Mehdi Hasan gets candid on Trump coverage, future of cable news, and more

Earlier this year, in February, former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan announced he would launch Zeteo, an independent media organization.

Starting a digital media company in 2024 — as the entire industry faces brutal headwinds — is no walk in the park. But Hasan has found success. Zeteo currently boasts more than 32,000 paid subscribers and has more than $3 million in annual recurring revenue.

We caught up with Hasan on Sunday for a conversation about opting to go independent, the future of cable news, how legacy news organizations cover Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and more. Below is the Q&A, edited for length and clarity.

Zeteo is not even six months old and it is doing $3 million in annual recurring revenue. Did you think you'd see that type of success so soon?

No, certainly not. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that we would have done this well. So the team and I have been pleasantly surprised and overwhelmingly appreciative of the support we've gotten and the growth we've made. Especially in a media industry which is facing all sorts of problems. To be able to thrive in this way, we are deeply grateful.

Why do you think so many journalists in recent years have opted to strike out on their own?

The main reason is that the mainstream industry is no longer hospitable to them for various reasons. Whether it's financial reasons or ideological reasons. People find themselves unable to say what they want to say or do what they want to do within the confines of corporate media.

I'm of Persian descent. You're of Indian descent. I'm curious: Do you think that being a brown person in media has had any effect on the opportunities you've been afforded in traditional media?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I believe Western media, in general, is institutionally Islamophobic. And if anyone understands what institutional bigotry is, it doesn't mean there are individual racists or that individual Muslims or Black people can't get ahead. It's not what it means. But it does mean that there are attitudes, tropes, and structural biases that you have to overcome to get ahead. At the same time, no, in the sense that actually, I think I've done much better in the U.S. than I would have done in the U.K.

What do you think the news media environment will look like in 10 years? Will cable news still be a thing?

You'd have to be insane to try and predict what the news media will look like in 10 months, never mind 10 years. It's very clear that a lot of corporate media outlets are waiting to see what the results of the election will be to decide what kind of editorial lines they'll take.

To take your second question: People have been predicting the death of cable news for a while. Even though I've left cable news, I'm not one of those people who says it is dead, finished, period. I left MSNBC, but I'm under no illusion that MSNBC still plays a big role in political and media conversations, as does CNN. Are they on the decline? Sure, everyone knows cord-cutting is an issue. But it's not happening tomorrow.

What mistakes do you see news organizations making when they report on billionaires like Elon Musk?

There's an issue that corporate media is owned by billionaires. Fox News is owned by a billionaire called Rupert Murdoch. Comcast has some very rich people in charge of it. Go through Disney and ABC. So, of course, there's a class bias that you just can't wish away, right? These are their fellow people. Anyone who pretends that doesn't play a role or is not a factor is just lying to you.

The second point is that we've begun to grade Musk on a curve in the same way that was true for Trump. I look at the Musk coverage and it's déjà vu. There are too many crazy things to cover at once, so we must just let it go. Basically what we've done with Trump. I think that's the problem... There are so many [conspiratorial and hateful tweets] to keep track of.

Why do you believe the legacy news media is not more direct in calling out Donald Trump for openly talking about essentially ruling as an autocrat?

Number one: The legacy media is not built to cover a Donald Trump. It's built to do both-sides coverage, and therefore, when one side is saying completely outlandish and crazy stuff, it simply can't handle reporting it in a truthful, direct, blunt way.

Number two: There's an access issue that we all know about. A lot of these reporters, if they say exactly what is going on and use the word autocrat, use the word racist, use the word dictator — they're not going to have the same access to Trump's team. And people want to have access for good reasons. I'm not maligning their intentions. They want to be able to break stories. But that's a constraining factor.

Number three: Go back to the corporate boardrooms. A lot of these people are actually favorable to Trump and Trump's tax cuts. And also Trump's stimulus in the ratings.

And number four is not just a media point: I'm seeing this from the American public in general. A lot of people are like, "Come on, he's not really going to be that bad. He's not really going to be a dictator." And I think American exceptionalism has basically put Americans in a bubble. And this idea that it couldn't happen here. We couldn't become an autocracy. We're not going to become fascist. We're not going to lose our democracy like banana republics. Yeah, we are. There's nothing special about America that makes us immune from global or historical trends.

A number of news organizations have inked deals with OpenAI to license their content. If Sam Altman approached you today, would you be inclined to make such a deal?

That's a great question that I need to think about. We cannot stand and turn back the tide. It's coming, whether we like it or not. The issue is, what kind of A.I. regulation are we going to have? And what's the best use for it? I don't know the answer. I do know that I would never outsource content creation. But are there things we can do with A.I.? For example, fact-checking and finding patterns that human beings can't find as fast in data — that kind of stuff could be very valuable and potentially useful. That's the type of stuff I'm interested in.

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