Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

The New Yorker gets an intense Mooch bump

No blocking here: A rush of attention and new subscribers after Ryan Lizza’s astonishing Scaramucci interview.

Trump Cabinet Officials Mingle With Journalists During Regional Media Day
Trump Cabinet Officials Mingle With Journalists During Regional Media Day
White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci
Chip Somodevilla / Getty
Peter Kafka
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.

Donald Trump says the “fake news media” are “the enemy of the people.” His advocates at Breitbart say their goal is “the full destruction and elimination of the entire mainstream media.”

But in the meantime, the Trump administration continues to be good news for much of the media world.

Since you are reading this, you are already familiar with the Trump Bump that has boosted subscriptions at newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post, and lifted ratings for CNN and other TV news programmers.

Which means you will also not be surprised to learn about the Mooch Bump: After the New Yorker published its astonishing interview/monologue with new White House talker Anthony Scaramucci on Thursday, the venerable magazine has been basking in attention, and dollars.

Via the New Yorker’s PR office:

  • Ryan Lizza’s piece generated 4.4 million unique visitors, making it the publication’s best-read piece of the year so far.
  • It also generated 1.7 million entries on social-media platforms, and 100,000 concurrent visitors in the first few hours after it ran on the NewYorker.com.
  • Most important for the magazine, whose business model is dependent on subscribers, the piece has attracted new sign-ups. While the magazine won’t spell out how many new subs the story has generated, it says it has “seen a 92 percent increase in the July daily average of new subs.”

This is normally the time to add the to-be-sure graph, noting that, anecdotally, media orgs that reported a Trump Bump earlier in the year are reporting an understandable tapering off. And that some news orgs have moved from an All Trump All The Time footing to something approaching normalcy.

But I’ve gone more than 282 words at this point, and I haven’t made a single reference to “cock-blocking” or autofellatio, and I have to give you guys something.

So here, via an NBC tweet of a Reuters photo, is a five-day-old photo of Scaramucci along with other Trump favs including Corey Lewandowski, Seb Gorka and, of course Omarosa Manigault.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Podcasts
Anthropic just made AI scarierAnthropic just made AI scarier
Podcast
Podcasts

Why the company’s new AI model is a cybersecurity nightmare.

By Dustin DeSoto and Sean Rameswaram
Politics
The Supreme Court will decide when the police can use your phone to track youThe Supreme Court will decide when the police can use your phone to track you
Politics

Chatrie v. United States asks what limits the Constitution places on the surveillance state in an age of cellphones.

By Ian Millhiser
Future Perfect
The simple question that could change your careerThe simple question that could change your career
Future Perfect

Making a difference in the world doesn’t require changing your job.

By Bryan Walsh
Technology
The case for AI realismThe case for AI realism
Technology

AI isn’t going to be the end of the world — no matter what this documentary sometimes argues.

By Shayna Korol
Politics
OpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agendaOpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agenda
Politics

The AI company released a set of highly progressive policy ideas. There’s just one small problem.

By Eric Levitz
Future Perfect
Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.
Future Perfect

Protecting astronauts in space — and maybe even Mars — will help transform health on Earth.

By Shayna Korol