Bill Owens, the former executive producer of “60 Minutes,” left the program last year after clashing with the corporate owners of CBS News. In an emotional meeting announcing his resignation, Mr. Owens said additional layers of oversight had encroached on the independence of the show, a staple of the newsmagazine for decades.
On Thursday, Mr. Owens said he had found a place he could make journalism free from what he viewed as corporate interference: Newpress, a start-up that publishes video journalism from independent creators on YouTube and other digital platforms.
“Legacy media right now is worried about the politics in the country,” Mr. Owens said. “They’re worried about lobbies and sponsorships and advertisers. They’re looking over their shoulder.”
Mr. Owens said he was not interested in that. “I want people to have the truth,” he said.
Mr. Owens, who will become the start-up’s executive producer on March 1 when his noncompete agreement with CBS ends, is joining the company shortly after it raised $12 million from a group of funders led by Emerson Collective, the company founded by the investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs and the owner of media companies like The Atlantic. The money will be used to produce new shows and explore expansions into newsletters and podcasting, said Iz Harris, chief executive of Newpress.
“The way that we’re going to get there is by doubling down on what we do best,” Ms. Harris said. “Right now, that’s creating shows that are in a creator’s voice and vision that help people understand the broad context of how the world works.”
Over the past decade, the traditional news industry has been disrupted by news creators — journalists who create email newsletters, YouTube videos or podcasts on their own. Newpress takes a hybrid approach, giving news creators some of the research, fact-checking, production and business support offered to journalists in traditional newsrooms. Founded in 2024 by Ms. Harris and her husband, the journalist Johnny Harris, the company recruits journalists who make compelling visual stories and shares the profits with them.
Newpress has hired 20 people, including Max Fisher, who specializes in geopolitics; Christophe Haubursin, whose videos investigate internet mysteries; and Sam Ellis, who makes videos about global sports.
The videos are high-gloss and approachable, with sleek infographics and animations cut together with direct-to-camera narration delivered by journalists in cluttered offices wearing T-shirts and chunky sweaters. One video, on the “oil apocalypse” exacerbated by the continuing war in Iran, featured Mr. Fisher sitting in front of a microphone on a desk with a tiny globe alongside an old, wall-mounted telephone.
In addition to running ads alongside its videos, Newpress sells memberships for $5 per month for subscribers who want to support its journalism and get additional perks. When Mr. Owens starts next year, he will be involved in recruiting more journalists to join Newpress and conceiving and editing stories produced by its creators. He said he was drawn to journalism on YouTube, partly because it was where the next generation of news consumers were spending their time.
“These guys have millions of followers in a demographic that I’ve been chasing for decades,” Mr. Owens said. “My kids are 23 and 24. This is where they find their news and information.”
Other funders in the new round include Glick Family Investments; Jesse Angelo, the chief executive of Checker JP Media; David Leavy, the former chief operating officer of CNN; and Brent Montgomery, the chief executive of Wheelhouse Entertainment. Patrick Steel, the former chief executive of Politico, is investing and will join the board alongside Peter Lattman, the managing director of media at Emerson Collective. Newpress did not disclose its valuation.
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