Q&A: Sara Fischer, media reporter at Axios
This week, The Idea talked media trends with Axios reporter Sara Fischer.
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Can you tell me a bit about your background?
While I was at college at GW, I started interning at Atlantic Media* in the corporate research division doing analysis on the type of traffic that different reporters and correspondents were driving in comparison to competitors and what its competitive set looked like, mostly around National Journal. I looked at what the competitive set looked like as a membership model, versus a subscription model, what could be done to improve the Hotline, and what markets were penetrable. I left and I started in the advertising department at Politico my senior year of college and was there for a little over a year. After that, I became a freelance news assistant at CNN and worked my way up until I was on the political desk. I then decided I wanted to go back to advertising, went to the New York Times and sold political (as well as corporate) advertising. I left the Times after about a year and a half and went to the [Washington] Post to do a hybrid role where I did a lot of digital production for events and branded content. When Axios was starting, I knew the guys from when I worked at Politico back in the day, and they were looking for a media reporter who had understood all the different sides of the business. Because I had worked at a lot of different media companies on different sides of the business, they hired me to cover media.
How does working at Axios differ from a more traditional media organization? For example, can you tell me about the way you guys go about scoops?
I love working at Axios; it’s been an incredibly positive experience. The thing that differentiates Axios from every other company I’ve worked at is the diversity of the people that we hire. We have an incredibly efficient newsroom because it’s filled with people from very different perspectives, and it allows you to get smarter faster. I think that diversity is something that is a top priority for every person at the company, and this is unique because a lot of the media companies I’ve worked at are strapped to such an outdated infrastructure;it doesn’t allow them to think about how they might want to reorganize their priorities in such a quick manner, and for us, we have that flexibility, and it shows in the talent we’re able to hire and the respect that the talent has for each other. It’s a really, really wonderful, rewarding place to work. As far as the culture of how we’re building our brand, I think breaking news is important, simply because you want to provide a value-add to readers — something that they’re not going to get anywhere else, whether it’s a conceptual scoop or it’s a piece of news that you’re breaking or access to a particular expert that you wouldn’t normally get. There’s just a lot of noise out there, so if you are able to provide something new and different, that’s valuable.
What is the most difficult part of reporting on your own industry, as a journalist reporting on journalism?
It’s very difficult, in the sense that relationships cross ways that you would not have expected. With so many of the companies that I cover, I constantly have to disclose, “this person is on our board,” or “this person is an investor in our company.” Second of all, whenever I’m making remarks about the strategies of media companies, sometimes we have to note that Axios is part of that narrative. When I wrote about a lot of digital-first properties investing in television partnerships, we had just signed a deal with HBO, so we have to disclose that and make sure that it’s part of our reporting. Things just hit closer to home, which means you have to be more conscious of your responsibility when it comes to disclosures and transparency or else you’re doing the reader a disservice.
What do you think is the biggest media story of the past decade?
Widely in the past decade, the Internet and the evolution and how it’s created so many opportunities to go direct to consumer — whether that’s through television, digital streaming, or podcasts, or through your mobile phone. It used to be that a lot of media companies were IP companies, and they licensed that IP through wholesalers. So if you’re a TV company, you license your network content to the telecom companies, which would have the purchasing relationships with the consumer. Technology has turned these relationships on their heads because a lot of new age technology companies — think Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix — can just go directly to consumers with content that they buy. They don’t have to go to a wholesalers. This allows them to be flexible and meet consumer needs, and that’s pretty much the biggest media story of our time — how technology has changed the media landscape and media economics. There have been a lot of companies that have not been able to survive that headwind. There are a lot that have changed for the better because of it, but it’s only just getting started.
Which media trends do you think will be the most long-lasting?
The impact and growth of technology will continue to be a story forever. Right now, we’re thinking a lot about automation; the next frontier is artificial intelligence and how we can mediate and moderate that automation. We’re also going to see probably 5–10 years down the line new virtual formats — virtual reality, augmented reality — become everyday parts of our lives. How are updates to technology going to impact content consumption experiences, like sensors on internet boxes, that can help companies like Netflix better cater to your emotions? The impact of technology on content consumption and dissemination is just going to be a storyline forever.
Do you see media outlets moving away from letting social media dictate their strategies?
Absolutely. News organizations recognize how important it is to diversify their revenue streams and not rely on any one particular wholesaler or distributor as a source for their traffic. This is different from how it was decades ago. If you were a television network, you knew that your wholesalers, your distributors, were the telecom companies. You had a good understanding of what that was; you knew which basket to put your eggs in. Now that’s no longer the case. You need a very diversified revenue stream and you have to develop a very strong brand that can resonate with consumers directly across a wide array of wholesalers and distributors.
Maybe one day some of these media companies become their own distributors. I think about Disney creating DisneyFlix (the nickname for their new Netflix competitor that’s coming out in 2019). I think about Axios and what we do with newsletters — about you guys and what you do with newsletters — you don’t have a wholesaler there, you’re going direct to my inbox. So I think the future is yes, media companies will have to be less reliant on any one platform or social media company to distribute their content, because we’ve seen how technology forces those wholesalers to change their business priorities so fast that you can’t be strapped to a moving target.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen happening at a media organization other than your own?
We’re interested in The Athletic, a direct to consumer media company that sells subscriptions for a pretty reasonable price to hyperactive sports fans. I think they’re interesting because they, like Axios, take the approach of having hyperlocalized expertise either within a particular jurisdiction (in Washington, they’re hiring someone to cover DC sports.) or particular vertical like Richard Deitsch really focuses on media. I think that strategy should resonate with really active sports fans because they know that they can trust the brand to deliver them high quality content. Now, do we that this business is going to be successful? It’s pretty early, so we’ll see, but I think that the moves that they’re making seem to be pretty aligned with what I at least thing will make for a strong direct to consumer strategy.
*Disclosure: Sara Fischer interned at Atlantic Media from 2010–2012.
