“I have not slept for the past year, nor has my team.”
In a cozy Middle Eastern restaurant in New York City last week, Mehdi stood in front of a crowd of prominent journalists, YouTubers, activists, and even the former mayor of NYC at a celebration of the first anniversary of the media company he launched in April 2024, the media company you’re all subscribed to (hopefully as paid subscribers!): Zeteo.
“The idea that I would be put in charge of something like this is insane. I can’t actually believe you're all here with me tonight,” began Mehdi, almost in disbelief. From the get-go, he knew the risks involved in starting a media company like Zeteo in the United States in 2024, especially as a Muslim, an immigrant, and a journalist, or as Mehdi put it, “the Trump trifecta.” But one year later, the results speak for themselves.
“We have more than three-quarters of a million subscribers on YouTube in a year. We have 400,000 subscribers on Substack. We have a million followers on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Blue Sky,” said Mehdi proudly at the party sponsored by Substack. “We published original, impactful, authentic stories, essays. We launched merch… We did live events, and we pissed off some billionaires, which apparently is the real metric for being a successful journalist in America right now.”
One year in, Zeteo’s place in the media landscape is pretty clear: “We are not here to fit in. We are not here to play ‘both sides’ journalism, not in an age of genocide or fascism.” In addition to what Zeteo won’t be doing in its second year, Mehdi also outlined what it will be doing. “We are here to make some noise, and we are here to ask hard questions, tell uncomfortable truths.”
Watch the full speech, above, to hear what it was about starting Zeteo that made Mehdi in jest “almost want to become a Republican,” and stay till the end to hear why he felt the need to apologize to a particular group of people in the audience.
If you liked the work we did in our first year and want to see us outdo ourselves in our second, do consider becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo - or even a donor, too. Please do support independent journalism and become part of the movement to seek, speak, and defend the truth.
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