Terry Moran got fired from ABC News four months ago after working there for nearly 30 years.

Today, he has 110,000 newsletter subscribers and expects to match his network salary within two years.

No studio. No masthead. No filter.

Just a laptop, a $150 mic, and an audience that followed him—not the logo.

He's not alone.

Jim Acosta left CNN in January 2025. Within hours, he launched a Substack. Now he has 312,000 subscribers, tens of thousands of whom are paying. He told The Wrap: "I would not be doing this if it weren't successful."

Mehdi Hasan built Zeteo to 569,000 Substack subscribers and 1.5 million on YouTube. Estimated revenue? $4.7 million a year.

Aaron Parnas—a guy most newsrooms have never heard of but who now runs the number-one news account on Substack—has 646,000 subscribers who get real-time political analysis. 80 to 90 percent of his income comes directly from readers.

These aren't anomalies. They're the new architecture of trust.

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I spent 20-plus years inside newsrooms that believed institutional credibility was enough. We won Peabodys. Murrows. Emmys. Duponts.

And when Gallup asked Americans this year if they trust newspapers, TV, or radio to report "fully and fairly," only 28 percent said yes.

Among Republicans? Eight percent.

We're not talking about skepticism anymore. We're talking about abandonment.

Meanwhile, Pew found that 21 percent of U.S. adults now regularly get news from "news influencers." For adults under 30? That number jumps to 37 percent.

And 77 percent of those influencers have no traditional newsroom background.

None.

The credentials we spent careers earning? They don't transfer the way they used to.

From institutions to individuals.
From distance to proximity.
From polish to transparency.

Legacy media demanded that audiences come to them.
These creators went where audiences already were.

We protected our process.
They showed theirs.

We waited for trust to be granted.
They earned it—one email, one video, one correction at a time.

Catherine Valentine at Substack put it simply in The Wrap:

"It's this trust thing. It's feeling like you have an expert in your pocket."

Marisa Kabas scooped the nation's media on the Trump administration's federal grant freeze. Not from a newsroom. From her kitchen table in Brooklyn.

She posted a screenshot of the OMB memo on Bluesky. Then she waited. Stomach in knots. A walk in the cold to calm her nerves. Because she knew the uncomfortable truth: for many people, news only becomes "real" when a major outlet confirms it.

Three hours later, The Washington Post published—with a hat tip to Kabas.

Before that scoop, she'd cobbled together what she called a "typical journalist's living." Translation: modest. Her paid subscribers jumped from 800 to 1,500 in a single week. Now she's thinking about hiring one reporter to help.

One.

That's the reality of independent journalism. You're the reporter, the editor, the sales team, and the business manager. No institutional resources. No guaranteed paycheck. No safety net.

And yet.

These journalists aren't waiting for another media company to hire them. They're not refreshing job boards or hoping for a callback. They're building something of their own—even when the outcome is uncertain.

Dan Rather posted this on Facebook: "Independent journalism is now the way forward. Sadly, we can no longer rely on legacy media to hold the powerful accountable."

That’s saying something.

If you're a journalist, founder, educator, or executive—this shift isn't something you're watching from the sidelines. You're in it.

Authority used to come bundled with a broadcast license. Now it comes bundled with consistency, transparency, and showing up where your audience already lives.

The journalists building one-person institutions aren't doing it because it's easy. They're doing it because they've stopped waiting for permission.

↳ Show your face. Let people know who's behind the message.
↳ Say something real. Substance beats slogans.
↳ Be findable. Meet your audience where they already are.

In 2026, the question is no longer, "Which outlet are you with?"

It’s "Do I trust you enough to open your email?"

If you aren’t already familiar with the players in this space, then start now. This is one place where trust is migrating, and the ecosystem is moving.

There are many, many news creators on many, many platforms, so here’s a place to start your exploration.

Below is a list of the top ten news creators on Substack as of December 21, 2025:

Where are you going for news? I want to hear about your shift in trust. I read every email and am always looking for ideas to write about.

Drop me a line at [email protected].