Same Moment, Different Feeds
In the second column of a series that began with The Great Unwalling, Paul Pfanner looks at how people born this century find news and culture, and why a handful of young publishers are choosing paper on purpose.
The Great Un-walling
Paul Pfanner spent more than four decades building media franchises the old way. Now the walls are coming down, and he’s asking the question most of the industry would rather skip. Who needs whom?
Will NASCAR Play the TV Game or Redefine It?
Part two of NASCAR’s Moment. Paul Pfanner looks at the sport that wrote American motorsport’s TV playbook as it faces a reset of its own, with its biggest broadcast partner now part-owning a rival and its own sports car series passing it on YouTube.
The Power of Now
We can bring nearly anything to a screen, yet people keep paying more to be there in person. Paul Pfanner looks at what that tells us about racing and live entertainment, and why the present moment carries so much value.
State of the Art Branding Case Studies
In the final post of his series on branding in the age of AI, Bill Sparks asks the practical question the first seven built toward: who's actually doing this well? From Nike to a neighborhood bakery, the answer looks surprisingly consistent.
How the Ad Industry Is Reinventing Itself
The agency-of-record era that ran for a century is coming apart. In part seven of his branding series, Bill Sparks tracks what the industry's biggest players are doing as the ground shifts, and what it means for anyone trying to keep a brand's story straight.
AI and the Personalization of Brand Narrative
Part six of Bill Sparks' series on the evolution of branding. Can a machine tell your brand's story? Bill separates the AI that is quietly making marketing better from the AI that keeps embarrassing the companies that trust it in the open.
Building Brand Loyalty Through Community
Bill Sparks on why handing your story to your customers is the hardest brand strategy to pull off, and the loyalty it earns that no ad budget can buy.
Independent Creators as Brand Storytellers
Bill Sparks looks at how creator partnerships became a $44 billion channel, and the tradeoff every brand faces: the authenticity that makes a creator worth hiring is the same thing you can't fully control.
Brands as Publishers: The Rise of Owned Media
Bill Sparks on how a handful of brands became publishers, why owning an audience beats renting one, and where most companies go wrong.
The Trust Problem: From Threat to Opportunity
Companies have never had more ways to reach us, or been trusted less. Bill Sparks on how brands lost the public's trust, and what the smart ones are doing to earn it back.
Why the Old Branding Playbook Stopped Working
Bill Sparks opens a new series on how the old branding playbook broke — and what's replacing it.
Who Owns The Audience Now?
Paul Pfanner argues the audience has changed who it trusts for good, from institutions to individuals, and asks what that leaves someone still playing by the old rules.
Real Just Got Expensive
Paul Pfanner makes the case that the flood of machine-made content is raising the price of the few things no machine can fake.
Truth or Power?
Paul Pfanner on the one test that tells a free press from a captured one. Madison, Murrow, and a standard that takes no side.
You Are Here to Witness Truth
Paul Pfanner accepts the 2026 Russo-Marvel Founders Award and challenges the journalists who cover motorsports to build the future of their profession in an age of AI.
Racing is Learning
As Paul Pfanner receives the SPMJ Russo-Marvel Founders Award, he offers a meditation on learning, proximity, and who journalists actually work for.
The Audience Has Already Voted
Paul Pfanner traces the three data points that have already decided the future of sport, mobility, and media — and asks why the industry is still arguing with the scoreboard.
The Medium Was Never the Message
The assumption that held media together for 40,000 years is no longer guaranteed. Paul Pfanner on what ended, what it means, and what the only surviving business actually is.
The New Sovereignty: Mastering Algorithmic Meta-Capital
Bill Sparks introduces Algorithmic Meta-Capital — the strategic asset class that determines whether your organization exists in the AI decision-making loop or has already been written out of it.