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Good morning from the airport as I head off to points west for a weekend of talking about news and information with a group of smart, dedicated people – many I know, but also, I hope, some new brains to bump up against.

There was a ton of movement this week in the marquee-name creator journalist column. Bari Weiss, fresh off the lucrative sale of Free Press to Paramount, started her reign as head of CBS News where she’s said to be courting (among others) beehiiv Media Collective member and former FOX & CBS correspondent Catherine Herridge.

Meanwhile, Molly Jong-Fast announced in a new Substack post that she’s leaving Vanity Fair to become an opinion writer at the New York Times, but that she also plans to drop thoughts on Substack often because, “a lot of my most favorite people are on Substack and there’s a lot going on in the world right now which I, as an infamous opinion-haver, have opinions on and want to write about.” If anyone at NYT wants to reach out and talk about the strategy of having writers publish to both the mothership and their own newsletters, I’d love to talk.

In in New York, media industry navel-gazy newsletter bylines gathered at a taco fest hosted by Breaker Media’s Lachlan Cartwright, to toast one another’s success and party with once-jailed con artist Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey) over gossip and jars of cigarettes on tables.

I’m not sure what to take away from all of this except that we are seeing the point where the atomization, or disaggregation, of news creators is starting to bend back on itself as trad media, and trad media money, start seeing opportunities to capitalize on the audiences and buzz built around these brands.

For a decade, journalism splintered – atoms flying apart into independent creator models. Now, some of those particles are recombining. Legacy institutions are trying to reabsorb the energy of independence. They’re buying influence, trust, and direct audience relationships they can’t manufacture internally.

The question is whether this reintegration strengthens the field, or just recreates the same power dynamics that drove creators out in the first place.

Maybe this is progress. Maybe it’s just proof that journalism keeps rediscovering that audiences follow people, not mastheads.

📌 Trust in mass media just hit rock bottom. Gallup finds only 28% of Americans now say they trust mass media — less than half the level of the 1970s, when it was 72%.

📌 Less than a year after arriving at The Washington Post to lead a planned “third newsroom” focused on social-first distro, Samantha Henig is leaving the brand where the creator line of business recently shifted from editorial to the business side. (Status subscription required)

📌 Creators beware: Sophia Smith Galer shares a cautionary tale about a bad offer from one newsroom she said wanted to “lock her down” for eight weeks.

📌 Climate journalist Sammy Roth announced he’s leaving the Los Angeles Times to launch a newsletter: Climate-Colored Goggles. There’s no there there yet, but you can still sign up to support his launch.

🎧 Puck’s Dylan Byers sits down with Red Seat Ventures CEO Chris Balfe, who talks about his template for building (mostly right-leaning) creator success stories.

📹 Friend of Project C Ryan Kellett talks to LNI Media’s Dave Jorgenson about his quest to solve for media literacy (and so much more):

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📌 “Creators win trust by showing process, correcting in public, and engaging directly,” writes Nabila Bana in a piece of research for the Reuters Institute about how to do video journalism right in the creator age.

📹 WSJ’s Julia Munslow leads an online ONA meetup designed to teach journalists how to make “scroll stopping” social video. Scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 5. Sign up at the link.

✈ Join me Oct. 19-21 in Salt Lake City for the inaugural Business of Local conference.

📌 I’m also headed to Philadelphia on Nov. 8th to take part in KleinCamp. If you’re in the Philadelphia area, it’s worth checking out. The conference leans into hands-on innovation thinking and tickets are only $20.