology, sports, and marketing continue to converge, few destinations during Cannes Lions command as much attention as UTA Beach. This year, United Talent Agency made its largest statement yet, transforming its beachfront activation into a hub where some of the most influential names in culture, business, and media will come together to shape the future of creativity. It put “the full strength of [UTA’s] platform on display,” Cassandra Bujarski, Chief Communications Officer at United Talent Agency, told us. It was “intentionally designed to reflect the diversity of our business” – and creators turned out for it.

“From creators, sports and music to filmed entertainment, news, advisory and beyond—UTA Beach was where our clients, partners and industry leaders experienced the power of our platform firsthand,” she said. “Throughout the week, wherever you went on the Croisette, the conversation kept coming back to UTA—our presence, our clients and the impact we were making. More than a destination at Cannes, UTA Beach became a living expression of who we are today and where we’re headed.”

Creators now see a presence at Cannes as an investment in their careers. Studio B commercial lead Olly Lewis told Digiday that the event is flooded with a sea of senior executives “who are all wanting to hear more about the creator-native approach to brand building. Brands are looking to build more sustained co-authored collaborations, whether that’s building new IP or building scripted, episodic content and franchises.”

But another segment of guests is also increasingly calling Cannes home: communicators. This trend has been growing the last few years but was more present than ever. We saw it throughout this year’s programming—especially inside events and activations centered around building synergies between marketing, communications, and culture.

Yahoo’s Chief Communications Officer, Sona Iliffe-Moon, reflected on the week and the dozens of events and activations she participated in. “I left Cannes energized by the growing presence of communicators and creators on the Croisette. It feels like a sign of where influence is heading. One quote I kept coming back to was Coinbase CMO’s observation that ‘you can’t buy aura.’ At a moment when AI can generate almost anything, the most valuable assets may be the hardest to manufacture: authenticity, culture, and genuine human connection.”

What isn’t new for onsite communicators is Cannes’ continued role as a media hotbed, but the landscape is evolving beyond traditional outlets. Emerging media—including Scalable, The Ankler, Verified, ICYMI, and more—are scooping the event’s biggest stories with on-the-ground reporting.

Now more than ever, meaningful relationships are being built on the Croisette—whether at the multitude of activations, panels or one-on-one meetups. While Cannes is getting more crowded, creators and communicators have not only claimed a seat at the table, but they’re reaping the new benefits of this evolving landscape—all with an oversized glass of rosé in hand.

📖 Resource: A new disaster comms playbook from the LASCC

The LA Strong Comms Coalition (LASCC)—a cohort of PR professionals uniting to provide pro bono support to small businesses adversely affected by the Los Angeles fires—and founding member JSA+Partners recently released a free disaster comms playbook. The playbook aims to be a vital resource for comms pros looking to make an impact in the midst of a crisis – without having to start from scratch.

The new resource guides comms professionals through what they need to know about using comms for good amidst local or regional crises. It outlines the team’s approach to founding and organizing groups like the LASCC, identifying and onboarding pro bono clients, and a look at the coalition’s relief-oriented media strategy.

Read or download the playbook for free at jsapartners.co/lascc.

What we’re working on ☕

• [Esports.gg] UEFN Community Awards 2026 crowns this year’s best creators and islands

• [Employee Benefit News] As GLP-1 costs climb, more employers weigh dropping coverage in 2027

• [IGN] Why The Back-to-Back Street Fighter 6 Evo Champion, MenaRD, Switched Off His Main in the Finals

• [The Verge] Character.ai is adding new tools for chatbot creators

• [PocketGamer.biz] New release roundup: King of Delivery 2, Daily Match, WWE Generations: Eras Collide, and more

• [Palisadian-Post] Pali Trading Post Opens, Aims to Restore ‘Old-Palisades’ Charm

• [Yahoo] Yahoo returns from Cannes with +261.76% YoY increase in stories secured

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

What’s happening: A slew of new reporting highlights that the internet, and how it’s used, is fundamentally changing. Cloudflare’s internet traffic radar revealed that bot traffic has finally eclipsed human user traffic. Platforms like Reddit are being flooded by companies looking to manipulate AI search engines scraping them for information. And Gen Z is rejecting social media and algorithm-rich technology in favor of “dumbphones” and digital detoxes. All of this points to a media and attention economy that looks materially different than it did 5–10 years ago, and communicators are already grappling with this new normal, and what’s to come after it.

Between the lines: What was one fringe theory is feeling a lot more real as AI-generated content colonizes search results and social feeds, agents sit between humans and the information they used to find themselves, and the race for AI search visibility only pours fuel on it. As the open web is consumed with synthetic noise, authentic human activity is retreating behind digital walls: paid newsletters, private group chats, tight-knit digital communities, and other places where they can curate their online diet, while escaping the deluge of slop.

Communicators who keep chasing broad reach on noise-flooded channels will eventually find themselves shouting at bots. While there’s a place in the strategy deck for it (in AI search and agent-to-agent communications), real earned presence is moving toward high-trust, high-intention spaces. Expect savvy communicators to place more stock in Substacks, closed communities, direct relationships, and in some cases, Reddit (the subreddits that haven’t been compromised yet, at least).

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Media sweep 📡

• Comms is getting more complicated, but the function of PR remains stuck outside of central enterprise decision making, writes Craig Carroll, founder of the Observatory on Corporate Reputation, in a new byline for PRovoke Media.

• CityAM editor Anna Moloney penned a candid column about the outlet being inundated with AI-written pitches and op-eds, leaving readers with one scathing question about AI-generated writing: “If you can’t be bothered to write it, why should anyone be bothered to read it?”

• Morning Consult’s “Most Trusted Brands 2026” report highlights Dawn Dish Soap, BAND-AID, Google, Dove, and PayPal as companies who have garnered the most trust from consumers. Mr. Pibb, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, and Lunchables were among the brands that saw the most year-over-year growth.

• Editorial leaders at Business Insider tell PRDaily that access to executives and visuals, recurring insights, and an appetite to create meaningful change are all things they look for in a pitch or executive source.

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

For nearly a decade, Kaya Yurieff had one of the more enviable beats in media. While working at CNN and later The Information, she was among the first journalists to treat the creator economy as a legitimate business vertical—tracking the rise of influencers, newsletter operators, and platform-native brands at a time when most newsrooms were dismissing them.

At the same time, Jasmine Enberg was tracking the rise of the landscape from another perspective. Since 2018, she had been building out EMARKETER’s social media and creator research vertical—and in 2024, formally established its creator economy research desk—helping demystify the black box that many brands saw the industry as.

Last October, they stopped following the industry and joined it. Yurieff and Enberg co-founded Scalable, positioning the upstart as a bridge between creators and the brands and platforms trying to work with them. “After writing a near-daily newsletter on the business of the creator economy for 4.5 years, it was only natural that I would eventually join the industry myself,” Yurieff tells us.

Enberg echoes a similar pull: “A decade ago nobody was using the term ‘creator economy’ and influencers were an afterthought for many big brands,” she says. “’Influencer’ was considered a dirty word… [Now] every CMO knows they need to be working with creators and influencer marketing budgets continue to rise. But as the tactic has moved from an experimental play to a must-have in marketing strategies, the pressure to prove the effectiveness of investments has also grown.”

The timing wasn’t random. The duo had been tracking the gap between how companies think the creator economy works and how it actually does, and Yurieff kept hitting the same wall. “A major thing missing is measurement,” she says. “It still feels very much like the Wild West when it comes to assessing the success of creator campaigns. Creators don’t know how to price themselves, and brands are still figuring out how to measure ROI. There is no standard framework. The creator economy has matured much faster than the infrastructure around it.”

“Finding robust, reliable data has always been the biggest challenge,” Enberg added. “So much of the data is biased, fragmented or expensive. It can also be hard to compare data sets over time because things are changing so fast or data providers do one-off studies.”

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That infrastructure problem is, in large part, what Scalable is trying to solve. In April, the company launched a proprietary research database featuring curated, ready-to-use charts on everything from AI and M&A to influencer marketing spend. The pitch: reliable creator economy data is hard to find, expensive, or biased, and business leaders making decisions in this space need something concrete to work from.

Last month, Enberg and Yurieff spoke at the inaugural Creator Economy Summit at the Marché du Film in Cannes—a milestone they view as symbolic. “Creators are in many ways still fighting for recognition and acceptance from traditional entertainment,” Yurieff says. “While streamers have increasingly started working with creators, the film industry has been much harder for creators to break into. Creators who are making movies—or want to make them—still face a stigma from the industry.” The Summit’s existence, she argues, signals “a recognition that the creator economy is only getting stronger and more influential. Attitudes may be starting to slowly change. But we’re still at the very beginning of the convergence between movies and creators.”

For someone who’s spent years studying the space, Yurieff keeps coming back to one thing that still isn’t getting enough airtime—how challenging it is to actually build a creator business. “We don’t talk enough about the burnout, pressure and challenges of operating a creator business,” she says. “So much of what we see online looks glamorous and effortless, but so much work has to happen behind the scenes to bring even a 15-second video to life.”

Enberg points to platform dependence as part of the same pressure. “Almost all social media creators are still at the behest of platforms and their algorithms when it comes to distributing their content,” she says. “Many creators have lessened their reliance on social platforms by diversifying into other channels, including newsletters, podcasts, online communities, digital or physical products and live events… but the big checks are still largely coming from brand deals and they still need to make content for social media in order to reach and grow their audiences.”

Yurieff sees a reckoning arriving for podcasting in particular, as the format’s pivot to video has made an already crowded space significantly harder to survive. “The list of podcasters who have thrown in the towel is growing, and we expect this to hit women and minorities especially hard.” The reasoning is layered and complex: video opens hosts up to appearance-based scrutiny and online harassment that audio didn’t, while simultaneously demanding more time, money, and production overhead. “The truth is that the shelf-life of creator businesses can be quite short and there aren’t clear ways to exit.”

It’s a notably unsentimental take from someone who’s now a founder in the space she’s describing. But it tracks with how Yurieff and Enberg have always, and continue to, approach the industry; less interested in the glamour, more focused on the mechanics underneath it. One spent years counting what the industry produced, while the other spent years explaining why it mattered. Now they’re building the infrastructure they both kept saying was missing.

AI has a perception problem—and graduation commencements just proved it

New reporting from The Wall Street Journal says AI is just as controversial as political party affiliation, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and President Donald Trump amongst US voters. Between 64-79% of voters (depending on age) say AI advancement is moving “too fast,” and it’s becoming too polarizing to ignore—especially for communicators.

Despite the technology shaping everything from consumer tech to politics, the comms impact of the AI talk track is finally showing signs of wear, and nowhere as acutely as college graduation ceremonies across the country.

Throughout May, ceremonies at the University of Arizona, Tennessee State University, CalArts, and more were derailed over the mere mention of AI during speeches. Executives representing Google, Apple, and Delta, as well as university leadership, all turned to the technology with many of the same talking points big tech has been relying on to win over institutional investments, pre-IPO hype, and potential partners.

These AI-laden speeches–and students’ reactions to them–went viral, largely because of how speakers positioned the technology.

• “AI is rewriting production, as we sit here. I know it,” said Big Machine Label Group CEO Scott Borchetta.

• “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” said real estate executive Gloria Caulfield.

• “AI is going to touch everything else as well, whatever path you choose,” said former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Some even acknowledged that these bullish claims may be provocative to the audience. Borchetta’s response, for one, was to “deal with it,” drawing jeers from the crowd. Schmidt says in his speech, “There is a fear in your generation: that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics is fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.”

The innovation-rooted AI narrative that has long driven media coverage, investment, and opportunity is showing its age as perception surrounding the technology shifts from optimism to concern amongst many consumers. Students embody this shift, as the young workforce braces to navigate an uncertain job market and growing concerns about AI’s environmental impact.

But AI-laden graduation speeches didn’t all turn sour. Delta CEO Ed Bastian began his speech at Emory University by acknowledging how “quick and easy” it was for AI to generate his first draft of his graduation speech, it lacked “soul” and “warmth.” That first draft, he said, was almost immediately discarded.

Bastian was a standout on this year’s commencement ceremony circuit for a few reasons, but mainly, he highlighted what AI can never replace: human talent. This is a departure from what his peers were saying, which urged students to hop aboard the AI bandwagon and embrace the change—like it or not.

These diverging messages and their responses from AI-sensitive audiences highlight the pivot AI communications must make today.

Beyond Silicon Valley, AI inundation is underpinning how lay audiences respond to corporate messaging. Whether it’s a stream of new tech workflows or the growing focus of AI capabilities in brands’ advertising, this growing sentiment of AI advancement moving “too fast” risks leaving everyday audiences behind if brands stick to the B2B talk track that has driven their business conversations.

But striking a balance between corporate and consumer AI narratives isn’t uncharted territory. In fact, one of the biggest players in today’s AI landscape, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, threaded the needle during a graduation speech he gave at Carnegie Mellon University.

In contrast to the other commencement speakers, Huang first celebrated the graduates, shared his personal story of perseverance and how he led Nvidia through many peaks and valleys. Notably, Huang doesn’t mention AI until nearly halfway through his speech, and when he does, it’s through a lens of opportunity as opposed to the prevailing narrative.

“For many, AI creates uncertainty,” he began, acknowledging the hesitancy in the room. “People see AI writing software, generating images, driving cars, and naturally wonder what happens next. Will jobs disappear? Will people be left behind? Will this technology become too powerful?”

But after acknowledging the widespread views of his audience, Huang didn’t force them to embrace AI—he invited them to be part of the solution. “Every major technological revolution in history created fear alongside opportunity. When society engages technology openly, responsibly, and optimistically, we expand human potential far more than we diminish it… The responsibility of our generation is not only to advance AI, but to advance it wisely.”

If company leaders want to expand beyond investment and big tech to win over general public perception, AI communications will need to maintain bullishness amongst capitalistic crowds while also offering solutions and addressing concerns amongst consumers.

The commencement circuit made clear that the business-facing talking points for AI don’t translate to the public square. The speakers who stuck the landing (like Bastian and Huang) met their audiences where they were before asking them to follow. But the lesson in this for communicators is actually simpler than you might think: know your audience and read the room.

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What happened: The Wall Street Journal published a deep-dive earlier this month on the profitability, or the lack thereof, of Kalshi and Polymarket users. The analysis showed that “losers” outnumber profitable traders by nearly 3-to-1 on Kalshi. The story prompted Kalshi’s head of comms to fire back on X, arguing that the WSJ’s methodology was flawed, and shared internal data showing Kalshi traders fare better than day traders, options traders, and sportsbooks. WSJ reporter Ben Foldy was quick to point out that Kalshi’s comparison set cherry-picked data from obscure sources, including Taiwanese stock traders in the 1990s and Brazilian equity futures.

Between the lines: Kalshi’s response is an example of the real-time counter-narrative strategy that has become increasingly common in the “go direct” era of comms—but it only works if the receipts hold up. Popularized over the past several years by comms pros like Lulu Cheng Meservey–from correcting the record in public at Activision to walking Wired back on a false claim at Substack–the approach worked every time because the facts held against demonstrable biases. Kalshi swung the same bat but whiffed. The data was apples-to-oranges, and as many X users pointed out, they benchmarked themselves against sportsbooks, the same positioning the company has fought tirelessly to separate itself from.

At a time where trust issues are running high—across news, social media, and everywhere content is consumed—audiences are wising up to the tactics being used to win over their opinion and favor, including messaging that attempts to distort reality instead of accurately reflecting it.

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Media sweep 📡

• The BBC announced widespread layoffs in April, impacting about 2,000 jobs – or one in ten staffers. It’s the largest workforce reduction in media this April, with other layoffs last month hitting Us Weekly, Conde Nast, The Associated Press, Daily Mail, and more.

• Disney-owned ABC is challenging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over a regulatory complaint it received over whether or not talk shows like “The View” are considered news programming – which would qualify them for additional First Amendment protections.

• MuckRack’s May 2026 “What is AI Reading?” report claims that earned media is the driver behind 84% of citations across top AI platforms – a consistent trend since July 2025.

• The US has fallen to No. 64 in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, with Reporters Without Borders citing declining public trust and “systematic weaponization of state institutions” as key contributors to the historically-low ranking.

• Gweneth Paltrow’s Goop promoted its home delivery service through a campaign with convicted fraudster Anna Delvey. The campaign pokes fun at Delvey’s 24/7 house arrest, but has received backlash for glamorizing Delvey’s criminal behavior.

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

Roku just hit 100 million streaming households, and for Kelli Raftery, the company’s vice president of global communications, the milestone isn’t a moment to exhale, but a signal to keep pushing the brand forward.

Raftery joined Roku in 2021 after years at CBS, where she cut her teeth across sports, entertainment, news, and corporate communications. She now leads a global comms team spanning everything from consumer product and advertising to subscriptions, international markets, and content, including originals and more. The job for her team, as she frames it, is as much about protection as it is promotion.

“At a high level, our role is to promote and protect the company,” she says. “We connect the dots to ensure every audience hears one clear, consistent narrative about who Roku is and where we’re headed.” To her, that’s rooted in what the company does best: “It simplifies.”

That simplicity also shows up in how Roku approaches content. Raftery describes Roku as “the front door to television,” and the strategy is to pair the hits people want to watch with the habits they already have. That’s why Roku Originals and The Roku Channel have become such powerful engines—they sit on top of the biggest TV streaming platform in the U.S. and turn that scale into a curated, easy‑to‑navigate experience. Whether it’s buzzy originals like the Laguna Beach reunion or new offerings like Howdy, Roku’s $3/month ad‑free tier, the goal is the same: Deepen engagement by making great TV easier to find.

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One of the cleaner throughlines in Roku’s current comms push is sports—not only as a content vertical, but also as a proof point for the platform’s broader push to streamline the user experience.

“Sports are a perfect example of where Roku shines: taking something complicated and making it easier for viewers,” Raftery says. “In a fragmented streaming world where fans are juggling multiple apps, our role matters more than ever.”

Roku’s pitch is the platform’s role in aggregating sports across services, surfacing games quickly and partnering with leagues and teams to reduce friction for streamers, at a moment when the landscape is more fragmented than ever. The deeper comms play is that sports fans, once they’re on the platform, tend to stay. “When fans come to Roku for sports, they stay for everything else—entertainment, news, and more. That’s a compelling message, and it reinforces the strength and value of the platform.”

The sports background she brings to the role isn’t incidental. Raftery grew up in a sports household with a dad who was a college coach and emphasized the importance of team. She also played tennis, basketball, and lacrosse, and says that upbringing shapes how she leads. “You learn early how to communicate, adjust, stay resilient, and take care of your team. You won’t win every game, but you always show up.” The CBS years reinforced that instinct for connective tissue. “I grew up at CBS, where every part of the business connected. It taught me to think holistically, not in silos.”

Like many communications teams right now, Roku’s is actively integrating AI into its workflow. Raftery’s framing is practical without being evangelical: AI handles research, trend-spotting, and the organizational heavy lifting, but doesn’t replace human instinct and strategic decision making. “It doesn’t replace reporter relationships, good judgment, crisis instincts, or the ability to read a room and know when to pivot,” she says. “AI supports the work, and our people shape the narrative and make the calls.”

The team’s LLM strategy is also evolving, including working to crack the code on how to best navigate the growing influence of generative engine optimization. “We’re ramping up content on our owned channels to make sure we’re showing up in LLM search and meeting people where they’re increasingly starting their discovery.”

To promote their businesses across Roku, Raftery and the team are thinking across newsletters, podcasts, and creators, not as ancillary channels, but as a key part of their strategy. “There are so many new ways to reach people, and these ‘new’ voices matter. People trust them, they move fast, and they often shape the conversation.”

Roku’s Originals strategy follows a similar path: build around existing cultural energy rather than manufacturing it from scratch. The recent Laguna Beach reunion special is a case study she points to. And the recently launched Howdy, a $3/month ad-free tier, is an extension of that same philosophy to meet people where they are.

When asked how she defines success for a comms operation, Raftery keeps it simple: “If our story is landing and the business feels supported, that’s a win.” But that doesn’t mean Roku isn’t underpinning its comms victories without backing them up. That means quantifying “sentiment, message pull-through, share of voice and the strength of our relationships,” she says.

With milestones like the 100 million mark and content from every major streamer and Roku’s own subscription services, plus FAST channels, premier sports, The Roku Channel, and more, Raftery and her team have plenty of material to tell the Roku story. “Being #1 means we can’t get comfortable,” she says. “We have to work even harder to stay there.”

Ad Age EIC: Substack expansion less about scale, and more about voice, intimacy, and experimentation

Ad Age, the nearly 100-year-old leading advertising trade, made its debut on Substack last month.

The publisher is the latest of its kind to expand onto the platform, following similar moves from The New Yorker, The Economist, and others. The simple explanation is usually that publications need to shore up direct audience relationships and diversify distribution as AI search and fragmentation continue to disrupt the media industry. But for AdAge, the strategy is a bit different.

Editor-in-Chief Jeanine Poggi says the launch of its Substack was “less about scale” and more about voice, intimacy, experimentation, and showing up where its audience lives.

“It started with a question of where people are actually spending time and how they’re choosing to keep up,” Poggi told Talking Points. “We know people still want what Ad Age does best—reporting, context, understanding how the industry works. But they’re not always coming to it the same way they used to. They’re finding things through feeds, through people, through newsletters they’ve chosen to let in. Substack felt like a way to meet that shift without overthinking it.”

The format reflects that philosophy by keeping its publishing cadence light, sharp, and in some cases, quick enough “to skim between meetings or on your way to a client dinner.” That lineup consists of one essential story a week, a fast roundup, and some audio—enough structure to be consistent, but loose enough to experiment. “Right now we’re just seeing how it behaves, what people respond to, what they ignore, what feels worth continuing,” Poggi added.

But the more interesting part is what she’s trying to create between the stories. “This gives us a little more room—how we introduce things, what we choose to highlight, what we’re paying attention to in between the bigger stories,” she said. “It just feels more human, and I think that matters right now. People want context. They want a sense of how to think about what they’re seeing, not just the information itself.”

The Substack’s debut piece set the tone well: Poggi interviewing Mischief’s Oliver McAteer on why the agency built its own Substack, and what they’re learning from it. His take: agencies have to own their narrative now. With thousands competing for a finite amount of coverage, the goal is to be “known before you’re needed.” It’s the same logic driving Ad Age’s move. “At some point, a new generation of marketers, creators and operators will need what we do,” Poggi wrote in a personal note to Substack subscribers. “The question is whether we’ll be known to them by then… Not just a brand they’ve heard of, but one they already trust and return to.”

Looking further out, Poggi is paying close attention to how communities are forming as AI makes content easier and cheaper to produce at scale.

“There’s going to be a lot more of everything—more articles, more videos, more opinions,” she said. “What becomes more valuable is knowing where to go, who to trust, and what’s actually worth your time.” Poggi added that this is where community starts to matter more, and it’s being seen by audiences shifting toward smaller and more defined spaces like group chats and niche forums.

There’s a lesson there for communicators, too. In a world that’s only getting noisier, the stories that cut through won’t be the loudest, but the most intentional and meaningful to the audience they’re actually built for.

Inside newsrooms’ AI civil war—and what it means for communicators

AI adoption and investment continues to rise, with nearly 80% of businesses in 2024 using the technology—and that number is only growing. But at the same time, industry leaders, policymakers, and pundits are bracing for the potential of an “AI bubble” on the brink of bursting.

But the push and pull around the utility or futility of AI isn’t just a macroeconomic debate, it’s one happening inside newsrooms, too.

According to reporting from The Wrap, McClatchy Media—the publisher behind local newsrooms like the Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star—is under fire by employees resisting adoption of its new “content scaling agent.” In short, it’s a Claude-powered AI editor that helps journalists turn one original report into a slew of alternative formats—from short-form video scripts to long-form investigations.

The tool’s rollout during a company meeting in March highlights the stark contrast between how leadership sees its application and how staffers do. Vice President of Local News Eric Nelson said journalists who embrace the tool “are going to win” by increasing their ability to produce more content, while those “who are defiant will fall behind.”

Journalists have also made their stance clear: unions across McClatchy newsrooms have filed lawsuits on the grounds that the publisher violated contracts by not providing advance notice for such a sweeping technological change.

Reporters are even withholding their bylines in an attempt to remove their names from AI-generated spin-offs. Leadership, on the other hand, argues they have “every right to use their work.”

The back and forth between AI-bullish leadership and AI-resistant reporters serves as a very real parallel to what many teams in comms and beyond are grappling with right now. Teams need to ask themselves where the line is between leveraging AI to increase output and profitability versus protecting journalists’ focus on ethical intent and creativity.

Amidst these changes, the “human premium” in PR has never been more relevant. Simply feeding the machine with quick-turn stories and AI pitches will only feed into many reporters’ anxieties. Now more than ever is the time to not take the magic of a personalized touch for granted.

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Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line onLinkedIn.

In 2023, a third of PR professionals said they had plans to explore using AI in their day-to-day according to MuckRack’s State of AI in PR report. Flash forward three years, and over three quarters of the industry is already using AI across their work.

But are comms pros using AI the right way? We connected with Gab Ferree, founder of comms coaching collective Off The Record, to unpack where AI tools should fit into the day-to-day tasks and how we can automate the no-value (but necessary) work.

Here’s what Gab had to say about the state of AI in communications, how it’s shaping work today, and how it will underpin the industry over the next several years.

Some quotes have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Where AI is – and shouldn’t – be used today

After surveying 170 professionals in September 2025, Gab saw that the majority of comms leaders are using AI for strategic thinking—pressure testing narratives, planning campaigns, and more. In many ways, it’s an approach that aims to stress test the power of these new tools, while also helping executives tackle some of their most important work.

But that’s not where the technology today thrives. Instead, Gab believes we need to flip the script and stop “outsourcing the good stuff.”

“My AI advocacy for comms people is this: these models have gotten so good that the tools to build our own systems are now in our hands,” Gab said. “What was once only possible with an engineer is now possible with only an idea. We all have the obligation to assess our time and to build strong systems that automate the work we do that provides no value, but is a necessary requirement of our job.”

The best way to identify where AI can make the biggest impact today is to audit your work. Gab recommends comparing each task you complete on a matrix of “time spent” and “value provided.”

The items that require significant time, but provide little business or client value (such as follow-up tasks or meeting notes) are perfect to be AI-owned and operated. Deliverables in the middle of the matrix (like repurposing content for a byline or writing a first draft of a media alert based on several examples) could be AI-assisted work, and may just require additional inputs or edits.

What remains is the work that offers the most value, and can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. That, Gab believes, is the “good stuff” where comms pros invest the most brain power—and it just so happens to be the type of work that AI still struggles to complete.

“As communicators, we need to take two approaches now. One is getting attention from human beings, and the other is getting attention from the robots. And both will be critical audiences.”

Where AI is driving innovation in comms and its limitations

The rise of AI in comms workplaces is inseparable from the rise of AI in media. As AI search and generative engine optimization (GEO) come into focus for more teams, Gab believes that comms pros are required to speak to more audiences than ever.

“As communicators, we need to take two approaches now,” she said. “One is getting attention from human beings, and the other is getting attention from the robots. And both will be critical audiences.”

That may look like AI prompts that see what industry media outlets are being sourced to answer inquiries, or studying up on tactics to help newswire releases be more indexable by AI agents. But it’s also learning AI-native skillets, like strong prompting and fact-checking for AI hallucinations.

Internally, AI’s ability to strengthen workflows is driving the biggest difference in the industry today. A Gartner report last month predicted 75% of employees will rely on conversational AI for internal communications by 2028. Gab uses AI tools and automations across her business—from repurposing original content into alternative formats, onboarding new community members, and more.

Here, she’s already done “all of the hard work” in creating the original content and defining its distribution strategy, but leverages the technology on robot tasks that expand her reach and buy her more time to focus on sharp editing.

“I have a saying that goes ‘diamonds in, diamonds out,’” Gab said. “You’ve heard of ‘garbage in, garbage out,’ but I believe that if you give an AI the best examples of your content, then you’re going to get great stuff out.”

Despite the opportunities this technology unlocks, Gab says the key limitation to AI in comms today is trust. For her, unnecessary AI hallucinations are the primary barrier to taking AI integration to the next level.

There’s also a constant fear of falling behind. The rapid advancement in the space creates a perception that even those that are AI innovators—like Gab, who teaches thousands of professionals how to use AI in their day-to-day lives—constantly feel like they’re behind the curve amidst a flurry of new platforms and models being released seemingly every week.

“The self-improving models will take this feeling into the stratosphere, beyond where it is already,” she said. “So one of AI’s limitations will be fear from people that they’re so very behind.”

The best way to get over that fear? “Just start using AI.”

Communic-AI-tions: Why AI and comms will become inseparable

As the industry embraces the rise of AI, creating new tools will be a great way to “give yourself a promotion” if done right. Gab advises to re-invest the time AI saves comms leaders in developing the next generation of talent—many of whom also have a suite of tools revolutionizing entry-level work, too.

Therein lies a major opportunity for young PR professionals, Gab believes: rather than learning tasks like formatting coverage reports and searching for reporter contacts, entry-level roles will have more opportunities to learn about foundational strategies that they will rely on for the rest of their careers.

“Just in the way that the PR professionals of the past had to run around to newsstands in New York City to literally clip coverage for their clients, that’s not a job that anyone does anymore,” Gab said. “We’ve since found a new job for the junior person to understand how to find coverage, and we will continue to find work for our new slate of professionals—it will just be very different, and maybe better, work.”

And one bold prediction…

Looking into the crystal ball, Gab anticipates that comms leaders will have more to manage, but they’ll also have a lot more help. The executive of the future will not only be a comms strategist and a mentor to junior team members, but also equal parts AI architect as they build custom workflows that extend their bandwidth and help them focus on the work that truly moves the needle.

“The job of a communications professional will be to manage agents. It will be to build, launch, and give feedback to agents that help assist with communications to drive business value. I’m not saying that there will be only one comms person at every company, that there will be no entry level people, or that there will be no comms people at all. But what I am saying is that our job will move from mostly managing people to mostly managing agents.”

You can follow Gab, her work, and her community at www.joinofftherecord.com.

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From Davos to SXSW, how comms pros should approach “mega events” in 2026 and beyond

The first quarter of each year is dominated by events and conferences often seen as “too big to ignore” for many communicators—CES, Davos, and SXSW amongst them.

These events draw upwards of 150,000 attendees from Fortune 500 CEOs to budding entrepreneurs, positioning them as must-attend opportunities to build thought leadership. But as crowds get bigger and stages get more competitive, the value in showing up at these events hasn’t diminished, but it is changing.

The modern “mega events” playbook may look similar for communicators able to leverage iconic business leaders and celebrities to consistently secure top-tier main stage opportunities; but the mid-to-small-scale enterprises often simply lack the name-brand equity to earn space on the stages that deliver the most value. Today, they are often relegated to half-filled rooms and niche talk tracks.

So where is the value for the vast majority of leaders today? It’s around the main stage, not on it.

The industry’s largest events are organically expanding with a suite of third party shoulder programming to match—mixers, sub-conferences, and parties. And this shoulder programming is driving the targeted visibility and intimate connections that executives are finding harder to come by on the show floor.

From networking groups like Unplugged Collective to publishers like Adweek and Business Insider, there’s an ecosystem of speaking engagements just beyond most conferences’ doors. Oftentimes these offer less competitive stages and focused audiences, making it easier for communicators to not only place executives, but put them in front of the audience they are most eager to reach.

The rise of the auxiliary is also giving executives more opportunities to network and build meaningful connections with potential partners. As such, the role of communicators is no longer about securing top-tier speaking engagements, but rather to also wade through a sea of mixers and parties to identify the most fruitful grounds for networking.

This work doesn’t just stop with potential partners, either. Especially amidst ongoing media consolidation and a shift towards independent journalism, in-person touchpoints are essential for building and strengthening reporter relationships.

However, as these flagship events become crowded with announcements from companies too loud to ignore, expect onsite media relations to be less about the next big announcement, and more about offering expert commentary or offering an off-the-record look at what’s in the pipeline in the next quarter.

Communicators are already embracing these shifts, and paired with the burgeoning cost of attending events like GDC—which saw a dip in attendance this year as a result—the modern mega event playbook is seeming like it will involve spending less time, and money, on the show floor.

What Esports Insider’s closure means for gaming, news media, and communicators in esports and beyond

Esports Insider, one of the longest-standing esports business news outlets, has placed its entire staff on redundancy notice following a manual Google penalty—preventing the site from appearing in search results until it was recently re-listed.

The news marked an unfortunate ending for the UK-based publication, which had served as one of the top sources of B2B esports coverage for 10 years. The downward spiral of ESI arrived 14 months after being sold to an unnamed company—later determined to be Clickout Media.

Clickout has quietly been behind a handful of esports and gaming news site acquisitions over the last few years, including The Escapist, Adventure Gamers, and others; Aftermath’s Jackson Ryan chronicled the company and its practice of using parasite SEO to parlay respected domains into gambling affiliate hubs.

Esports Insider’s longstanding leadership in covering the industry and its sudden dismissal have struck a slice of media already facing headwinds. And while these shifts impact PR and comms pros in the gaming and esports industries, they represent a broader transition communicators broadly must wake up to.

Amidst layoffs and closures, the same top-tier coverage we’ve come to expect from the old guard will exist in smaller, quieter spaces. The independent outlets powered by passionate freelancers and reporter-run Substacks will force us to rethink the importance of “niche” media. This shift isn’t easily captured by traditional PR metrics.

As industry-defining outlets shutter or cut back, PR reporting will see story counts and UVMs plummet. But as readership also shifts as a result, pros will be challenged to find new ways to articulate the value of remaining coverage as it becomes harder and harder to achieve the volume we’ve seen in years past.

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What happened: A pair of job openings from Yahoo and Anthropic may be signaling the next critical role in comms departments: the “AI architect.” Anthropic defined the role as someone who can “build infrastructure that enables our comms team to move faster and operate at scale,” while Yahoo’s VP of Corp Comms Erin Miller commented: “we’re hiring someone to help us lead the way in comms for the AI era.” In other words, companies are on the hunt for internal hires to lead comms-first AI workflow development and execution.

Between the lines: Communicators are getting more hands-on with AI, but there’s a persistent feeling across the industry that teams need a dedicated resource to truly unlock all the ways AI could streamline and optimize their workflow. The arrival of Claude Code and agentic AI has introduced an ocean of product-facing solutions communicators could build, but seemingly few have materialized so far. But the bottleneck isn’t skill or expertise—it’s time. When can teams carve out space to experiment with new tools while still running communications and executing day-to-day work? Yahoo and Anthropic are betting that a dedicated role embedded within the comms function can help solve for this.

The roles also reflect a broader shift toward building this capability in-house. Instead of outsourcing AI experimentation to consultants or agencies, companies are embedding technical operators within communications teams to help build workflows alongside the people doing the work every day. The goal isn’t to replace communicators with AI specialists—it’s to give savvy communicators the tools and infrastructure to build smarter systems themselves.

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Media sweep 📡

• Axios says LinkedIn is becoming a top source for AI chatbots, echoing a trend we highlighted in a February newsletter.

• Director of Grand Valley State University’s School of Communications Dr. Len O’Kelly unpacked how AI generated content is shaping perceptions around natural disasters, driving “desensitization” towards not only digital media, but dangerous weather itself.

• Author and podcast host Scott Galloway recently questioned whether media platforms like his Resist and Unsubscribe movement should report on companies’ government ties—or guide how consumers spend.

• Rohit Bhargava, founder and chief trend curator at The Obvious Company, claimed understanding communities is the bedrock of communications at Ragan’s Social Media Conference.

• Esports news outlet Esports Insider has dubbed all staff as redundant following a manual penalty from Google; The Esports Radar reports that the fallout is the latest in a years-long shift from the publisher towards SEO-driven content and AI editors.

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

In the high-stakes world of the NFL, “protecting the Shield” has evolved from managing game-day broadcasts to navigating massive global expansion and viral cultural crossovers. Leading the League’s business, media, and international communications strategy is Vice President of Communications Alex Riethmiller, whose time at the NFL has been marked by enormous growth in all areas as the Shield has evolved from the most popular sport in the United States into a cross-platform global brand.

We caught up with Alex to discuss how he’s navigated his 13-year career at the League, the unique hurdles of marketing an American sport abroad, winning over the next generation of fans, and a behind-the-scenes look at the comms engine that powered Super Bowl LX.

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This interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity.

JSA: Let’s start by talking about the evolution of your role. You joined the NFL in 2012 and now serve as the VP of Comms responsible for media, business, and international. Tell us more about your remit.

Alex Riethmiller: When I think about my 13+ years here, I picture it in thirds. I initially came to the NFL from CBS Interactive for an opportunity to run communications for League’s media group, “NFL Media,”which is comprised of NFL Network, NFL Red Zone, NFL Films, the NFL app and all our owned and operated media assets. At that time (2012), cable was still a growing business and NFL Media was a great brand to represent and help take to the next level. I worked for one of the most accomplished sports media executives in the business, Steve Bornstein, who after an over 20-year run building ESPN into a juggernaut had helped the League launch NFL Network in 2003. Steve was a demanding boss which really helped me learn and grow and he had an appreciation for the role that comms can play in building a business. It was an incredible opportunity to help grow tentpole events such as Thursday Night Football, the Scouting Combine, and the NFL Draft.

When Steve retired, NFL Media’s then COO Brian Rolapp, who was based at League headquarters in New York, took over. At the time, NFL Communications was led by Joe Lockhart who, among other roles, had served as the White House press secretary during the Clinton administration. Joe recognized that Brian and I had developed a good working relationship and so my role expanded to include the other areas Brian was leading for the League on the business side, including our partnership and consumer products businesses. This was the beginning of the second “third” of my time at the NFL and one where, while I still spent most days working in LA, at least half my day was spent on work coming out of our New York office.

The final third and my current one has brought even more change. I now cover emerging businesses, such as legalized sports betting, which have grown substantially and become a huge focus from a communications standpoint. Not only are we talking about it from a business perspective, but also speaking to the regulation and responsible betting sides to ensure our fans who choose to gamble are doing so safely. At the same time, my work in LA has changed as the League decided to actively pursue a sale for a portion of the media group. Just recently that deal closed as ESPN purchased NFL Network and other media assets. The most recent piece which has been added to my portfolio is overseeing international communications, which is where I now spend the majority of my time. As the League pursues the goal of becoming a global brand, we are holding more and more games around the world; we played seven in 2025 and have nine planned for 2026.

JSA: Over 13 years is a long time to be at one place. What keeps you engaged?

AR: Being at one company for 13-and-a-half years is no small amount of time, especially in a day and age where people tend to job hop relatively quickly. Given the “thirds” I just laid out, it feels like I’ve “job-hopped” inside of the NFL because my scope has evolved from media, to the business side, and most recently adding international. That’s really what has kept me energized, excited, and growing here.

JSA: As the NFL explores international expansion, what have been some of the challenges of selling a traditionally American sport to a global market? How are you currently approaching communicating to international audiences?

AR: It’s been a really interesting experience for me. There’s obviously language differences, cultural differences, and differences in the ways that people interact with the media and reporters’ expectations from communicators. We absolutely rely on agency support on the ground to help us navigate the unique nuances that each new market brings.

In 2026, we’ll be heading to London, Munich, Mexico City, Madrid, and three new markets in Melbourne, Paris, and Rio. Each of these places has vastly different levels of maturation and existing fandom, so the biggest thing that we need to remember—whether it’s for comms or the business generally—is to approach this with a different mentality than we’re used to. While the NFL is considered the king of the sports industry here in the United States, globally it’s a much different story. We need to recognize that in international markets some people don’t even know about the NFL, some people don’t care about it, and there is a portion who likely never will. We try to constantly remember to have a challenger mindset when it comes to our work around the world.

Tapping into broader culture can really help start conversations in new markets as well. When Taylor Swift was trying to make it to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl to watch her now fiancé Travis Kelce play, she was coming from her concert in Tokyo. People were very invested in her journey and even tracking her flight, and the Super Bowl viewership we garnered in Japan that year was the highest it had ever been. Cultural conversation starters, whether it’s something non-football-related like Taylor Swift or the rise of flag football, can be pivotal in drawing people into our world.

And despite popular belief, Taylor Swift’s involvement was not orchestrated by us, but we’re not complaining! I will say, we were already doing pretty well increasing female fandom prior to Taylor Swift becoming a fan, but it’s certainly helped turbocharge the female demographic and in particular, with younger females.

JSA: To that point, the NFL is more culturally relevant than ever. What do you attribute this to? How do you stay ahead of the curve? How has your comms strategy evolved to keep up?

AR: When our generation became sports fans, there was really only one screen and on Sundays during the fall, football was always on the television. In today’s world, people have their phone, tablet, and endless choices, so we have to figure out how to capture that attention. Our marketing group has done a great job of recognizing ways to build the next generation of fans by looking at where young people are spending their time. To that point, we’ll strategically insert ourselves into areas such as music, fashion, and video games to try to capture attention and start a conversation. It can be as simple as partnering with Fortnite to integrate iconic NFL player touchdown dances into their game. That’s where we start conversations that can, eventually, lead to long-term fandom.

JSA: How are you and your team navigating “new” media formats?

AR: They 100% have to be on your radar. We see things like what happened with the Washington Post’s sports department and more journalists going to newer platforms like Semafor, so they certainly need to be in your mix. We are absolutely aware of the changes and constantly thinking about what the podcasts people are listening to, or what newsletters we should be actively sending news to. It’s not as simple as it used to be; the days are gone of worrying about the nightly news or morning newspaper the next day.

You also never know where influence will come from, as newer outlets and independent personalities are impacting a lot of what traditional media covers as well. We’re always looking at which third party experts press are talking to, and aim to build as many relationships as we can with the people that are quoted often. I think of Wall Street analysts as a different form of media. While they’re not always publishing themselves, they’re writing reports that are then getting quoted on CNBC.

We sometimes get looked at as being old school at the NFL in terms of our comms approach and in some ways we are—we still put out plenty of press releases! At the same time, we’re also staying on the cutting edge of media trends and outreach and constantly thinking about new and different ways to get our messaging out.

JSA: Take us behind-the-scenes of the communications strategy of Super Bowl LX.

AR: The week starts off with the commissioner’s press conference on Monday, which is something we spend a lot of time on, which is followed by “Opening Night” with the teams–an event that has really grown over the years. The following days really build on a lot of the messaging we share on Monday. As you can imagine, there’s a tremendous amount of media inbounds and interest, so we want to be strategic in how we channel that and ensure we’re promoting key initiatives while we have the world’s attention.

Of course, there is another side to that week—thinking through potential threats or crisis situations we need to prepare for. To the extent we can, we certainly want to make sure we’re ready for these controversies well in advance of the media fixating on them. That’s a challenge, as it’s impossible to see around every corner and prepare for the myriad of unforeseen circumstances that inevitably pop up during Super Bowl week. As always, the main goal is to promote many wonderful storylines, protect the shield, and keep the focus where it should be–on the best game in the world.

On-Record with Puck News’ Ian Krietzberg

For Puck News’ AI Correspondent Ian Krietzberg, the path to becoming one of the most discerning voices on the AI beat was built off a background in business reporting, music theory, and an “insatiable hunger” to write.

When the AI boom ignited in early 2023, Ian was already in the room, covering the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants at TheStreet. But it was a specific moment in May, watching Sam Altman testify before Congress, that pulled him into what he calls a 70-year-old rabbit hole.

“I remember watching the testimony live... and Sam said his famous quote: ‘If something goes wrong here, it can go quite wrong,’” Ian recounted. “At that point, I kind of describe it as falling backwards into this rabbit hole because there’s just so much history and context to the field of artificial intelligence.”

Now at Puck, Ian brings a refreshing layer of skepticism to an industry often smothered in hype. He treats his reporting like a classroom, frequently turning to academics and researchers who have been studying these questions for decades. To Ian, the fundamental questions–like whether a machine can truly think–haven’t actually changed since the 1950s.

When we asked him how he cuts through the AI buzzword clutter to determine what’s really an innovation worth watching vs. just a marketing ploy, he says his method is simple.

“I have to sit where the science is, and I approach that in a very rigorous way,” Ian told us. “I ask myself: Do we have evidence to support these claims? The conversation can start and stop there.”

This fact-based mindset also extends to how he personally uses the technology he covers. While many reporters are experimenting with AI-assisted drafts, Ian remains a staunch holdout. He believes that the struggle of early stages of drafting is essential to actually understand a topic. He avoids using AI to summarize documents or filter his inbox because, as a journalist, he has what he calls “paranoid trust issues” with any tool that takes him away from a primary source.

“The golden thing for a journalist is first source information,” he explained. “Anything that takes me away from the primary source can be dangerous and potentially irresponsible for the work that I’m doing. I need to physically see the information myself.”

At Puck, Ian is part of a “journalist-as-a-brand” model that he believes is the only way forward for a media industry struggling with a lack of audience trust. The relationship is the definition of direct; if you hit reply to his newsletter, The Hidden Layer, it goes straight to his personal inbox. It’s a level of accessibility that builds a genuine relationship with his readers–even if his inbox gets inundated with out-of-office replies every time he hits send.

For the comms professionals looking to reach him, Ian’s advice is to skip the product fluff. Now that he publishes twice a week rather than daily, his bar for what makes a story is significantly higher. He’s looking for impact-focused stories, backed by material evidence or truly new approaches to architecture that move beyond the standard LLM narrative.

And if you’re able to land the interview, our clients have said that it feels like more of a high-level exchange between peers than a typical press Q&A. His deep AI knowledge has made many of them say it was one of their best interviews to date–and we can’t agree more.

Gartner report predicts comms industry shifts from AI

Communicators are entering a four-year stretch defined by AI disruption, misinformation risk, and rising expectations to prove business impact, advisory firm Gartner shared in a new report this month. The firm explains how search, internal comms, reputation management, personalization, and analytics will fundamentally reshape comms in the coming years. Here’s the key takeaways:

• AI search will double PR budgets: Mass adoption of LLMs will drive a 2x increase in PR and earned media spend by 2027 as AI answer engines continue to favor earned over paid content.

• Chatbots will replace legacy internal channels: By 2028, 75% of employees will rely on conversational AI for internal communications—Gartner says “employee chatbots offer an effective solution to the information overload and information burden challenge.”

• Narrative intelligence tools are poised for growth: By 2029, Gartner predicts 45% of CCOs will adopt advanced narrative monitoring tools to counter disinformation.

• Employee data will power personalization: Three-fourths of comms teams will lean on analysis of their team’s digital footprint to tailor internal messaging by 2029.

• Data and analytics investment will double: Spending on data and analytics will rise to 6% of comms budgets, aiming to accelerate decision-making and prove greater value (up from 2.9%).

On the topic of GEO, the report states that over 95% of cited links in AI answers are non-paid, while 27% originate directly from earned media. Throughout the study, Gartner’s position is that third-party validation, and not paid media or press releases, will most reliably determine what surfaces in AI-generated responses.

At the same time, AI has democratized software development and enabled teams to quickly synthesize large datasets—either through third-party metrics or internally developed tools. And as nearly half of CCOs report struggling to demonstrate impact of the function, it seems clear why data and analytics investment would trend up by double over the next several years.

What we’re working on ☕

• [Pocket Gamer] Subway Surfers City brings the iconic endless runner to the next generation as it hits mobile today

• [CNET] Meta and AMD’s Multibillion-Dollar Deal Is All About the AI Chips

• [NBC 5] Young man from McKinney crowned world’s best Madden NFL player, winning $250,000

• [KCAL] Eaton Fire survivors get help rebuilding from high-tech tools

• [AZ Big Media] Building the Atari Hotel: Big challenges, bigger heart

• [Esports.gg] EA’s Jasmine Chiang keeps ALGS real: “Gamers can smell the BS”

• [GamesBeat] Madden Bowl headlines pre-Super Bowl esports action

• [The Tech Trek by elevano] Stablecoins, AI Fraud, and the Future of Sports Payouts

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

What happened: The standard corporate “spending more time with family” memo is officially dead. Last week, a wave of high-profile tech executive departures turned the resignation letter into its own form of literary genre. xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba announced his exit with a tech-optimist tweet about “recalibrating his gradient.” Meanwhile, Anthropic’s former safety lead Mrinank Sharma dropped a two-page, poetry-laden warning, saying: “I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions... we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most.” Meanwhile, in legacy media, CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey went scorched-earth with a leaked note blasting the network’s “shifting ideological expectations” under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.

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Between the lines: Companies are facing a new level of exposure from high-profile departures as tech executives with large followings wield direct-to-audience communications to share their side of the story. As executives continue to behave more like traditional influencers in 2026, the way you leave is now just as important as what you accomplished in the role—marking a clear shift away from institution-led messaging and toward executives seizing the pen.

More often than not, companies absorb the reputational risk, while communicators contend with a new reality: individuals can carry more trust than the organizations they represent. The lesson is clear: the smartest executives know that their next job depends on preserving their public integrity, even if it comes at the expense of their previous employer.

Media sweep 📡

• According to Nielsen, NBCUniversal’s broadcast of Super Bowl LX drew 124.9 million viewers, which was a 2.2% drop from the 2025 game, Axios reported. This marks the first time since 2021 that ratings of the game have decreased.

• NBC News is launching a new paid entertainment newsletter, On the Lot, written by Hollywood reporter Rebecca Keegan and featuring “fresh reporting and analysis from Hollywood on the latest developments from the entertainment industry.”

• Apple announced yesterday that it will bring a new integrated video podcast experience to Apple Podcasts this spring, aiming to better compete with competitors like Spotify and YouTube.

• TBPN is reportedly charging a monthly rate of $87k – or around a million per year – for sponsorships of the popular daily tech show, Semafor’s Max Tani shared.

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

The following story is a guest post authored by Cody Luongo, a JSA+Partners alumni and media consultant specializing in communications and content strategy.

Earned media has long been treated as the finish line. You secure the hit, circulate it internally, maybe add it to the website, and move on to the next pitch. The underlying assumption is that the value of press is fully captured by the publication’s audience—but it misses the point.

Today, the real leverage of earned media isn’t just where you’re featured, but how and where that credibility is reinforced after the story is published. And increasingly, much of that reinforcement happens on social platforms like LinkedIn where press coverage is amplified online.

There’s real power in consistently showing up on the timeline. When something is being talked about again and again, we subconsciously assume it’s worth our attention. Frequency becomes a proxy for importance and familiarity becomes a stand-in for trust.

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As much as we like to believe otherwise, most people also aren’t clicking through to read the full article. What they’re absorbing instead is the pattern: this person, this brand, this team is consistently associated with smart coverage, thoughtful commentary, respected outlets, and other credible leaders. Even the “small wins”—niche trade publications and passing quotes—accumulate into something larger when consistently amplified through our owned channels, reinforcing a perception of momentum and authority that matters more than any single story.

This dynamic matters even more today as social platforms continue to become the front door for discovery. In fact, more than half of U.S. adults say they get their news from social feeds. Executives are increasingly leaning into this shift too: CEO posts are up 52% over the past two years, with leadership content driving up to 7x more impressions.

The launch of Yahoo Scout last week is a good example. I didn’t discover the product through a headline or Google search, but a steady stream of employee posts, commentary from reporters, and reshared coverage that flooded my feed. Before even reading a single story, I understood what the product is, how it works, and why it matters.

The concept of social as a PR channel is not new. What’s changed now is that this kind of influence no longer applies only to people, but also the algorithms powering LLMs.

Generative search systems don’t evaluate brands the way traditional search engines did; they attempt to synthesize reputations, and much less rank pages. Instead of asking “what’s the best page for this query,” they ask “which brands are consistently associated with this topic, across credible sources?”

An Ahrefs study found that brand web mentions showed a 0.664 correlation with Google AI Overview visibility, while backlinks (the backbone of traditional SEO) lagged far behind at 0.218. To break it down simply: LLMs infer brand authority from repeated third-party references across trusted domains—and unlike traditional SEO, there’s no shortcut to manufacturing credible, independent media mentions at scale. Aherfs also found that brands which earn “the most web mentions” can see up to 10X more mentions in AI Overviews vs. the next closest quartile—a quick point indicating that volume matters.

But while social is where information reaches people passively in the discovery funnel, AI chatbots are where they actively seek it out. A 2026 survey found that 37% of people now begin research with AI tools instead of traditional search engines, and 60% say AI delivers clearer, more useful answers—underscoring communicators’ need to understand and influence where, when, and how their brands show up in chatbots.

LinkedIn plays an outsized role here. Newsletters and posts function like blogs, while sections and bios act as entity pages—and all are indexed by LLMs like any other content. If you’ve noticed a months-old post on LinkedIn suddenly courting likes and comments, this could be why. Semrush data from October backs this up: LinkedIn now ranks as the second-most frequently cited sources across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity (and appears to be on the rise).

All of this points to how earned media now travels laterally—across audiences and different use cases. It’s no longer about squeezing extra impressions or even the story itself. Instead, it’s about shaping perception in attention-rich environments through amplification, while those same signals quietly feed the systems powering our increasingly LLM-fueled reality and arm them with context.

On-Record with KTLA’s Rich DeMuro

Whether you catch him on KTLA, listen to his nationally syndicated radio show on commutes, or subscribe to his Rich on Tech Substack, Rich DeMuro’s cross-platform empire has become a sort of 24/7, personal tech therapy for gadget users around the country. While his USC degree initially trained him for the world of broadcast journalism, Rich originally entered the world of tech as a reporter at CNET and fell in love with the electricity of emerging media. He eventually returned to local TV–and has stuck around ever since.

“The interaction with the audience to me is really what it’s all about, especially in local TV. It’s very hands-on. It feels very connected to the people that you’re serving,” Rich explained.

Rich said managing that connection across both traditional and new media–TV, radio, social media, and Substack–can be tricky, but to us it seems he’s got it down to a science. His KTLA segments are his primary focus; prioritizing universal, highly visual stories that allow for an on-screen demo. Radio provides an opportunity to expand upon his TV coverage, including longer-form interviews and real-time listener call-ins. But Substack, which he’s been an early pioneer on since a 2019 introduction to the platform’s CEO, is where he feels the deepest connections happen.

“Substack offers the most intimate connection with audiences because they’re choosing to subscribe to the content and they’re actually asking to have you in their inbox,” Rich told us. “TV is very universal–with stories that I think everyone should know, even if they’re not a techie–and radio is a bit more engaged because people there are tuning in, but they’re still drive-by. Substack feels more intentional.”

That intimacy isn’t a buzzword for Rich; it’s a full-time job backed by over 15 years of serving as Southern California’s favorite tech guru. He says his “secret weapon” is an inbox that overflows with messages from listeners asking for advice–every one of which he responds to. Often, this serves as an early alert for emerging developments in the tech world, and he tends to hear about email outages or security scams days before mainstream media picks up the trail.

“Audience emails have been really helpful for coverage. If I notice a pattern in inquiries about people experiencing the same issue and do a segment or story addressing that, it always becomes my most popular story,” Rich said. “It’s the best formula I have.”

One recent pattern dominating his inbox? An uptick of user confusion around what headlines and Instagram Reels online are real, and what’s AI slop. But while he’s concerned about its impact on the quality of the broader media landscape, Rich recognizes the technology’s not all bad. He’s an avid user himself, leveraging AI to summarize interviews, brainstorm talking points, and—most importantly—keep his connection with his audience alive without drowning in email formatting.

For those adding in PR pitches to his email mix, Rich’s advice is simple: skip the high-level B2B jargon and send the little things that will feel approachable–and affordable–for the average consumer. He’s looking for $20 impulse buys, handy travel apps, and services that genuinely make life easier for a non-techie.

“Do a little research on me, see the kind of topics that I cover in my radio show, TV, and newsletter,” Rich recommended. “That goes a long way because I can tell when people are faking it. If you’re pitching me something that’s B2B or SEO AGI related–you have no idea what I’m doing.”

When music criticism gets a price tag, readers grab their Pitchforks

As the media landscape adjusts to the impact of AI search on viewership, publications are turning toward a rotating playbook of revenue-generating reactions. And at the forefront: the dreaded paywall.

In late January, music publication Pitchfork announced its introduction of a $5 subscription for unlimited access to its popular reviews, and the outrage from readers underpins a stark dichotomy within the landscape.

Pitchfork isn’t the first music outlet to turn to reader funding. Indie publication Stereogum’s founder Scott Lapatine penned an honest piece late last year articulating how today’s “media traffic apocalypse” forced them to lean harder on reader contributions. The outlet’s notably “enthusiast” fanbase responded with support for the digital community they had grown to love, even if it meant opening their wallets.

Pitchfork, on the other hand, is far from the indie publication it once was. Today, it’s mainstream and corporate-backed, and its generalist readers scoffed at the outlet’s new paywall.

So, why the split reaction?

Putting aside the “shifting public perception on the role of entertainment” critique, Pitchfork’s communications approach likely influenced the fallout. The paywalling was buried in the outlet’s announcement below features like reader scores and comments, dismissing the lede that reviews would–for the first time in the outlet’s 30-year history–no longer be freely available to the public. Despite the outlet’s attempts to position its new era as a step forward, longtime readers felt it was a major step back.

On the contrary, Stereogum’s messaging positioned its subscription as membership to a community of digital music diehards, offering a ticket to exclusive new content and a way to support an indie cast of reporters built on the belief that “there is still a future for journalism made by human music nerds.” The outlet’s deep understanding of its community-first industry audience meant its direct, meme-riddled editorial rallied its readers’ support around a shared mission rather than burdening them with a mandatory price tag.

While no media company wants to put a paywall on content fans have grown to love for free, reactions to these rollouts sit on a knife’s edge–and savvy, audience-tailored communications can turn critics into community champions.

What we’re working on ☕

• [Fast Company] Yahoo claps back on AI search engines with Yahoo Scout

• [Variety] ‘Subway Surfers’ Sets Sequel Game, ‘Subway Surfers City,’ Releasing in February

• [Polygon] How the Apex Legends Global Series Championship finally made me care about esports

• [GamesBeat] Yahoo and King team up to publish a Candy-Crush-inspired puzzle game

• [Mike’s Gaming Gala] ATARI HOTELS Interview with Jordan Taylor Live!

• [Inside World Football] EA Sports’ FC Pro Open offers gamers pathway to the big league

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

What happened: Tech enthusiasts from around the world—including us—made their annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas last week for CES 2026. While the headlines were dominated by LEGO’s Smart Bricks, musical lollipops, and AI soulmates, a subtler shift was happening off the main stage: media and communications professionals took a bigger seat at the conference’s table than ever before.

Yahoo and Axios hosted a comms happy hour with over 80 attendees, Edelman held a Media Dialogue breakfast with Sources Newsletter’s Alex Heath, and The Vergecast taped live in front of a packed house. CES itself leaned in, placing an expanded Creator Space in the middle of the action, with curated programming, tech tools, and other resources tailored entirely for content creators. As our Founder and CEO Jennifer Stephens Acree noted, the appetite for IRL connection was palpable—and this year, storytellers were just as visible as the tech they were amplifying.

Between the lines: CES is no longer just a gadget show, but now a “Cannes West” in its own right; serving as a critical stage for brand positioning and corporate reputation, even for companies outside of the traditional tech sphere. A few trends we couldn’t ignore:

• Experiential activations won the floor: Amidst the digital noise, engaging physical experiences continues to be the ultimate differentiator. Brands that leaned into experiential marketing, like AARP’s museum-like AgeTech Collaborative activation, won over audiences on the crowded floors, proving that complex narratives land best when attendees can physically step inside the story.

• An increase of non-tech brands winning the week: The biggest buzz didn’t just come from microchip manufacturers, but also unsuspecting legacy corporations like John Deere and LEGO. These brands didn’t just show off specs; they used tech to tell a “purpose-driven” story–showcasing how AI can feed the world or enhance kids’ play. The lesson for communicators? In 2026, technology is the means, not the end. If you can’t connect your innovation to a human value, audiences are quicker to write your product off.

• AI inside everywhere: As a surprise to no one, AI was the messaging star of the show this year. Our team joked that almost every product on the show floor included at least some language about the technology in its display. As Polygon put it, “Everywhere you turned, there was another company adding AI to something that either didn’t need it or didn’t need to exist in the first place.” As fatigue around the buzz word will inevitably grow, brands will be forced to pivot from performative labeling to thoughtful integration, reserved for moments where it genuinely elevates the user experience.

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Media sweep 📡

• Semafor announced it raised $30 million in new financing, putting it at a $330 million valuation just three years after launch. WSJ reported 2025 was the media startup’s first profitable year, with the majority of its revenue coming from events and advertising.

• Sunday’s 2026 Golden Globes included the awards’ first podcast category, with Amy Poehler’s ‘Good Hang’ taking home the win. Other nominees included Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard, Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, The Mel Robbins Podcast, SmartLess, and NPR’s Up First.

• Roblox is ramping up its advertising offerings after revealing a “Homepage Feature” ad format at CES 2026. The offering puts sponsored videos into a virtual theatre, creating a more dynamic viewing experience compared to traditional banner ads.

• The 2026 World Economic Forum kicks off in Davos next week (January 19-23) under the theme ‘A Spirit of Dialogue,’ with media including Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Axios, and Business Insider set to be in attendance.

• Popular chat platform Discord is quietly filing an initial public offering (IPO), supporting rumors from 2025 that claimed the company was in early-stage discussions about an IPO. The gaming-first chat platform boasts 200 million monthly active users.

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

Each year, our team compares notes and makes a few educated bets on the trends we think will define the next 12 months (see our 2025 predictions here). Kicking off 2026, we’re looking less at hype and more at what’s actually gaining traction—here’s what’s on our minds for the year ahead:

Generative engine optimization will revitalize comms budgets.

Perhaps the most significant force redefining communicators’ approaches, generative engine optimization (GEO) will become even more of a hot topic in media strategy sessions this year. From the resurgence of the press release to answer-led content optimization—and pointing to AI engine visibility as a key measurement point in coverage recaps—GEO is the high stakes shift shaping communicators’ work and forcing a refreshed outlook on the true ROI of earned media.

As our founder & CEO Jennifer Stephens Acree pointed out to PR Daily, 2026 will also expose how much work there is to do before anyone can truly position themselves as a GEO expert. She explained that the industry should take a measured approach to GEO and continue to “experiment, iterate and learn from each other” rather than overpromising results or attempting to crack the code overnight. However, despite occasionally conflicting approaches on how to achieve LLM visibility in early experimental days, earned media placements have proven to be a common thread for successful GEO–proving PR’s vital role in maintaining brand relevance in the era of AI.

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Hyperniche will beat out sheer reach.

As we’ve already experienced throughout the rise of independent journalism in 2025, the smaller, highly trusted industry voices across Substack, Beehiiv, YouTube, and beyond are starting to show their value and role compared to highly sought-after mainstream outlets with the largest readership. With trust in traditional media wavering, niche industry newsletters, podcasts, and social creators will continue to serve as the preferred source of truth.

When feeds are noisy and discovery is broken, newsletters solve a core distribution problem: they deliver ideas directly to a self-selected, hyper-relevant audience from the voices they trust. While a mention in a niche Substack may not feel as flashy as a profile in the New York Times, educating internal stakeholders on the value of these small-but-mighty placements will be critical to recalibrating how the C-suite measures media success.

Executives must become comfortable with “unpolished” video and alternative interview formats.

We’ve already seen the rise of short-form, vertical video on LinkedIn, and executives who were early adopters are already outsizing engagement of text-only peers. As audiences crave hearing from real, authentic human voices over bots, video storytelling is helping solve the growing authenticity gap.

As journalists branch out beyond writing and take up traditionally creator-centric content habits to keep up with evolving audience consumption habits, executives must follow suit. Whether it’s making appearances on TBPN-style live streams across YouTube, Twitch, or even Substack, or posting a casual “walk-and-talk” explainer on LinkedIn, content beyond traditional written profiles presents an opportunity to show a more candid side of the brand. In 2026, raw video will build deeper affinity with viewers than a polished press release ever could.

Internal comms will take center stage.

2025 was the year of painfully public brand backlashes, from American Eagle’s controversial “Good Jeans” campaign to the now-infamous Coldplay-gate. Chronically online culture has made it easier than ever for corporate missteps to become instant, globally viral moments. Paired with an uptick of sensitive conversations around continued layoffs, return-to-office mandates, and AI job replacement, managing internal morale is no longer just HR’s job—it is central to protecting corporate reputation.

Following a wave of criticism around tone-deaf, robotic internal messaging, Ragan editor Sean Devlin anticipates that in 2026 internal communicators will work to ensure that “employee-focused messaging from the C-suite is rooted in both the company’s culture and resonates with the employee base.” We predict more executives will drop the corporate speak in favor of a direct, genuine tone, prioritizing transparency even when the future is uncertain.

Crisis management will be an always-on “verification” function in the age of deepfakes.

In the age of deepfakes, crisis management must shift from reactive cleanup to always-on, proactive issues identification. With generative AI capable of producing convincing audio of executives or altered product images in seconds, misinformation can now travel halfway around the world before you’ve had a chance to verify the facts.

In 2026, comms must integrate real-time monitoring protocols specifically designed to detect AI-manipulated content. Strategic PR teams will need to establish verification processes to quickly authenticate executive communications and combat bot-spread falsehoods. The goal will no longer just be managing the story, but also validating reality.

The premium placed on great writing and storytelling will be sky-high.

The advent of AI has raised the floor for writing and content creation, but taste and expertise still define the ceiling. Content is now cheap, abundant, and endlessly replicable—flooding feeds and making it harder than ever for people and brands to break through. But in this environment, when exceptional writing and storytelling does come by, it becomes a clearer signal to audiences as they filter what’s worth their time and who’s worth trusting.

The WSJ story that had every communicator talking

If you work in communications, there’s a good chance you’ve already seen—or at least felt—the ripple effects of Katie Deighton at The Wall Street Journal’s story on companies desperately seeking “storytellers.” Since it was published, the piece has fueled a wave of online commentary, Slack debates, and knowing nods across PR, marketing, and media circles. In case you missed it, here’s the gist:

• The use of “storyteller” in U.S. LinkedIn job postings have doubled year over year, spanning communications, marketing, and media roles.

• Companies are folding blogs, newsletters, social, podcasts, and influencer strategy into unified “storytelling” teams.

• As traditional earned media shrinks, brands are increasingly hiring former journalists and editors to help control their own narratives.

None of this is especially surprising. In fact, it’s a trend we called out last year: brands are starting to operate like media companies, and communicators are increasingly moonlighting as in-house journalists.

Company blogs, founder newsletters, and curated LinkedIn posts are no longer “nice to have” add-ons—they’re becoming core pillars of modern PR strategies. As content creation becomes frictionless with AI, distribution and credibility are now the scarcest resources in communications. Owning an audience—through a newsletter, social media following, or other direct channel—means companies no longer have to rely exclusively on earned media as the only way to get a message out.

That doesn’t make reporters irrelevant. But it does change the power dynamics. Owning your own channels gives brands the opportunity to tell stories with greater precision and consistency—on their terms, in their voice, and directly to the audiences they want to reach.

The rise of the corporate “storyteller” isn’t about buzzwords or job title inflation. It’s a signal that communications is shifting from pitching stories to producing them—and that the most effective communicators going forward will look a lot more like editors than press release merchants.

What we’re working on ☕

• [The Esports Radar] Reflections 2025: Monica Dinsmore, Head of Esports at EA

• [Fast Company] Why 2026 belongs to multimodal AI

• [Polygon] Dominating Apex is the easy part — it’s the fans who challenge ImperialHal

• [Esports.gg] “Every EA event is a love letter to fans,” Monica Dinsmore on connecting with players worldwide

• [Gamesforum] 2026 Predictions for Mobile Games

• [L.A. Business First] How Webster’s Community Pharmacy is delivering ‘normalcy’ to Altadena this holiday season

• [Pocketgamer.biz] New release roundup: Subway Surfers+, Monument Valley 3, Hello Kitty and Friends World, and more

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

What happened: Substack is continuing its push beyond newsletters into a full-stack media ecosystem. Earlier this month, the company rolled out desktop livestreaming, making it easier for writers to host live video without relying on mobile-only tools. Alongside it, Substack shared new data showing how its auto-generated video clips are driving growth: nearly half of livestream hosts now share a clip the same day they go live, and these clips have generated nearly 500,000 free subscriptions and counting. The company added that Substack-created clips also now see upwards of 500,000 daily views across YouTube and LinkedIn via auto-publishing integrations.

Just a few days later, Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg also reported Substack has begun testing native ad sponsorships with a small group of creators and brands—bringing the platform on-par with rival Beehiiv and its robust advertising features. The pilot is designed to reduce the operational burden of selling ads, with Substack facilitating payments but taking no cut during the test phase. Co-founder Hamish McKenzie emphasized that these are creator-approved, editorially independent partnerships, not an ads marketplace, and that subscriptions remain the foundation of the business.

Between the lines: Substack is leaning into a distribution truth that’s already reshaped gaming, streaming, and creator culture more broadly: clipping turns live moments into portable media that travels across platforms—and now applies just as cleanly to commentary, interviews, and analysis. A single livestream can now fuel Notes, LinkedIn posts, YouTube Shorts, and beyond, creating more surface area for discovery and influence.

On the other hand, native ads are set to add another layer of monetary value to the picture. Until now, the operational burden of selling sponsorships has fallen on the writer themselves. Formalizing an advertising arm reinforces Substack’s economic foundation and gives creators a new way to monetize their attention. For communicators, this opens another paid channel to show up alongside the voices shaping how tech, media, business, and internet culture are understood—while continued expansion of the video vertical promises more built-in reach from what’s being published.

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Media sweep 📡

• Reddit is suing Australia over its recent social media ban, which blocks children under the age of 16 from using the platform. The complaint claims the new ban cripples free speech. The pushback comes as some stakeholders claim the bill doesn’t go far enough, including its notable omission of online gaming.

• Yahoo News launched a new AI-powered audio news briefing, “Your Daily Digest,” Axios reported. The briefing will be available from 12pm to 5pm on weekdays in the Yahoo News app, and follows the release of a similar morning edition earlier this year.

• The Really Simple Licensing (RSL) Standard is now an official specification, RSL 1.0, allowing publishers to dictate licensing and compensation rules to the web crawlers that visit their sites. RSL’s publisher endorsement is additionally growing with The Associated Press, Vox Media, USA Today, BuzzFeed, The Arena Group, The Guardian, and more announcing their support.

• Video game clipping platform Medal released its first Gaming Insights Report, highlighting that user-generated content makes up over 60% of gamers’ media consumption. The report also highlights shifting trends, such as the audience increasingly relying on their peers and family for gaming news over traditional media.

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

For communications professionals and “CEO influencers” alike, LinkedIn has evolved from purely a professional networking tool to a critical lever in thought leadership strategies. Leading the charge of LinkedIn’s own communications is Chief Communications Officer Nicole Leverich, who drives the platform’s communication strategy following prior roles at Google, Yahoo, and more.

We sat down with Nicole to discuss how the platform’s communications approach has evolved over the past decade, the blurring lines between creators and traditional media, the “70/30” rule she lives by, and why LLM visibility is the new factor you need to consider in your communications strategy.

This interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity.

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JSA: Over your time leading LinkedIn’s communications, how has the brand’s storytelling approach evolved and what are some of the key stories you’re focused on telling around the platform right now?

Nicole Leverich: Our core story hasn’t changed: creating economic opportunity for the global workforce. We do that by tapping members, customers, and partners who’ve felt LinkedIn’s impact firsthand. Show, don’t tell.

We are largely telling the same types of stories that we always have, but how we reach those audiences has changed dramatically–like it has for all comms teams. While we used to focus on traditional journalists and bloggers, we’ve now expanded our media mix to also include creator partnerships which has driven incredible value and reach for us.

The key is approaching these partnerships with the same rigor and respect we bring to traditional media relations: building lasting relationships and trust, spending the time figuring out what they care about, and giving them unique access. It’s a new world, but leverages the same core skills, and it’s fascinating how many of them tell us this is not how they’re treated by the majority of comms people.

Important reminder: it’s not either/or. Traditional media still matters enormously for credibility and reach, and we’ll continue to invest in programs like our LinkedIn for Journalists program. But the most effective comms strategies now recognize that influence is distributed. A thoughtful newsletter with 50,000 subscribers or a podcast with a loyal following can be just as valuable as a tier-one placement—sometimes more, depending on your goal. The question we’re always asking is: where does our audience actually go for insights, and how do we show up authentically there?

JSA: You’ve worked with so many different leaders throughout your career. Since comms is so personal, can you tell us about your approach to working with execs and how you establish connections with them?

NL: Always start by listening. When you’re talking with an executive, pay attention to what lights them up, what they’re wrestling with, and what experiences shaped how they lead. Then look at where that naturally connects to business priorities and audience needs. When you nail that alignment, everything flows.

Another piece of advice is to never hand an executive a script that sounds like everyone else. Audiences can smell inauthenticity immediately, especially on LinkedIn. Help leaders find their own voice–and preferred delivery format–and give them confidence to use it. For example, our COO Daniel Shapero really shines in front of a camera and through “walk-and-talk” explainer video formats. Give leaders flexibility to communicate in their own words–the folks that are generating real engagement on LinkedIn are those that are providing a unique and personalized take.

JSA: To that point, we’re seeing a new era of the “CEO influencer,” with LinkedIn as their primary stage. As a comms leader, what are some of the best practices you give to your own executives for establishing authentic and meaningful thought leadership on the platform?

NL: First and foremost, be human, not a press release. Rather than posting a generic “today I’m excited to launch…,” focus commentary on the “why” behind decisions. What surprised you, what did you wrestle with, what was an early challenge you overcame while building the product, anything that adds color and dimension. That’s what breaks through with audiences.

For evergreen commentary not tied to a launch, prioritize taking a stand where it matters. Playing it safe rarely builds connection. Share your perspective on industry shifts or leadership moments–that’s how you become a voice worth following.

I also always recommend to use video where you can. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy–short, phone-filmed videos where execs are speaking directly to the camera work best. Authenticity beats production value.

JSA: How is your team thinking about quantifying and measuring the value of PR internally?

NL: Smart communicators focus on targeted resonance over broad reach. We focus on three things: Are we reaching the people who matter most? Are we delivering messages aligned with our goals? And are we extending our storytelling impact and influence? A single story that reaches the right executive audience and shapes perception is worth more than dozens of mentions that don’t land with the people who matter.

LLM visibility is also something we’re thinking more about, as it’s becoming the new SEO. AI systems are increasingly surfacing information for decision-makers, which means communicators need to optimize for how these models discover and cite content. It’s a fundamental shift in how we think about reach and discoverability. It’s not the only factor, but it’s definitely one you need to consider.

JSA: What advice do you have to other comms teams to succeed amidst a rapidly evolving media landscape?

NL: I always encourage my team to live by the 70/30 rule: 70% of what we do can be what we’ve done in the past, 30% needs to be trying something new. That can look like engaging a creator in a new way, launching in a different market, going back to a radio media tour–it looks different for everyone!

Find a rule that works for your team that forces innovation and creates a safe sandbox for a little bit of failure. With the media landscape changing so rapidly, what works today isn’t going to work even 2 months from now. This also makes the 30% of trying something new feel far less exhausting, because it’s weaved into what you’re already doing rather than taking on an entirely unfamiliar strategy. It’s less about “failure” and more about the learnings– knowing what works is just as valuable as knowing what doesn’t.

For example, my team recently launched “AI in Work Day:” a full day of live programming, practical tools, and hands-on learning—both on and off LinkedIn—to help professionals understand AI at work. We threw a live event with executive speakers, engaged creators, unlocked AI courses, and launched a report to position LinkedIn as the go-to AI resource. And yes, we made it a national day of celebration with LinkedIn as a founding member. Go big or go home, right?

The stories that captured communicators’ attention in 2025

2025 was the year communications went fully mainstream—not just as a support function, but as a force that shapes markets, online culture, and public sentiment. The biggest cultural conversations weren’t just brand missteps or viral moments; they were lessons in how meaning, audience, and identity collide when companies communicate at scale.

Join us on a trip down memory lane for a look at the communications moments that caught the industry’s attention in 2025, and the lessons they offered.

The Cracker Barrel controversy that swept the nation

What happened: Cracker Barrel became improbably relevant in mid-August—just not in the way any brand hopes for. A new, minimalist logo dropped, and within hours the internet had declared it everything from “soulless” to “sterile,” while political commentators turned a design update into a culture-war storyline. The narrative caught fire: conservative influencers piled on, Trump chimed in, the stock shed $143 million, and within a week Cracker Barrel was forced to hit the eject button and bring back its original porch-side icon.

What we learned: Cracker Barrel’s one-week identity crisis is a reminder that logos aren’t just design—they’re cultural shorthand for memory and meaning. The brand swapped a beloved icon for a trend-chasing wordmark, severing the emotional contract it had with its core audience and walking straight into the broader “blandification” trap so many heritage brands are falling into.

Astronomer: When a crisis becomes content (and then a marketing funnel)

What happened: By the time Astronomer’s Coldplay kiss-cam scandal finished eating the internet alive, everyone was sick of it—so we’ll keep this one short. After weeks of viral chaos, misinformation, and a very public leadership shakeup, the data company rebooted the narrative with a cheeky cameo from Gwyneth Paltrow herself. In a 60-second video, Paltrow jokingly dodges the scandal to explain Astronomer’s actual product—and racked up 37 million views in one weekend. It was the rare crisis response that didn’t just stop the bleeding, but flipped the conversation on its head.

What we learned: Astronomer pulled off something rarely seen in tech crisis comms: it used humor to reclaim agency, correct misinformation, and give the internet the “closure” it needed to move on. The Paltrow video stitched together the company’s traditional statements, internal actions, and CEO transition with a wink that reframed the entire saga, shifting sentiment from ridicule to respect. And critically, it turned a global spectacle into a business opportunity—educating millions of new viewers on the company’s offerings. The bigger lesson? In select cases, joining the joke can stop you from being the joke.

Roblox CEO gets “tense” on NYT podcast

What happened: By the time Roblox rolled out its new AI age-gating system for chat, the narrative around platform safety was already set: multiple state lawsuits and investigations had framed the hit game as a magnet for predators, and that parents should take notice. On NYT’s Hard Fork podcast, Roblox CEO David Baszucki came on to sell the tech and instead spent much of the interview sparring with the hosts—at one point saying Roblox thinks of predators “not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity.” That disconnect, in a conversation explicitly about child safety, made him sound defensive and underprepared for questions that were always going to be front and center.

What we learned: In a conversation about safety, audiences don’t want innovation frameworks or scale comparisons—they want clarity, accountability, and confidence that the platform understands the gravity of the situation. Baszucki’s approach created unnecessary friction, overshadowing the age-gating rollout and reinforcing the perception that Roblox wasn’t fully ready to meet the moment. The larger lesson: in high-stakes contexts, the only successful comms strategy is one that leads with responsibility and treats tough questions as an obligation, not an interruption.

“The book Facebook doesn’t want you to read”

What happened: Careless People—the tell-all memoir from former Facebook policy executive Sarah Wynn-Williams—was announced just a week before release and Meta took an aggressively defensive posture. The company moved fast to label it “out-of-date,” block the author from promoting it, and shut down the narrative before it spread. Instead, the pushback triggered the full force of the Streisand effect, propelling the memoir to more than 60,000 first-week sales and bestseller status across every major list.

What we learned: Meta’s overcorrection turned a niche read into a national phenomenon, inadvertently giving the book more credibility and oxygen than it likely ever would’ve had on its own. It’s a reminder that speed without situational awareness often amplifies the very thing you’re trying to contain. Sometimes the most strategic move in a crisis is resisting the instinct to swing first.

A summer Sydney Sweeney’s jeans will never forget

What happened: When American Eagle rolled out its “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign over the summer with a playful pun (jeans / genes), it turned into a nearly immediate lightning rod of controversy. The word-play sparked a backlash that accused the campaign of evoking eugenics and white-supremacist imagery. American Eagle maintained the campaign was only “about the jeans,” yet the statement didn’t quell the controversy. Instead, the ad became a flashpoint for wider debates around race, beauty standards, and marketing tone.

What we learned: The episode shows how even a seemingly light creative choice can backfire—and what’s intended as playful can often be read as tone-deaf. Even brands known for “neutral” fashion can get pulled into widespread cultural arguments when broader implications and history are overlooked. Yet despite the uproar, the campaign reportedly boosted sales and engagement, underscoring how controversy can sometimes outperform traditional marketing, though not without real reputational risk.

What we’re working on ☕

• [Variety] 43% of Gen Z Prefer YouTube and TikTok to Traditional TV and Streaming; New ‘Microdramas’ Trend Reaches 28 Million U.S. Viewers, Study Finds

• [Cryptopolitan] Yahoo Finance Invest 2025 Kicks off with Michael Saylor, Vlad Tenev, Alex Karp among attendees

• [Mashable] Character.AI debuts choose-your-own-adventure Stories for teens

• [IGN] Apple Arcade To Get Five New Games on Dec 4, Including Subway Surfers+, SpongeBob Patty Pursuit 2, and Cult of the Lamb

• [Dot Esports]: Red Bull Tetris U.S. National Final: A tribute to a retro classic

• [Good Day LA] Gifts to support small businesses impacted by L.A. wildfires

• [esports.gg]: “Esports is the easy part,” says EFG’s VP of festivals on the secret behind DreamHack’s magic

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

What happened: Sydney Sweeney’s new film ‘Christy’ made the rounds online this week—but not for critical acclaim. The indie biopic about boxer Christy Martin opened to just over $1M at the box office, marking one of the weakest wide-release debuts of the year. But things got worse: leaked emails showed Sweeney’s PR team urging journalists to rewrite coverage and update headlines to frame the movie as a success.

“Would you please mind updating the headline for us to say that despite low box office, the audience has spoken,” read an email shared online by Bro Bible reporter Eric Italiano. The note cites the film’s 99% positive rating on the “Popcornmeter” and insists that this is “a win in all the ways that matter.” The X post, which now has 13M views, triggered an industry-wide eye roll as communicators and critics alike questioned the judgment behind such overt spin—Netflix Junkie, for one, said “Christy’s PR team has officially declared war on reality.”

Between the lines: Communicators from around the internet universally agreed this kind of outreach was questionable, if not borderline insane. As we see so often in the space, Sweeney’s team’s efforts for headline triage only invited more scrutiny and attention around the film. It’s a move that echoes PR misfires from Intuit’s attempts to delete part of a Decoder episode to Meta’s attempts to bury the memoir from a former Facebook policy exec.

It also underscores a truth at the center of Hollywood PR: perception is often treated as the true currency. A film doesn’t necessarily need to win box office dollars if it can win the discourse—streaming deals, virality, and redemption arcs are all minted from audience POVs. But that calculus collapses when the attempted spin becomes the story itself.

What makes Christy different is that the team’s bid to frame it as a “cultural win,” despite hard numbers, wasn’t just tone-deaf, it attempted to rewrite reality. When reputation repair crosses the line into denial, the result is distrust–not sympathy. Communicators did not hold back their thoughts on the public relations subreddit, while for our team, the lesson here is simple but eternal: credibility can’t be manufactured retroactively.

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Media sweep 📡

• LinkedIn Chief Communications Officer Nicole Leverich shared three reasons your exec isn’t breaking through on the platform—and how to address it.

• Beehiiv released an impressive suite of new tools and features to become the “operating system” for creators and journalists.

• Yahoo Finance held its annual Yahoo Finance Invest last Thursday, featuring conversations with heavy hitters like Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian, Delta CEO Ed Bastian, and more in the fully live-streamed event.

• The Game Awards, the flagship annual award and reveal show hosted by Geoff Keighley, announced a landmark media rights deal with Amazon to broadcast the show live on Prime Video.

• At WSJ Tech Live earlier this month, Activate Consulting CEO Michael Wolf unveiled the firm’s annual Technology & Media Outlook for 2026, with findings including that Americans now spend over 13 hours on media, spatial computing is set to dominate the future of tech, and virtually all online adults will be gamers by 2029.

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

Ask almost anyone in the world what they think when they hear “it’s in the game,” and you’ll probably get EA SPORTS in response. It’s a testament to the awareness and cultural cache Electronic Arts has built for its sports sim titles across generations and geographies. But where EA SPORTS goes next relies not only on the players, but also the brand’s VP of Marketing, Partnerships & Communications, John Reseburg.

We sat down with John to chat about his role at EA SPORTS, the publisher’s hit sports games, the evolution of communications roles, and the growing importance of measuring PR’s impact.

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JSA: What are the stories you’re telling around EA SPORTS right now, and what are the vehicles you’re using to tell them across earned, owned, and paid channels?

John Reseburg: EA SPORTS exists at this intersection of sport, culture, gaming, entertainment and technology–so just an incredibly dynamic space. There are new stories every single day. And certainly not just our stories: We’re in that space with hundreds of millions of fans, athletes, partners, collaborators, and so many more, creating the future of sport together. So the stories we are focused on are how we’re at that intersection, building the world’s largest sports community, and reimagining the future of sports.

Most often that’s through stories about how we serve fans on a global scale through our games and content, how we’re partnering with some of the top athletes in sport, how technology and real-world sports data are powering new immersive experiences, and how we’re empowering fans to create, participate, and help drive the culture of sport around the world.

JSA: At a brand as large and globally renowned as EA SPORTS, how do you encourage your team to take risks and think about implementing new strategies to keep pace with the speed of culture?

JR: I’m a fan of Simon Sinek, and years ago I watched a piece where he said “your brand is what people think about you when you’re not in the room.” As simple as that is, the profound takeaway from it is that truly your brand isn’t your own. It’s what your audiences perceive it to be, or more importantly how you can build it with them, and for them. So even for a brand like EA SPORTS that has such strong awareness and equity built over 30 years of “It’s In The Game,” where we take it next and how we continue to lead is a function of how we are serving our fans.

What we see is that today’s fans, across generations and geographies, think about their fandom even more expansively, more creatively, and interactivity is key. So we’re staring out across those motivations, and thinking about how “It’s In The Game” can and will mean more than ever.

JSA: The media industry has evolved substantially in the last few years. How are you and your team navigating these changes and thinking about reaching “new media” (i.e. creators, newsletters, podcasts)?

JR: When you think about the role of communications, or communicators for an organization, our primary role is to provide clarity, context, and connection. The mediums are going to constantly evolve, probably even more rapidly now–but the objectives are still the same.

A few years ago, we went from structures with separate teams across PR, community engagement (for our large online fan communities), social media, and creator engagement, to a model of integrated communications where we maintain discipline expertise but brought these teams together to operate as a singular group operating in lock-step. That enabled us to be consistent and connected across our strategies, and also allowed us to be more fluid with how we prioritized channels at different moments or for different needs. We stopped having to think about traditional definitions, and now we can play with the full picture, as it evolves.

More recently, we’ve brought athlete marketing and our EA SPORTS brand marketing in even closer to communications, so we can think even bigger about full 360, dynamic storytelling that can meet and engage our fans and stakeholders wherever they are.

JSA: To that point, which media platforms are you currently finding resonate best with EA SPORTS’ core audiences–whether it’s creator content, broadcast, traditional digital media, podcasts, etc.?

JR: There’s nothing in entertainment that is bigger than sports right now, and that means that across platforms, formats, and voices, fans are absolutely swimming in content. We try to be selective, so we’re not just adding to the noise, and we try to be very methodical to put the right pieces in place that will cut through and resonate with fans. Sometimes that’s a groundbreaking new effort like our NIL program, and we’re working across media, broadcast, athletes, and influential voices. Sometimes it’s a great athlete story like we’re telling with GEN / EA SPORTS, and we’re working with athlete and brand collaborators across social content. Or sometimes it’s a thought leadership perspective, and we’re engaging our executive voices through a podcast or media outlet. We’re focused first on the story… and then seeing the full field for the best way that EA SPORTS can rise above the noise and lead the sports conversation forward.

JSA: How are you thinking about quantifying and measuring the value of PR internally?

JR: I love this question because it’s one of the areas that I believe we need the most innovation in comms, particularly in how we can measure and value the impact of earned media. It’s absolutely ripe for disruption, but the answer needs to help ground the results in measurable business value.

When you cast aside some of the antiquated metrics which are deeply spurious and add little value, the challenge is we have nothing yet to replace them with, so then it risks becoming a volume play. That’s a race to the bottom, because I’d take quality earned media coverage over quantity every single day of the week. So we’re working through different methodologies for better accounting for the quality, sentiment, and impact of media coverage against business objectives.

In the end, I believe companies can achieve value creation through great storytelling, and we’re striving for even better measures to show it for EA SPORTS.

JSA: How are you utilizing AI in day-to-day comms workflows, and what are some of the areas where AI applications can create new opportunities for comms teams?

JR: It’s really on two fronts. First, is how we’re deepening fluency with AI technologies to help with our craft. We’re going beyond finding efficiency from using GPTs to help draft materials, and into looking at how AI can help solve real pain points in workflow automation, time-intensive reporting, and more. There’s also a real opportunity for us to leverage LLM capabilities to amplify the creativity of our teams, like further sharpening our message effectiveness with deep testing. We have a specific focus in our team on comms transformation which drives all of these explorations and more.

The second front is how generative AI is fundamentally shifting consumer and fan behaviors in discovery, search and engagement–and where practices like GEO are indications of the profound changes we’re witnessing in real-time. The need to be great communicators pacing with the state of change, while also being sense-makers to this transforming world and the needs of fans, has never been more important.

JSA: Your role straddles marketing, partnerships, and communications–how do you see the three segments of the business intersect and work in tandem?

JR: If there ever really were lines around these areas of work, they’re so blurry now that for all intents and purposes, they don’t exist. We’re building the story of the EA SPORTS brand with and for fans, and in the end, it’s all about impact.

Great brand marketing will build the emotional connection, resonance, and affinity with our brand. Authentic, collaborative partnerships—across athletes, brands, leagues, creators, music artists, and more—allow us to reach deeper into sports culture, across geographies, and connect more fans. And strong communications will fuel clarity, context, connection, and community.

We want to think holistically and be able to move nimbly with fans and stakeholders, and worrying less about traditional definitions and focusing more on the impact we want to deliver is the best way for us to achieve great outcomes.

JSA: When you’re not overseeing the EA SPORTS brand, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?

JR: Keeping up with my kids (11 and 13) and family first and foremost. I’m also very fortunate that the work I lead intersects so directly with my personal passion for sports, so I’m always tracking what’s going on in football, basketball, soccer, and most of all motorsports. I try to get out to as many races as possible each year, sometimes for work, sometimes for fun with my son, and if I had a little more time, I’d want to get out more on the track myself.

On-Record with Forbes SportsMoney’s Brett Knight

While the world of sports business media has exploded in recent years, Forbes has been a foundational player in the space for decades. Now, Brett Knight, the Assistant Managing Editor overseeing the SportsMoney section, is tasked with upholding that legacy.

The team’s coverage is built on two key pillars that have defined its reporting since the 1990s: tracking athlete earnings and valuing professional teams. But as Brett is quick to point out, the goal is always to tell the stories behind the balance sheets.

“We’re still journalists, writers, and storytellers. We want to be telling stories and not just crunching numbers,” he explained.

In a crowded landscape, Forbes’ SportsMoney occupies a unique space: existing somewhere between a general interest outlet and a pure trade publication. This means Brett and his team are constantly finding the balance between tailoring content for business-minded, industry insiders and everyday sports fans. While this can result in competing coverage demands, Brett finds success by focusing on the narratives that only SportsMoney can tell—like the behind-the-scenes trends and financial intricacies that are often invisible to fans, but foundational to the industry.

“It doesn’t make sense for us to tell the same stories as an ESPN, for example,” he said. “We’re always thinking about the stories that you can only get from the Forbes SportsMoney team. Some of our most successful articles are around topics that are just not widely understood, happen behind the scenes, or out of sight for a casual sports fan.”

This strategy has cemented SportsMoney’s reputation as an essential read for many of the industry’s heavy hitters. Forbes’ valuations have become so trusted that they often serve as the baseline for actual team sales, a fact Brett has heard directly from the top.

“Around the sports business world, if you talk to bankers or team executives or investors, we’re really seen as the industry bible,” Brett said. “We’ve heard this over and over again. When there’s a team that gets sold, the negotiations start with our numbers. There’s a lot of pressure that comes with that.”

That level of influence comes from intensive, months-long reporting efforts to compile SportsMoney’s renowned lists like the Highest-Paid Athletes and Sports 30 Under 30. What makes this feat even more impressive is that the section has fewer than five full-time reporters working across these iconic initiatives–with sports coverage supplemented by a network of over 100 contributors.

For those hoping to land on his radar, Brett notes that very few stories that end up on his author page come from unsolicited pitches. When one does break through, it needs to be fresh, exclusive, and backed by a willingness to talk numbers. As his team looks ahead, they’re preparing for a busy end to the year with several tentpole lists on the horizon, including team valuations for the NHL and Formula 1, the Highest-Paid Female Athletes list, and, of course, the highly anticipated 30 Under 30 list.

You can’t always prove causation—here’s how to make correlation count

As the PR industry faces an increasing need to quantify the impact of every placement, byline, and speaking opportunity—mastering measurement has become an integral part of proving value.

As such, the Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) has dubbed November Measurement Month, putting a spotlight on how communicators are integrating data into their day-to-day. This emphasis on measurement is part of a critical mindset shift the industry is slowly witnessing in real time, and the firms on the cutting edge of embracing it are not only better positioned to survive, but thrive. It’s something we think about a lot over here, especially as we’re building our own proprietary platform to demonstrate the value of comms efforts.

One of the primary superpowers of strong measurement and analysis is separating correlation from causation. In short, correlation references two actions—such as making an announcement and seeing relevant coverage—that may happen at the same time, but are not necessarily related. It could just be coincidence. Causation is the proof one action directly led to another. Analysis helps us get closer to causation, or identifying the key factors that led from an action to a result.

Let’s put it into practice with a real example from Client A.

Client A announces several partnerships every year—each with varying success seemingly based on the caliber of the partner, the impact of their relationship, and more. However, when a small-scale partnership garnered stronger-than-anticipated results, it fell on us to not just celebrate that success but identify the cause so we could offer the client a replicable takeaway.

A look at the data over time across all partnership announcements told the story: rolling out a new partnership during or around Client A’s events and industry conferences drove more coverage. Not only did this observation offer a reason for an initially surprising success story, it provided a new tactic we can lean on moving forward.

Or let’s look at Client B, which saw regular ebbs and flows in both earned and organic media coverage over the past year. While there is clear correlation across both charts—likely attributable to announcements being picked up via both PR efforts and organic reporter discovery—the data doesn’t actually tell a story of direct causation.

However, the data revealed that earned media efforts consistently aligned with spikes in organic coverage, including two marquee placements from late night shows. While we can’t verify that Client B’s earned coverage directly caused this organic pickup, the pattern suggests the work is generating broader industry conversation and brand credibility. When presented to leadership, this correlation demonstrated PR’s role in amplifying the brand visibility, a valuable insight—even without definitive causation.

In the PR industry’s effort to prove their worth, strong data—and equally strong analysis—is becoming how measurement-savvy firms separate themselves from the pack.

This Measurement Month, challenge yourself with three questions: Is this correlation or causation? If it’s correlation, can you verify causation? And if not, can you present these patterns in ways that reveal meaningful insights to stakeholders?

The professionals who master this distinction won’t just demonstrate PR’s impact, but they’ll also secure the resources and respect their work deserves.

What we’re working on ☕

• [The Los Angeles Times]: Game-changer: How Exploding Kittens Went from $8.8M Kickstarter to Gaming Empire

• [The Financial Times]: AI start-up Character.ai bans teens from talking to chatbots

• [Mojo Nation]: Doin’ the Most Games’ Edwin Benton on authenticity, representation – and Pick, Pic Boom!

• [Sports Business Journal]: EA Sports, NFL extend and expand exclusive licensing deal for Madden franchise

• [Inside World Football]: No looking back for Monica Dinsmore as EA Sports’ FC Pro explodes on to DreamHack Atlanta stage

• [esports.gg]: “Winning means everything”: Hexied opens up about his CF26 victory at DreamHack Atlanta and the grind behind it

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

What happened: Over the past month, if you live in New York–or have access to the internet–you’ve likely noticed a surge in IRL pop-ups from AI companies big and small. From Anthropic’s Claude pop-up in Air Mail’s West Village newsstand to Cursor’s “Cafe Cursor” co-working event in SoHo yesterday, or the (frequently vandalized) friend.com ads lining the subway, New York is starting to feel a lot more like Silicon Valley.

Between the lines: As criticism around ‘AI slop’ continues to rise alongside broader AI anxiety, brand positioning has become an increasingly important part of the playbook for leaders in the space. We saw this firsthand through the recent launch of Meta Vibes, which was met with near immediate widespread backlash. Online voices called it everything from something “literally no one on earth asked for,” to joking it was “SaaS - Slop as a Service” and that Meta “should’ve called it ‘Trough,’ the kind pigs eat their slop out of.” To avoid being bucketed into the ‘slop’ discourse, tools designed to enhance human creativity and efficiency, like Claude and Cursor, are investing offline–where human connection is the ultimate currency.

Take the Claude x Air Mail pop-up, part of Anthropic’s “Keep Thinking” campaign, for example. With everything from trendy hats touting the word “thinking” to a self-proclaimed “zero-slop zone,” Anthropic used the event to position itself as an ally to human creativity, not a replacement, and drew a crowd of over 5,000 people as a result. Cafe Cursor invited the coding company’s community to come co-work and “build with other users,” again signaling its commitment to bringing people together, rather than isolating them through the tech.

The now infamous friend.com backlash proves that today’s consumers aren’t looking for alternatives to real-world connections, but rather more of them. AI companies are now anchoring their brands in humanity, and building the IRL experiences to match. With razor-thin product disparity between many of the top AI companies, it’s a reminder that brand positioning can be the primary competitive differentiator to capture audiences’ loyalty.

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Media sweep 📡

• CNN is aiming to appeal to younger viewers by experimenting with creator-driven content through a new unit called CNN Creators based in its Qatar hub. The first episode of the weekly show will debut this Thursday, October 23, with a competition-style format: two teams of creators face off to craft the best content around a specific topic.

• In case you missed the Austin deadline earlier this year, SXSW London (taking place June 1-6, 2026) speaker submissions are now open and due December 7th.

• The New York Times unveiled a new, TikTok-like Watch tab within its mobile app, which features short-form videos of the publisher’s News, Opinion, Cooking, Wirecutter, and The Athletic content. According to Adweek’s Mark Stenberg, this marks the first time a major publisher has launched a dedicated vertical video tab within its own app.

• Calling all internet moguls – the Webby Awards’ early-rate deadline is this Friday, October 24, and the Shorty Awards will open for entries on October 28th.

Reading list 📚

• In Graphic Detail: How AI search is changing publisher visibility (Digiday)

• What if SportsCenter and LinkedIn Merged? (The New York Times)

• Walmart and ESL FACEIT Group partner for DreamHack Atlanta 2025 (The Esports Radar)

• Beyond the wishlist: A modern approach for predicting game success (GamesIndustry.biz)

• YouTube makes it easier for teens to find informative mental health content (TechCrunch)

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.

Move over, SEO—there’s a new acronym filling comms conversations. Generative engine optimization—or GEO—is the hot topic dominating marketing, PR, and media circles. The idea is simple: Just as SEO makes websites more visible in Google results, GEO influences what content is discoverable in LLMs like Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT.

But the reality is far less straightforward. For now, GEO is better understood as a research problem than a strategic playbook—and communications leaders should resist the temptation to overhaul their strategies based on the current hype alone.

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The original academic paper introducing generative engine optimization framed it bluntly: large language models are “black boxes.” Essentially, you can’t fully predict how they choose or cite information. GEO, then, is less a precise art than a constantly evolving empirical experiment.

That uncertainty is compounded by the fact that different platforms appear to behave differently. A September 2025 study, Generative Engine Optimization: How to Dominate AI Search, suggests that most popular LLMs weight sources inconsistently: some lean on earned media, others cite based on “freshness” or subtle phrasing differences in user inquiries. In other words, what works for Gemini may not work for Perplexity—and vice versa.

It’s easy to dismiss GEO as another passing trend. But the rise of AI search is real, even if it’s not yet dominant. WebFX found that nearly one in five Google searches now surface an AI summary, while a separate study discovered 83% of users found AI-powered tools more efficient than traditional search. Meanwhile, independent tracking shows chatbot traffic growing around 81% year-over-year—still a small share of total search, but climbing steadily.

Unsurprisingly, GEO has sparked an overwhelming amount of guidance—often from companies with something to sell. Muck Rack, Business Wire, GlobeNewswire, and others have all launched webinars and reports pitching best practices. Some suggest the path to visibility is premium earned media (Muck Rack); others insist it’s running press releases on the wire (Cision); or manufacturing SEO-optimized stories (Aherfs). Either way, their advice maps neatly to their business models. That doesn’t mean the research is useless—it’s an important first step. But communicators should recognize the commercial incentives at play and avoid mistaking sponsored experiments for established fact.

What we don’t know is almost as important as what we do. Are strategies LLM-specific, requiring bespoke approaches for each AI platform? What actually triggers a model to cite one source over another? Will niche specialist outlets outrank mainstream media in their domains, or will authority always win out? How often will model updates break whatever optimizations you make? And most importantly, can GEO deliver measurable returns distinct from SEO, or is it just reshuffled effort? Until first-party, replicable research validates these questions, any “rules” for GEO are still educated guesses.

The smart posture for comms leaders today is to both absorb the information that’s already out there and conduct your own research:

• Think like an experimentalist: Treat GEO as R&D. Dedicate a small slice of resources to testing—headline formats, metadata tweaks, or targeting new publications—and track how your brand shows up across different LLMs with search queries that reflect how your target audience thinks. Don’t assume Perplexity, Google, and OpenAI weight sources the same way—run parallel tests.

• Stick to fundamentals: Authoritative, well-written, credible content remains the strongest signal—AI systems are trained to prioritize quality, which is where earned media from high authority outlets comes into the picture. Much of a communicator’s existing responsibilities are aligned with the early signals around GEO.

• Prioritize GEO correctly: The rise of AI search and its implications are nothing to sneeze at, but how relevant it is to a brand, its business objectives, and target audience are not weighted the same across companies; some consumer-facing businesses may rely more on how and when their products appear in AI search, while B2B companies are more often discovered through LinkedIn posts, press coverage, or direct sales conversations. The point: understand where AI search sits in your business and prioritize against it accordingly.

TLDR; GEO will matter. As AI-powered search grows, how content is surfaced and cited will reshape the value of earned, owned, and paid media. But the playbook is not fully written yet. For now, manage expectations internally by reiterating GEO is an “emerging opportunity” rather than a proven channel. Monitor the space closely, experiment regularly, and keep your strategy anchored in fundamentals.

On-Record with GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi

For 17 years, Editorial Director Dean Takahashi helped build GamesBeat into a bible for the games industry under the umbrella of its parent company, VentureBeat. But in April, that all changed when the games vertical spun out to live as its own independent media company, a move that Dean sees as the team’s “startup moment.”

In a media landscape plagued by closures and layoffs, the move represented a rare example of investment and renewal, made possible by a powerful asset GamesBeat has cultivated for nearly two decades: its community.

The palpable support for the new venture was a testament to years spent building a network, particularly through their industry-leading events like GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat NEXT. Dean said the news of GamesBeat’s next chapter was received as a welcome bright spot in a tough period for journalism.

“It was a feel-good story, in part, because there have been so many feel-bad stories about the media,” Dean said. “A lot of publications had shut down in the game space in particular … and we finally did something that represented some investment.”

Now, as an independent entity, GamesBeat is refining its focus. While it began with a mix of consumer and business coverage, Dean said the publication is leaning heavily into its role as a hub for industry leaders, developers, and investors.

“What we’re doubling down on is business-to-business.... While we will still do the occasional review, it’s almost to prove that we still have our gaming chops,” Dean said.

He also noted the team is working to expand GamesBeat’s video content and international coverage, with an aspiration of becoming a globally distributed team in the future. Like most media conglomerates, the publication is also upping its investment in the newsletter space, including the recent launch of Dean’s first personal newsletter: DeanBeat Backstage.

This summer, the outlet also launched its first paid subscription service: GB Max. Dean shared the current split is only around 5% GB Max stories, and 95% free coverage with email sign-up, explaining that the majority of GB Max coverage is highly curated for industry insiders and is primarily content that’s exclusive to GamesBeat.

And on the state of the games industry as a whole, Dean remains hopeful.

“I think a rebound is underway,” he said. “Gamescom was one of those turning points where you could measure that the crowds were bigger, the companies were happier, and the doom and gloom of the last two-plus years is starting to go away.… There’s still companies that will run into difficulties, but we’ll quite possibly also see more success stories going forward.”

But as for now, he and the team are heads-down ahead of hosting their GamesBeat NEXT event in San Francisco on November 12-13, bringing Silicon Valley and gaming leaders together to explore the forces driving the business of games forward.

Creators flex their muscle as the new center of media gravity

If there was ever doubt about creators’ recognition as the new tier-one media channels, last month settled it.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the company’s new AI-enabled Ray-Bans not just at a conference, but also in a live interview on TBPN, the 11-month-old livestream hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays. Zuck joins several other heavy hitters, including Marc Andreessen, Mark Cuban, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp on its guest list. For executives, the signal is clear: creator-led outlets are no longer a nice-to-have—they’re priority stages with strategic advantages.

That’s because influence has shifted. Legacy publications still shape broad narratives, but inside industries like tech and business, creators are setting the tone—and earning the kind of attention traditional media once commanded by default. Last month, Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me newsletter revealed it’s expanding into podcasting with a spinoff of her Expense Account column. A “good podcast about food,” as Sundberg put it, will in practice carry the same culture-meets-business edge that made her newsletter a must-read in media circles. And when Axios covers her podcast launch as breaking news, it underscores just how central creators’ moves have become to the ecosystem.

A product demo on TBPN lands differently than a quote in the WSJ. A podcast conversation with Sundberg carries more cultural cachet than a line in a press release. And this shift isn’t only about reach and format—it’s about trust.

Last year, Gallup found that just 31% of Americans expressed confidence in the media to report news fairly, marking a historic low. Creators, by contrast, are often seen as closer to their communities, more authentic, and less filtered. That perception translates into engagement that legacy outlets struggle to match, while also often providing a rare, candid look at executives historically conditioned to recite scripted talking points in corporate formats like broadcast television.

Meanwhile, some creator outfits are rapidly professionalizing. TBPN expects $5 million in ad revenue this year and has brought in Dylan Abruscato—formerly of Postmates and HQ Trivia—as its first president to triple that number in 2026. They now employ 10 people, in addition to the two hosts. It’s a reminder that many of these insurgent media platforms are scaling into businesses with both the resources and the leverage of more traditional publishers.

Just yesterday, Paramount Skydance announced its acquisition of The Free Press, an independent media outlet founded by former New York Times editor Bari Weiss. While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, Axios reported that the outlet was likely valued around $150 million–despite being created just five years ago. It’s a picture perfect case study of every reporter’s dream when taking the leap to go solo–and proof that the world’s largest media companies are now eyeing journalist-founded platforms as viable investment opportunities.

The blurred lines go both ways too. Traditional publishers are increasingly positioning their journalists as influencers by leaning into video strategies historically owned by creators. Front Office Sports’ David Rumsey told Talking Points in February that leadership has encouraged its staff writers to produce more social content, while WIRED is putting journalists on-camera in a new YouTube series called ‘On the Grid’ in an effort to produce more engaging content. That effort is paying off: WIRED now counts 12.5M subscribers on YouTube, an 8-fold uptick in Instagram views, and crucially, subscriptions up 94% year-to-date.

For communicators, the takeaway is that the center of gravity is moving. The new gatekeepers aren’t necessarily at the Times or the Journal, but behind newsletters, livestreams, and podcasts that audiences actually trust. If you want to reach founders in Silicon Valley, or the tastemakers in New York’s food scene, your next pitch might not go to an editor—but to a creator.

What we’re working on ☕

• [The Verge]: “The web has a new system for making AI companies pay up”

• [Sub Club Podcast]: “What Subscription Apps Can Learn About Monetization From Gaming — Mathias Gredal Nørvig, Subway Surfers”

• [Sports Business Journal]: EA Sports College Football 26 avoids sophomore slump

• [Esports Insider]: DreamHack Atlanta hosts $4.1m SNK World Championship 2025

• [DBLTAP] Interview: MenaRD will beat Arslan and SonicFox once he’s conquered Street Fighter

• [Rich on Tech]: Rich On Tech Episode 140 - September 20, 2025

• [Westside Current]: Blooming Again: How a Beloved Palisades Florist Turned Loss Into Root & Petal

Story ideas, feedback, or just want to get in touch? Email us at contact@jsapartners.co or drop us a line on LinkedIn.