Updated on 1/23/2014
To qualify for these lists, the person in question must be a journalist with a following significant enough that he could theoretically launch his own brand (option #2). As such, the following people don’t make the cut:
- Tucker Carlson, The Daily Caller
- Michael Goldfarb, The Washington Free Beacon
- Anthony De Rosa, Reuters/Circa
- Gabriel Snyder, The Atlantic/Inside.com
- Patrick Gavin, FishbowlDC/Politico
- Todd Purdum, The New York Times/Vanity Fair/Politico
1. Moved to Another Mainstream Media Outlet
- Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post/The Daily Beast/Fox News
- Nate Silver, 538/The New York Times/ESPN
- Farhad Manjoo, Slate/The Wall Street Journal/The New York Times
- Frank Rich, The New York Times/New York
- Andy Borowitz, The Borowitz Report/The New Yorker
- Erin Andrews, FOX/ESPN
2. Hung Out Their Own Shingle
- Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast/The Daily Dish
- Jessica Lessin, The Wall Street Journal/The Information
- Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, The Wall Street Journal/Recode
- Joshua Topolsky, Engadget/The Verge
- Choire Sicha, Gawker/The Awl
- Joshua Marshall, The American Prospect/Talking Points Memo
- Nikki Finke, Deadline Hollywood/NikkiFinke.com
- Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel/The Blaze
3. Hung Out Their Own Shingle Within Their Existing Outlet
- Mike Allen, Politico
- Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times
- David Leonhardt, The New York Times
- Bill Simmons, ESPN
- Nick Bilton, The New York Times
- Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post
4. Moved to a Startup Owned by Someone Else
- Neetzan Zimmerman, Gawker/Whisper
- Adrian Chen, Gawker/New Inquiry
- David Pogue, The New York Times/Yahoo
- Katie Couric, NBC/Yahoo
- Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian/First Look Media
- Ben Smith, Politico/BuzzFeed
5. Stayed Put
- David Carr, The New York Times
- MG Siegler, TechCrunch
- Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times
- Mark Halperin, Time
- John Dickerson, Slate
- Nick Gillespie, Reason
- Joseph Weisenthal, Business Insider
6. Left Journalism
- Chris Anderson, Wired/3D Robotics
- Ben Parr, Mashable/DominateFund
Addendum (2/25/2014): For a detailed examination of this phenonem—what Jay Rosen calls the “personal franchise model in journalism”—read his blog post.
Addendum (2/27/2014): For another examination, check out Alex Pareene’s profile of Andrew Ross Sorkin. Pareene writes, “Sorkin is one of a few journalists and columnists (or hybrids) at the Times who are, at least by the standards of his profession, superstars. They have carved out lucrative niches and have symbiotic promotional relationships with their employer ... Indeed, when future historians explain how frenetic brand synergy came to overtake the stodgy business models of once-prestigious news organizations, Sorkin will likely be recorded as the revolution’s great pioneering prophet.”
