Dispatch

Alan Soon at Splice Media: “If we stripped away the act of writing and editing, what value is left in your newsroom?” His practical framework: stop treating AI as a chat interface and invest in “context engineering” — documentation, structured workspaces, and persistent context that compounds. For WordPress publishers, the implication is that clean taxonomies and content architecture aren’t just CMS hygiene anymore — they’re what determines whether your content is useful to AI agents or just gets scraped without attribution.

Substack’s 10% revenue cut is driving creators to flat-fee rivals. The Ankler is moving to Passport (Automattic + Stratechery); others are saving thousands on Ghost and Beehiiv. WordPress infrastructure is now a credible exit ramp for premium newsletter publishers.

BuzzFeed is selling a majority stake to Byron Allen’s family office: $120M for 40M shares at $3, giving Allen ~52% control. He’ll become Chairman & CEO; Jonah Peretti shifts to President of BuzzFeed AI. Q1 2026: $31.6M revenue (-12% YoY), net loss $15.1M, and they’re explicitly framing the future as AI + free, YouTube-style streaming.