Jon Favreau, Ben Rhodes, Cody Keenan, Alyssa Mastromonaco, David Axelrod and Dan Pfeiffer. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.
Several Obama White House alumni and “Keeping it 1600” podcasters have launched a new media company named “Crooked Media.”
Administration veterans Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer plan on expanding their podcast — renaming it to “Pod Save America” — to a multimedia platform for political activism and analysis.
Discussing the new venture, Vietor, formerly Obama’s national security spokesman, said “It’s small and bootstrapped and designed to grow over time… what we noticed is that during the campaign, people looked to us to help narrate and make sense of the day-to-day madness. And we’re the first ones to admit that we got the results totally wrong. Now they’re asking us, what can we do about Trump? How do we get involved and engaged and be more active?”
Crooked Media plans to expand into additional podcasts, video, and activist recruitment, as a social media counter to efforts on the right.
“I think the lesson from (President-elect Donald) Trump is if you’re filtering every message and idea you have through traditional media, he will swamp you with a Tweet,” Vietor said. “So we need to build up infrastructure that allows people to communicate directly with young people across the country.”
Along with Vietor, Crooked Media brings the experience of Pfeiffer as former White House senior advisor and communications director, Favreau as President Obama’s chief speechwriter, and White House speechwriter Lovett.