Starting up a new media now: absolute folly or absolute necessity?
Thu 16 April 2026
10:30
Free
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With so much focus on the three massive disruptions to journalism dominating now - AI, the creator economy, and the funding crisis - the conversation has focused mostly on saving media rather than starting new media. But we propose this might be a mistake. It could be the worst time ever to launch an independent new media with the intensified struggle for funding, subscription and information fatigue, and growing competition with creators for attention. But it might also be more urgent than ever - and financially viable - to create a new media whose mission is precisely to help make sense of the moment and be conceived for the changing news needs, usages and business models of a future that is already here now.
Our panel of first-time founders and media investors takes on the debate and shares their experience in the current media startup economy.
Moderated by Renée Kaplan.
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Carole Cadwalladr
Carole Cadwalladr is a renowned Pulitzer-nominated journalist for The Guardian, feature writer for The Observer, and Cambridge Analytica investigator. She formerly worked at The Daily Telegraph, and was nominated for numerous Press Awards. Cadwalladr was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting in 2019, receiving praise upon her investigation and coverage into Cambridge Analytica and its role in Brexit. Cadwalladr’s sheer dedication in exposing a nexus of corruption that resulted in Mark Zuckerberg being called before Congress, and exposing Cambridge Analytica’s role in mass-harvesting data to influence elections (Brexit and Trump), goes far beyond the question of Remain or Leave. Her investigation also interrogates the role we have been puppeteered to play in a 2017 Britain that took its first step into an undemocratic world. In April 2019, Cadwalladr gave a TED talk, Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threats to democracy, regarding her the links found between Facebook and the Brexit election. This talk led to worldwide acclaim but it also sparked a three year long lawsuit which was won by Carole in June 2022. This case was one of several brought against her and other leading journalists and they are thought to be motivated by powerful individuals and firms to tie up the press in expensive and time consuming legal defenses (these are called SLAPP suits). Also in 2019, she was featured in the acclaimed Netflix documentary The Great Hack – this Bafta nominated film explored the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer. Cadwalladr has won other awards, including the British Journalism Awards: Technology Journalism Award in December 2017 and The Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2018. She is the author of The Family Tree, published in 2006 and was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize. She is currently at work on a new book.
Renée Kaplan
Renée Kaplan is Head of News at ARTE. She was previously Head of digital editorial development at the Financial Times, where she led teams working on innovation, new editorial products and much of the FT's digital journalism, including newsletters and podcasts. Before moving to the Financial Times, she was Deputy Editorial Director of news network France 24, and has worked as a journalist on staff at numerous U.S. media including CNN, CBS and the New York Observer.
Turi Munthe
Turi Munthe is a media founder, investor and advisor. He was until December 2024 a partner at North Base Media, an early stage VC investing in media and media tech in growth markets. Prior to NBM, Turi was a journalist, publisher and political analyst. In 2008, he founded and was CEO of Demotix, which became the world’s largest network of photojournalists and exited to Bill Gates’ Corbis in 2012.
Jonathan Shainin
Jonathan Shainin is one of the founders of Equator, a global magazine of politics, culture and art. He was the founding editor of the Guardian Long Read and the paper's head of opinion. He has worked at The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and The Caravan. He edited the collection The Other Israel (2002), an anthology of journalism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo
Il Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo di Perugia è un evento annuale che riunisce professionisti dei media, esperti di comunicazione e appassionati di informazione da tutto il mondo. Si svolge nel centro storico di Perugia e offre conferenze, dibattiti, workshop e opportunità di networking sui temi più rilevanti del giornalismo contemporaneo.