Three years after launch, The Information has a reporting staff of 10, is cash-flow positive, and juggles a closed-club feel with aggressive reporting
On the astro-turfed rooftop of a SoHo penthouse this summer, a mix of tech executives, investors, and B-list celebrities sipped Champagne … See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This profile lands mid-arc in the collapse-and-rebuild of tech media: months earlier, ad-funded publisher Mode Media had wound down amid a changing ad market and investors who lost faith, while The Information was proving the opposite bet — a 10-reporter subscription shop, no ad dependence, already cash-flow positive three years in.
The tension CJR flags is structural, not cosmetic: the same SoHo penthouse events that give the outlet its insider access also raise questions about whether coverage of the covered stays independent. That closed-club dynamic has since deepened on both sides — tech notables now gather in paid networks like Column, and outlets' sources increasingly publish directly, as with Andreessen Horowitz's own opinion section.
First-order effects
- The Information's cash-flow-positive milestone makes it a working template for small-staff, high-price subscription journalism — direct validation for its own expansion and for funders weighing similar bets.
- Its dual identity as event host and watchdog puts its editors under live pressure to firewall the Champagne-rooftop access from the aggressive scoops it is known for.
Second-order effects
- Incumbents are pushed down the same path: NYT's digital overhaul leaned into subscriber lures like vertical apps and experimental formats (Beta Group's apps, chatbots, VR), treating reader revenue rather than ads as the core business.
- Rivals without a differentiated scoop pipeline face a squeeze between Mode-style ad-market decay and The Information's premium pricing, forcing consolidation or niche refocusing among ad-dependent tech publishers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the covered parties stop needing intermediaries entirely — a16z's in-house opinion section and tech figures coordinating pushback against critical reporters (the Clubhouse discussions that led to harassment of NYT's Taylor Lorenz) point to an industry that publishes about itself.
- That bifurcates tech coverage structurally: subscription newsrooms selling independence to readers on one side, corporate-owned channels selling narrative to the public on the other — with access-based outlets caught negotiating between them.
The trend: Tech journalism is splitting into lean subscription newsrooms funded by readers and company-owned publishing arms funded by the subjects themselves, with ad-supported generalists squeezed out of the middle.