Former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy says he wouldn’t go back

In the old days — that is, up until a couple of years ago — landing a job at a very big outlet like CNN or The New York Times would be the capstone to a journalist’s career. If you moved on, it was likely against your will and almost definitely a step down.

Now things are different: A slew of big names, from Don Lemon to Paul Krugman, have left big media companies, for varying reasons — and seem to be making a go of it on their own. They publish their own posts on platforms like Substack, and push out their own video on YouTube.

In a handful of cases, like former Vox columnist Matthew Yglesias, they are making much more than they did at the old gigs. Others say they are doing well enough to at least equal their old salaries.

For now, that group includes Oliver Darcy, the former CNN media reporter (and former Business Insider politics editor) who left the network in 2024 — because, in his telling, the company didn’t want to give him more resources. Now, Darcy’s Status newsletter is a must-read in media circles, and Darcy says his two-man operation — he hired his former coworker Jon Passantino earlier this year — is profitable after its first 12 months.

I talked to Darcy about his approach to media coverage — and his criticism of the way media outlets are covering this iteration of Donald Trump — for my Channels podcast. But I wanted to pass along this edited excerpt about the indie media movement we’re in, and Darcy’s (current) embrace of his new situation.

Peter Kafka: What would happen if CNN came to you and said they’d like to have you back? Is there a world where that makes sense for you?

Oliver Darcy: No, not really. I graduated CNN.

I’m very much enjoying not having to deal with a lot of red tape and bureaucracy.

Is there any appeal to any big company coming to you and offering you funding and resources, to be part of their network?

I don’t think it would be wise to entirely rule out anything. I think it’d certainly have to be a good partner that is not going to attempt to water down our coverage or interfere with the editorial, and would be solely focused on giving us additional resources.

But at the moment, we’re very profitable. We’re looking to expand on our own.

You have no outside investors?

No outside investors. We’ve had interest from investors and I’ve told everyone no. Because we don’t really need their money and it might complicate things.

This is the current thing in newsrooms and media organizations: “How do we get these influencers to work with us? How do we get these voices to work with us?”

The challenge for them is that the successful ones don’t really need to come over there. Or if they do come, it’s at an enormous price, like what ESPN is doing with Pat McAfee.

I think the answer is — don’t let them leave.

In a lot of cases, people want to stay, and they want to work out a deal inside these companies. But they get chased out or there’s no interest — and then they go build something, and now all of a sudden there’s interest.

This is every relationship ever. “When you were with me, I didn’t appreciate you.”

Now that we’ve built Status into a company that’s able to operate independently and do well, [we] don’t really need that money or that infrastructure anymore. We built our own infrastructure.

What if David Ellison listens to this podcast and says, “I was going to buy Bari Weiss [and her Free Press startup], but actually you’ve convinced me. You should bring Status to CBS and you can be our CBS News advisor.”

I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon.

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