Media Insights

How do you reach younger audiences who increasingly get their news from short-form video and creators instead of traditional outlets? In this episode of Media Insights, host Jordan sits down with Ramin Beheshti, CEO of Caliber and former Chief Product & Technology Officer at Dow Jones, to talk about building a new kind of media company.

Ramin co-founded The News Movement and now leads its parent company, Caliber, whose brands include The News Movement, The Recount, and Capsule, plus the creator-powered news platform SaySo and the publisher-powered agency Caliber Collective. He explains why Caliber bet on short-form video and creators, why trust in legacy media is so low, and why he thinks the industry has to explain its standards instead of assuming people know them.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:53 What Caliber is: The News Movement, The Recount, Capsule, and SaySo

03:37 Why Gen Z, and how to make news for time-poor audiences

05:21 From "no way on TikTok" to short-form video everywhere

07:22 Do people trust peers more than mastheads?

09:01 Journalistic rigor and the case for communicating standards

09:58 AI and editorial policy: where Caliber draws the line

12:29 Building loyalty on SaySo: vetted creators and a daily digest

15:50 Running a two-sided marketplace of creators and audiences

18:08 Beyond ads and subscriptions: micropayments and creator monetization

21:17 Paywalls, curiosity, and personalized digests

24:00 2027 prediction: AI and the value of human curation

25:58 Rebundling media: one marketplace for video, audio, and editorial

28:56 Where to find Ramin

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On this episode of Media Insights, Xile He, a serial entrepreneur and former founding head of growth at Mocha, walks through how she scaled the Y Combinator-backed AI app builder from zero to 300,000+ users and multi-seven-figure ARR before the company was acquired.

She breaks down the specific wedge that let Mocha compete against far better-funded rivals like Lovable and Replit: targeting non-technical business owners who had no idea how to connect a database or set up backend infrastructure, and building that complexity into the product itself. Xile also shares what she's seeing in AI's impact on media and marketing more broadly.

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On this episode of Media Insights, Ben Kruger, CMO of Event Tickets Center, breaks down how his team uses AI to turn proprietary fan data into a real competitive edge. Listeners will learn how his marketing org replaced slide-deck pitches with working AI prototypes, how the CRO team analyzes session data and heat maps at a much more granular level, and why personalized email campaigns built on purchase and listening history are driving stronger fan engagement.Ben also shares hard-won lessons on where AI automation breaks down: why workflows need to be fully understood by hand before handing them to AI, and why human QA is critical to catching quality drift over time. He closes with his prediction for 2027, on why companies will shift from chasing AI tools to building their own, and why early adopters will keep widening their lead.
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On this episode of Media Insights, Hogan Shrum, co-founder of AI animation platform PIPPA, joins the show to unpack how his team is turning plain-language ideas into fully produced animated video without requiring users to master AI prompting.

He explains how PIPPA achieves character consistency, why the platform translates a user's own words into optimized prompts behind the scenes, and how that's cutting regenerations down.

We also dig into PIPPA's artist royalty model (creators get paid every time their style is used), the surprising early traction in K-12 education, the economics of producing a feature-length animated film on a budget, and the PIPPA Foundation's push to reinvest AI profits back into the arts.

Try PIPPA for free at https://www.gopippa.ai/ — use code GSM26 for 25% off any paid plan.

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🎙️ On this episode of Media Insights, Lauren Esposito, CMO of Asymbl and former VP of Marketing, Global Brand, Partnerships & Media at Salesforce, joins the show to talk about building a real hybrid workforce, beyond traditional AI tooling.

She explains how Asymbl manages its digital workers like employees, with job descriptions, KPIs, and weekly one-on-ones, and shares specific examples, like a digital business analyst that briefs the C-suite every week, and an AI "content guardian" that kept a company-wide rebrand consistent across teams. The conversation gets into where AI is paying off, where it still falls short, and why moving too fast on human headcount can cost more than it saves.

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In this conversation, Ben Moore, the US managing director at BeReal, discusses the platform's unique approach to social media, emphasizing authenticity and user trust in an age dominated by AI-generated content.

He highlights the importance of balancing monetization with genuine user engagement and shares insights on how brands can effectively leverage BeReal for both paid and organic marketing strategies. The discussion also touches on demographic shifts, the role of nostalgia, and the future of AI in marketing.

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In this episode, Growth Stack Media founder Jordan Mitchell and Third Bridge chief marketing officer Gabriella Henault discuss the transformative impact of AI on marketing and research. They explore the importance of human expertise in an AI-driven world, the role of employee advocacy in building trust, and the challenges of maintaining authenticity amid AI-generated content. Gabriella shares insights on brand discovery, SEO strategies, and the necessity of integrating AI into marketing budgets.

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In this conversation, Gemma Craven, CMO of Scribd, Inc., discusses her extensive experience in brand, culture, and technology, and how Scribd is positioning itself in the current landscape of AI-generated content.

She elaborates on the various offerings under the Scribd, Inc. umbrella, the recent rebranding efforts, insights from their annual State of Reading report, and the integration of AI within their platforms.

Gemma also shares her thoughts on the evolving role of marketing teams in the age of AI, the importance of skills in automating tasks, and predictions for the future of brand reputation management.