After months of licking their wounds and reflecting on how they lost the internet, Democratic strategists and politically-aligned digital creators are privately planning their next steps.
Last week, Democratic operatives gathered at the Wharf in Washington, DC, at the offices of Laurene Powell Jobs’ investment company, Emerson Collective. According to three people with knowledge of the event, the activists and left-leaning media members were in town for a private meeting to discuss how the left’s well-funded digital media ecosystem failed in the 2024 election. The conference featured hourlong seminars on how to improve short and long form video, which included briefings from Courier Newsroom’s Tara McGowan and executives at Crooked Media, and how to better collaborate with influencers to push progressive messages out.
The summit was also an opportunity to connect several of the party’s prominent financial supporters with some of the liberal media organizations that are positioning themselves as vessels to help liberals regain digital ground they’ve lost to the right in recent years.
In the room were Ben Wessel, the director of State and Local Political Affairs for Emerson Collective and Laura Quinn, an executive with the liberal firm Catalist who often advises liberal donors on how to spend their money in progressive media. Michael Del Nin, Soros Fund Management’s leading investor, was also in attendance to talk about strategies around acquiring media companies. Peter Murray also spoke to the group about strategic media opportunities; his organization, Accelerate Change, bought Now This from Vox in 2023, and pivoted it into a more explicitly partisan influencer-driven short-form video company.
