This year’s edition of New York’s annual “Power Issue,” reported by features writer Charlotte Klein, is an examination of the media industry in a time of enormous financial turmoil and record public distrust. For the package, Klein interviews 57 of the most powerful people in the media for dozens of hours of candid conversations about the industry’s past, present, and future. Klein writes in her introduction, “Everyone we spoke with agreed that the business of media keeps changing and not, for the most part, for the better. Some are trying to keep legacy institutions viable; some are trying to build new ones; some are sole proprietors of their own brands—which may or may not be the future for all. Given this business undergirds the actual journalism people receive, we wanted to understand the biggest concerns and threats to it at this moment and what an actual path forward might look like.”
“As a media reporter, I’m constantly talking to journalists and executives about various crises or drama in the industry. But it’s rare that I get an hour of their time to basically ask them everything I’ve ever wanted to know about the state of the business of media, which is what this project entailed,” said Klein. “We wanted to give readers a sense of what powerful people were actually talking about behind closed doors, which is why we let people sometimes be anonymous, terms that allowed many of these people to relax a bit and speak freely about everything from imploding business models to what they wish they could to tell their staff. It amounts to what I believe is the most thorough—and dishy—survey of the news media today, and where it might be going. I can’t wait to see how it shakes out.”
The Power Issue also includes a substantial photography portfolio by Paul Kooiker.
Elsewhere in the issue, Kerry Howley profiles Tim Walz, candidate for vice-president of the United States and Minnesota governor, David Freedlander explores the Trump and Harris campaigns’ battle for every vote, and Christopher Bonanos writes on Fifth Avenue’s upcoming transformation.