The infamous “pivot to video” in the 2010s was a disaster for publishers. The scars of that mistake still linger in newsrooms, magazines and digital media outlets everywhere, like the splatter of that watermelon that BuzzFeed exploded by constricting it with rubber bands.
But the outlets that got hosed in that shift weren’t making a mistake, they were just early to the game, and had become too compliant to the tech platforms that had been feeding them audience for years.
This week New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn appeared on Peter Kafka’s Channels podcast, where he framed the outlet’s rush into video as a “race against time” and “as big a transformation as the print-to-digital transformation.” It garnered the expected snark from media veterans who still hold the scars from the last pivot to video, but as with most strategic maneuvers in media, the Times simply has its pulse on the moment better than most in the space.
Video has been the dominant form of media for decades, it’s just that until now, it was defined by the form factor: TV screens. But 2026 isn’t 2015: All video can be TV now. The floodgates are open, and it would be a dereliction of duty for legacy media brands to ignore it.
