Podcasting vibe shift!

The Muck Rack Weekly newsletter includes some of the most talked about stories in the journalism and public relations communities over the past week, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of Muck Rack.

Media statistic of the week

“Podcasting vibe shift!” tweets Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman about her piece detailing what’s happening in the podcast world as of late.

“The dark days of financial and legal woes appear to be ending as the industry sees signs of revival,” Carman writes.

Some revealing stats:

• During the first quarter of this year, IHeartMedia Inc. reported 18% year-over-year growth in its podcast revenue.
• Acast AB said revenue grew 25% year-over-year during its first quarter of 2024.
• The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP recently revealed that, despite all the turbulence in the industry, overall podcasting ad revenue actually increased by 5% in 2023.

Check out more podcasting trends.??

This past week in the media industry

All news is local

A must-read piece this week: The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi ’s “How a one-man news site beat the national media on a Trump shooting scoop.”

Izadi profiles John Paul Vranesevich, the owner and only full-time reporter for the Beaver Countian who got the inside scoop on the shooting at a Donald Trump rally last week.

“The journalist said it did not surprise him, as the solo full-time employee of his small local news site, that he was able to break a major story about the U.S. Secret Service’s most dramatic failure in decades — a story that took hours and days for national press, including The Washington Post, to confirm,” writes Izadi.?

“All news is local,” Vranesevich said. “Everything that happens that the national [media] cares about is happening in some community, somewhere … What they know about me is I was here before the big story happened, and I’ll be here after the big story happened.”

“A great story about the importance of local journalism,” tweets Richard Mize .?

Biden withdraws from 2024 presidential race?

It was a wild, wild weekend of political news.?

Of course, the major news first: David Bauder of the Associated Press writes, “President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not run for a second term was dropped into his social media feed at 1:46 p.m. Eastern, followed 33 minutes later by an endorsement of his vice president, Kamala Harris.?

Still recovering from COVID, the president did not appear on camera. Which meant, for news outlets, scant to no visuals.” For TIME, Brian Bennett and Philip Elliott explore the reasons Biden decided to step down, including “the experience [that] colored Biden’s contempt for both the press and his critics .”

For Axios, Sara Fischer dives into the importance of Biden making the announcement on X , rather than through traditional media. “Biden chose not to give any press interviews or deliver official remarks Sunday, relying solely on his statement posted online. He said he planned to give official remarks later this week,” Fischer writes.

Over at the New York Times, Santul Nerkar reports on how media outlets on the left and right covered Biden’s withdrawal:

“Liberal sites and publications largely saluted Mr. Biden as a hero, even calling him “patriotic.” Commentators supported his decision to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and portrayed the Democratic Party as unifying around her.

Conservative outlets were predictably more critical of Mr. Biden’s presidential legacy and his decision. Some said Democrats’ entreaties to him, encouraging his withdrawal, suggested the decision was a “coup” by party elites. Commentators also attacked his mental fitness and called for him to step down from the presidency immediately, months before the conclusion of his term.”

A political roundup

Let’s dive into the highlights of what else you may have missed over the last few days.

• The Hollywood Reporter’s Rick Porter has details on the RNC’s TV ratings : “The closing night of the Republican National Convention drew the gathering’s biggest TV audience of the week, one larger than the closing night of the RNC four years ago. It wasn’t quite large enough, however, to push the convention as a whole past 2020’s numbers.”
• Twitch reinstated Trump’s account three years after he was banned, according to Bloomberg News’ Cecilia D'Anastasio .
• These major influencers are publicly supporting Trump in the presidential election, reports Victoria Feng and Angela Yang for NBC News. Prior to Biden announcing he won’t run for reelection, Feng and Yang wrote, “But major influencers have remained relatively silent in professing support for Biden — particularly since his fumbling debate performance on June 27.”

A few more

• Semafor plans to launch in the Middle East on September 16, reports Meera Pattni . “Semafor Gulf will feature original reporting and thrice-weekly newsletter that will examine how the region’s financial, business and geopolitical decisions shape the world, from culture and investment to infrastructure, climate and technology,” reports Pattni.?
• One year later, was the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike worth it? The Hollywood Reporter’s Katie Kilkenny explores the answer to this question. Spoiler: “The responses were decidedly mixed on whether the results of the work stoppage were justified,” Kilkenny writes of her conversations with SAG-AFTRA and WGA members, as well as executives and agents.
• Digiday’s Kayleigh Barber and Seb Joseph report that Google will not ‘deprecate third-party cookies’ in Chrome. The ad industry’s cries have finally been heard, the duo writes.
• “End of an era for all us pete wells stans,” tweets Melissa Angell about the news that the New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells is leaving his role citing health concerns.?
• The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi reports that former DCist staff have launched the 51st , new local news site for Washington. “The idea for the site first arose days after the unexpected closure of DCist, a beloved local news site that had been acquired by WAMU six years ago,” writes Izadi. “When former staff gathered at a downtown restaurant to commiserate, the wake quickly turned into a business-development strategy session.”
• Troubling news out of the BBC . “The BBC will lay off 500 more staff by March 2026 as its annual report paints a worrying financial picture including a near-doubling of its deficit,” writes Max Goldbart from Deadline.?

From the Muck Rack team

Have you ever wondered what makes broadcast journalists unique from freelancers? Or what the best social platform is to find local and regional journalists??

Muck Rack’s Guidebook to Pitching takes a deep dive into our data to demystify and understand specific types of journalists.

To make the guidebook, we are delving deeper into the State of Journalism data which collected responses from more than 1,000 journalists and looking at it from new angles. We also interviewed more than a dozen journalists from seven unique groups to give context and to hear about their first-hand experiences.

Download the guide.