Published: April 2026

The media theme. Old and new.

I saw a guy holding a sign the other day. It said "Where this months recommendation article". I thought: right, better get on with it.

So here we are. This month's recommendations have a theme running through them: media, old and new. What's dying, what's thriving, and what's worth your time across all of it.

Here's the thing about media right now: it's not dying, it's just refusing to play by the old rules anymore. The gatekeepers are losing their grip, and the people actually making interesting stuff are building their own platforms.

Crooked Media just launched SANEtv on Amazon Prime Video. That's a podcast network moving into streaming. Netflix is also circling around podcasting. These aren't random moves. They're signals that independent media has figured out something the legacy players are scrambling to copy: lower production costs, loyal audiences, and the ability to move fast.

The advantage isn't just financial. It's structural. When you're not answering to shareholders or legacy business models, you can take risks. You can be weird. You can actually care about your audience instead of just monetising them.

Newsletter. Between Giants by Anna Fifield (Substack) is a newsletter that treats New Zealand's global position with the nuance it deserves. Fifield's a former foreign correspondent with the Washington Post, and it shows. She doesn't oversimplify. If you're interested in geopolitics without the hot-take nonsense, this is it. A possible podcast interview at some point if I can convince her.

Book. Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life by Nicholas Kristof is a memoir that shouldn't work. It's about covering the world's worst problems for decades. But Kristof writes about enduring optimism the way other people write about despair. It's a reminder that paying attention to hard things doesn't have to break you.

Podcast. Every Second Counts. Blowing my own trumpet here. This is my conversation with Charlotte Glennie about her book of the same name, a memoir about her years as a correspondent in Asia. Worth it.

Documentary. The New Yorker At 100 proves legacy media can still innovate. It's not nostalgia. It's a masterclass in craftsmanship. Watch it if you want to remember why good editing matters.

If you've found something worth sharing, something that's shifted how you think about work, media, or what comes next, send it my way.

The best recommendations in this newsletter come from readers. Hit reply or drop it in the comments.