Status Check: The Winners and Losers of 2025

2025 was a bruising year for the media industry. Established giants from New York to Hollywood were pushed deeper into upheaval by relentless consolidation, fleeing audiences, and mounting political pressure. At the same time, artificial intelligence posed a growing dilemma for newsrooms, audience trust continued to fray, and Donald Trump’s return to power once again warped executive decisions.

Some leaders adjusted, steering their institutions through a volatile moment and emerged stronger. Others stumbled—sabotaged by poor strategy, political concessions, or a failure to keep up with the audiences they once commanded. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Some resilient figures thrived, turning the upheaval into opportunity and using the moment to build new momentum.

So as the year draws to a close, we examined the media figures who finished 2025 ascendant and those who saw their influence diminish. And now, without further ado…

The Winners

The Pentagon Press Corps: By official measures, it should have been a brutal year for the journalists who cover the Pentagon. Pete Hegseth subjected reporters to a steady torrent of increasingly restrictive and often absurd rules, ultimately expelling them from the building after they refused to sign new rules that would have turned them into government stenographers. Yet despite the pressure campaign, the Pentagon press corps continued to aggressively report on the department. Over the past year, reporters broke a series of major stories, including the recent revelation that the U.S. military carried out a “double tap” strike on a suspected Venezuelan drug smuggling boat that killed survivors of an initial attack. The revelation landed Hegseth in hot water, including with Republicans on Capitol Hill, and served as a reminder that even without access to their former workspaces, Pentagon reporters remain a check on power that the department has not been able to silence.

Creator driven media: As instability deepened inside legacy newsrooms, more journalists chose to strike out on their own, and many were rewarded for it. In 2025 alone, veteran television newsers Jim Acosta and Terry Moran launched Substack publications after being forced out of their longtime homes at CNN and ABC News. Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen left their homes at The WaPo and CNN to start The Contrarian, which now boasts more than a half-million readers. Elsewhere, figures like Alex Heath, Lachlan Cartwright, Tara Palmeri, and Derek Thompson all went independent. They were hardly alone. After exiting their employers last year, other marquee names found real traction. Paul Krugman amassed nearly half a million readers on Substack. Don Lemon surpassed one million subscribers on YouTube. Taylor Lorenz expanded her audience across the social web, including to more than half a million followers on TikTok. And Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me climbed past 10,000 paid subscribers. Together, they all underscored that journalists no longer need the distribution pipes of the old media to stay relevant and earn a living.

A.G. Sulzberger and Meredith Kopit Levien: The New York Times publisher Sulzberger and chief executive Kopit Levien preside over one of legacy media’s rare subscription successes, now topping 12.3 million subscribers. They also led one of the few major institutions willing to stand up to the stream of attacks emanating from Donald Trump and his administration. While most news outlets cowered in 2025, opting as institutions to stay silent as Trump and his allies smeared their organizations and journalists, The Times was unafraid. Under the leadership of Sulzberger and Kopit Levien, the newspaper pushed back forcefully, issuing blistering statements and fact checks to counter the president's barrage of anti-press attacks.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone: For a moment in 2025, it seemed as if the future of "South Park" could be in doubt. But Parker and Stone ultimately signed a monster, $1.5 billion deal with Paramount—and despite working for a company clearly trying to stay in the good graces of Trump, the duo has relentlessly needled the president. In fact, it's difficult to imagine how the two could mock Trump and his staff more. Throughout the most recent season of the acclaimed series, Parker and Stone have gone scorched Earth on Trump, mocking his manhood, imagining him in a relationship with Satan, and ridiculing his top deputies, including Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth. While many bent the knee before Trump this year, Parker and Stone made him the butt of the joke.

Jimmy Kimmel: For a few days this year, Jimmy Kimmel’s future at Disney appeared uncertain. Executives in Burbank triggered an earthquake after briefly pulling the comedian off the air in the face of threats from Trump’s hand-picked FCC chair, Brendan Carr, only to later reverse course. When Kimmel returned to the air, he pulled no punches, continuing to mock Trump on a nightly basis. Viewers rewarded him for it, with ratings on the ABC late-night show surging in the aftermath of the mess. At least one person also proved to be watching with regularity: Trump. The TV critic-in-chief regularly raged at the comic, but his late-night Truth Social tantrums failed to pierce Kimmel's armor. The funnyman announced earlier this month that he had renewed his contract with ABC for at least another year.

Jon Stewart: Like Kimmel, Stewart's future on television was in serious doubt this year, especially after Paramount executives canceled the top-rated "Late Show With Stephen Colbert." In the wake of the stunning announcement to end the late night franchise, Stewart delivered a blistering takedown of the media moguls who chose to appease Trump, appearing to deliver a candid message to his new bosses. And yet, despite his plain refusal to kowtow before the MAGA kingpin who occupies the Oval Office, Stewart announced he too had signed a contract extension, locking him in for another year as a once-a-week host on "The Daily Show."

David Zaslav: Bankers and lawyers always find a way to win—and so does Zaslav. Despite steering Warner Bros. Discovery into a position where it became vulnerable to a hostile takeover, ultimately forcing the company into an asset auction, Zaslav’s personal fortune has continued to grow. The WBD chief is on track to become a billionaire once a deal closes with either Netflix or Paramount. And because of the regulatory hurdles either buyer would face, Zaslav is expected to remain in charge of the storied studio through at least 2026—preserving his mogul status in Hollywood for the foreseeable future.

The Losers

Bari Weiss: While The Free Press co-founder saw her personal fortunes rise after David Ellison acquired her “anti-woke” outlet for some $150 million, she has struggled as the new editor of CBS News. Weiss set initially her sights on top talent like Bret Baier and Anderson Cooper as potential new anchors of the "CBS Evening News." But she was unable to lure a high-wattage star to helm the program, ultimately settling for internal candidate Tony Dokoupil. Elsewhere, Weiss' early programming ideas have landed with a thud. Her first suggestion of a town hall with former secretaries of state in the wake of the Israel-Gaza peace deal aired on the network’s streamer to a minuscule audience with Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice ultimately participating via Zoom. Weiss’ prime time town hall with Erika Kirk was widely panned—and failed to attract a sizable viewership. Then this week, she spiked a “60 Minutes” piece on Trump deportations at the eleventh hour, sparking fury both inside and outside the network, including from the segment’s correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, who denounced the decision as “political.” Under Weiss’ tenure, morale at CBS News has sunk to rock bottom. And that’s no small problem: demoralized newsrooms rarely perform like those who believe in their mission.

CBS News: It has been a tough year to be an employee of CBS News, to put it mildly. The network, once the home to greats like Edward R. Murrow, has been rocked by tough episodes throughout the year. Former owner Shari Redstone forced the network to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit against “60 Minutes,” a case the company itself deemed to be "meritless." Network boss Wendy McMahon and "60 Minutes" chief Bill Owens resigned in the face of corporate interference. David Ellison took over and installed Weiss as top boss, who demanded every employee send her an Elon Musk-style memo explaining their jobs. Standards chief Claudia Milne resigned after privately expressing worry over the appointments of Kenneth Weinstein, the network’s new pro-MAGA ombudsman, and Weiss. And now Weiss’ intervention at “60 Minutes” is renewing accusations of political interference at the network.

The Overlords of Big Tech: It was a revealing and embarrassing year for nearly every Big Tech leader. The titans of Silicon Valley—Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Neal Mohan—spent 2025 overtly currying favor with Trump. Whether it was Cook gifting a 24-karat gold and glass sculpture to the president in the Oval Office, Mohan platforming right-wing conspiracy channel OAN on YouTube TV and his Google-owned platform paying Trump $24.5 million for suspending Trump’s account after January 6, or Zuckerberg rolling back fact-checking across Meta's product suite, the Masters of the Universe cowered in the face of an aspiring autocrat, staining their reputations forever in the process.

MAGA Media: 2025 should have been a year of harmony and celebration for right-wing personalities, with Trump back in the Oval Office and Republicans controlling Congress—a perfect moment to “own the libs.” Instead, top MAGA Media influencers began tearing each other down. Whether it was disagreements over Israel policy, conspiracy theories over Charlie Kirk’s death, or the Epstein Files, there was plenty of back-and-forth skirmishes throughout the year. Most notably, the fault lines were exposed when extremist Tucker Carlson interviewed the Holocaust-denying white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his show. That touched off a civil war, with Ben Shapiro devoting an entire episode of his program to rebuking Carlson and leading to an open conflict at Turning Point’s AmericaFest. Meanwhile, Candace Owens’ outrageous claims that Erika Kirk was involved with her late husband’s murder has ripped MAGA apart, revealing the movement’s self-destructive embrace of conspiracy theories.

Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong: When Bezos bought The Washington Post and Soon-Shiong acquired the Los Angeles Times, there was genuine hope the billionaires would stabilize the papers and guide them toward a sustainable future. That optimism evaporated in 2025 as both men steered their newspapers to the right to curry favor with Trump. Readers of both publications revolted, with hundreds of thousands of people cancelling their subscriptions. Amid the turmoil, the newspapers faced a brutal combination of layoffs and exodus of top talent as their businesses faltered. The meddling by the owners was not just a journalistic failure, but also a strategic blunder.

Sydney Sweeney: The "Euphoria" and "White Lotus" star saw her reputation take a significant hit over the summer after an advertisement campaign she filmed for American Eagle's jeans went awry. Sweeney's insistence on remaining silent throughout the storm of controversy was seen by the MAGA movement—as well as white nationalists—that she was one of them. In doing so, Sweeney alienated fans as she became a Fox News obsession. Finally, when she addressed the hoopla months later, she failed to have anything meaningful to say, once again triggering backlash. In the aftermath of the saga, two of Sweeney's movies bombed at the box office. Notably, "Christy," seen as a possible awards contender, became one of the worst performing films released widely in theaters. Yikes!

The White House Correspondents’ Association: Over the course of the year, Trump repeatedly attacked the WHCA's members—but the association was largely paralyzed, opting at times to talk tough, but not take meaningful action. That led to some members questioning leadership's strategy of engaging with the White House. While some of the most intense controversies died down, the results remain: Outlets like the Associated Press and HuffPost have been exiled from their places in the White House press pool, left to fend for themselves. And Trump's White House now controls the pool, deciding which outlets are permitted to cover him.

CNN: While Fox News and MS NOW have benefited in the ratings from Trump's return to Washington, CNN has failed to recapture the magic it enjoyed during his first term in office. None of its prime time shows get anywhere close to averaging 1 million total viewers these days. Often, the network is lucky for its prime time offerings to amass a half-million viewers. And CNN now mostly loses to MS NOW on big political news nights in total viewership. Making matters worse, MS NOW often bests it in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic. While some of the ratings woes can certainly be attributed to the decline of linear television, it's hard to untangle the audience declines from the stewardship of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, which threw out former CNN chief Jeff Zucker's aggressive playbook calling out Trump, and opted for softer coverage—editorial decisions that alienated many of its once-loyal viewers.

Linda Yaccarino: Who could have possibly seen it coming? After inexplicably hitching her wagon to Elon Musk, the erratic billionaire ultimately threw the former NBCUniversal advertising executive-turned-X chief overboard earlier this year. Unfortunately for Yaccarino, her time at X defending Musk’s childish and dangerous behavior shredded her reputation, leaving few eager to hire her after she was ousted from the troubled social media company. Shunned from media circles, Yaccarino took a job as chief executive of eMed—a downfall of epic proportions.

Roger Lynch, Anna Wintour, and Mark Guiducci. The Condé Nast leadership trio spent weeks sitting on their hands as their newly installed Vanity Fair West Coast editor, Olivia Nuzzi, faced serious allegations of ethical misconduct. Eventually, the publishing house let her go—or should we say, it let her contract expire as scheduled at the end of the year. The drawn-out decision-making process, capped by a quiet Friday announcement, reflected poorly on the company. The optics were especially bad after a year of layoffs and budget cuts—and even more striking when contrasted with the company’s swift and bizarre firing of staffers who protested the shuttering of Teen Vogue.

Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza: Do we really need to explain?