Last month, I pitched a story to a tech reporter I’d worked with for years. When I followed up, I discovered he’d left his publication to launch his own newsletter. His subscriber base? Already comparable to his former outlet’s tech section readership. His response time to my pitch? Right away, compared to the days I used to wait.

Welcome to the new reality of B2B tech media relations. If you’re not adapting your approach, you’re missing massive opportunities.

What Is Creator Media?

Creator media represents journalists and industry experts who’ve ditched traditional publications to build direct relationships with their audiences through platforms like Substack, Ghost, and similar newsletter infrastructure. Instead of writing for someone else’s publication, they own their subscriber lists, intellectual property and revenue streams.

The difference comes down to attention and engagement. These creators often have more intimate relationships with their readers than traditional publications can maintain. When a respected tech journalist with 50,000 engaged newsletter subscribers writes about your client, those readers trust the recommendation in ways that general publication readership simply doesn’t match.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Traditional Media Is Shrinking Fast

The journalism labor market has been in freefall for a few years now. Nearly 15,000 media jobs were eliminated in 2024 alone, following at least 8,000 journalism job cuts made in the UK and North America in 2023. 2025 hasn’t felt much better. We’re not talking about modest staff reductions—we’re witnessing the systematic dismantling of newsrooms that have covered the tech and business beats for generations.

For folks accustomed to pitching established tech reporters at major publications, this represents a fundamental shift in how stories are told and who tells them.

Veterans Are Cashing In

I’ve watched seasoned tech journalists leave Bloomberg, The Information, and other Tier 1 publications to launch independent ventures. Take Eric Newcomer, a prime example of this trend. After spending six years at Bloomberg reporting on the technology industry and serving as the first employee at The Information, he struck off on his own in 2020 to launch Newcomer, an eponymous newsletter that covers the startup and venture capital world. The results speak for themselves: his newsletter now has more than 65,000 subscribers, and his company is on track to generate $2 million in annual revenue.

Newcomer isn’t an anomaly. Across the tech and business landscape, veteran journalists are discovering they can build more sustainable, profitable businesses by going direct to their audiences. They’re taking their source relationships, their expertise, and their personal brands and creating media properties that often have more engaged readerships than the publications they left behind.

These independent journalists often have something their former employers couldn’t offer: editorial freedom, deeper relationships with their audience, and the ability to cover stories without the constraints of traditional media business models. For companies seeking coverage, this represents both an opportunity and a challenge.

But there’s another reason creator media relationships are becoming non-negotiable that many PR pros haven’t fully grasped yet: AI search is fundamentally changing how businesses get discovered. When potential customers use ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity to research solutions, these AI systems don’t prioritize your paid ads or owned content. They favor high-authority earned media—exactly the kind of credible, in-depth coverage that creator media excels at producing. As traditional outlets shrink and reduce their coverage, independent journalists and creators are becoming some of the most authoritative voices in their areas.

What This Means for Your Startup’s PR Strategy

The convergence of shrinking newsrooms and rising creator media fundamentally alters how coverage works. Independent journalists often have more time to dive deep into stories, build relationships with sources, and develop ongoing coverage of companies they find interesting. They’re not just writing one-off news pieces but building communities around their expertise.

This creates new opportunities for startups willing to adapt their approach:

  • Relationship-First Outreach: Independent journalists are building their businesses on trust and expertise. They’re more likely to engage with companies that approach them as partners rather than targets for one-off pitches. Invest time in understanding their coverage areas, their audience, and their content style.
  • Long-Term Thinking: Unlike traditional media hits that might generate a brief spike in traffic, coverage from established independent journalists can drive sustained engagement. Their audiences are often highly engaged and trust their recommendations.
  • Niche Expertise: Many independent journalists are doubling down on specific verticals or topics. Finding the right creator who covers your exact space can be more valuable than broad coverage in a general business publication.
  • Content Collaboration: Independent creators are often more open to various forms of collaboration, from sponsored content to event partnerships to data sharing, that traditional newsrooms might not consider.

Your Media Mix Might Need a Remix

Traditional PR approaches of targeting Tier 1 publications and hoping for trickle-down coverage are becoming less effective as those publications have fewer resources and smaller teams. Smart PR teams are already building relationships with independent journalists and creators who might become the dominant voices in their industries.

Start by auditing your current media landscape. Identify the independent voices covering your space, research the newsletters your customers and investors actually read, and discover which podcasts your target audiences listen to. 

The creators building audiences today could be the media kingmakers of tomorrow. Startups that position themselves to benefit from this shift have a significant advantage.

Why This Shift Is Permanent

The economics of media have fundamentally changed. Talented journalists with strong personal brands can often monetize their audiences more effectively through direct relationships than through traditional media employment. It’s a democratization of media distribution in an attention economy where direct, trusted relationships with engaged audiences create more value than broad, anonymous reach.

The media landscape has permanently shifted, and PR strategies that don’t account for creator media are increasingly incomplete.