1 Nov 2026
Media Execs: The New Playbook for Creators and Brands in 2026
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During San Francisco’s Tech Week 2026 a few weeks ago, we co-hosted our first NEW MEDIA Summit with Yahoo, bringing together media’s biggest names for candid conversations on where the industry goes next.This panel, moderated by Jim Louderback (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlouderb) brought together Joanna Stern (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannastern), founder of New Things, Sona Iliffe-Moon (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonamoon), Chief Communications Officer at Yahoo, and Lillian Xu (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lillianlxu), VP of Podcast Business at Vox Media. They discussed why Joanna left The Wall Street Journal after 12 years, how her NBC News partnership works, what the NPR and How I Built This deals (https://www.voxmedia.com/2026/09/29/how-i-built-this-partners-with-vox-media-for-ambitious-new-chapter/) mean for creators, how to keep audience trust while running ads, and what the internet will look like in five years.
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In our in-depth episode, we discuss:
* Why Joanna Stern left The Wall Street Journal after 12 years, when 80% to 90% of her time was already going into YouTube, and how she de-risked going independent by negotiating her NBC partnership while still at the Journal
* Why owning your IP matters most, and what the Kevin Roose and Casey Newton NPR deal and Guy Raz buying back How I Built This say about how institutions now partner with talent
* How Vox Media is turning How I Built This into a franchise with video for the first time and the return of its two-day summit, and why Lillian Xu says every creator deal needs skin in the game and upside
* How Joanna keeps trust while reading ads: a physical “money mic,” a published ethics policy, and turning down a possible million-dollar deal rather than take money from the frontier labs she covers
* Why Sona Iliffe-Moon says brands can pay for a placement but never for an opinion, and why the panel thinks expert human voices, video and live events will win as AI summaries become part of our daily lives.
Watch or listen now across YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD), Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i), and X (https://x.com/ollieforsyth)
Download the transcript 👇
Timestamps
(0:00 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE)) Welcome to the New Media Summit(3:05 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=185s)) Meet Joanna Stern: Why she left The Wall Street Journal(7:28 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=448s)) How media companies are partnering with creators(11:09 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=669s&pp=0gcJCWMAwfN6Pr3D)) What changes when a journalist goes independent(12:33 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=753s)) Do the NPR deals make sense?(17:58 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=1078s)) How to keep your audience's trust(19:21 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=1161s)) How creators partner with brands(27:00 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=1620s)) Does the audience care about paid ads?(30:50 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLab7q9vFE&t=1850s)) Quick-fire round
Lessons from these titans of media
Joanna Stern: New Things
Build a personal board. Joanna knows how to report and tell a story, but she’s the first to admit she doesn’t know how to sell, market or triple her growth. Her advice is to surround yourself with smart people from every side of the business, whether that’s a friend who understands sales or someone who knows marketing. They don’t need to work for you, but they need to be there when you need them.
Lillian Xu: VP, Podcast Business at Vox Media
Go in with your eyes open. Going independent is far more work than most people expect, so know what you’re taking on before you start. And when you strike a deal with a network or partner, make sure you have skin in the game and real upside, so everyone’s incentives are aligned.
Sona Iliffe-Moon: Chief Communications Officer at Yahoo
Lead with the relationship, not the sales deck. Brands can pay for a partnership or a placement, but they can never pay for an opinion, and the best paid work comes after a genuine relationship has been built. For comms teams, the rule with independent creators is the same as with any journalist: give them valuable information, access and respect.
Jim Louderback: Inside The Creator Economy
The rules of media are being rewritten in real time. Reporters are building their own companies, brands are finding their own voices and creators are hiring their own sales teams, so who pays whom is up for grabs. In that shift, trust is one of the few things that holds its value, and anyone building in this new world should guard it closely.
Subscribe to Jim’s newsletter, Inside The Creator Economy (https://insidethecreator.beehiiv.com/).
Where to connect with us
Follow Ollie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollieforsyth (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollieforsyth/)
Follow Jim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlouderb (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlouderb)Follow Sona on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonamoon (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonamoon)Follow Joanna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannastern (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannastern)Follow Lillian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lillianlxu (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lillianlxu)
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