Acerbic Political Pundit Mehdi Hasan to Launch ‘Independent, Unfiltered’ Digital Media Company
- Named Zeteo, which means “to seek” in Greek,” it will produce a weekly streaming show, a weekly podcast and a regular slate of written pieces by a host of prominent contributors.
Liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan is launching his own digital media company. The announcement comes almost two months after the British-American broadcaster and author, announced his departure from MSNBC, following the cancellation of his shows. The son of Indian immigrants from Hyderabad regularly went viral for his combative interviews, and was a strident critic of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and a strong supporter for the Palestinian people.
He is the latest in a slew of former cable news hosts to launch media companies and brands of their own like former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson and former CNN host Don Lemon.
Hasan’s new media company is named Zeteo, which in Greek means “to seek, to inquire,” he said in a video announcement on X. “I’ve been busy a la Nick Fury assembling an Avengers-style team of contributors, the kind of big names from media activism and Hollywood that will blow your mind,” he said.
The company will launch in full in April on the Substack platform after a gradual rollout beginning today. It will publish a weekly streaming show, “Mehdi Unfiltered,” hosted by Hasan, a weekly podcast and a regular slate of written pieces by a host of prominent contributors.
“No one really on the progressive left has been able to pull off anything similar,” he told The Washington Post. He also told the paper that he has raised $4 million for the venture. “This is one of the biggest news years of our lives, and that’s why I wanted to do something like this,” he told the Post. “I’m not a businessman. I’m not an entrepreneur. I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s a huge gamble. But if I wasn’t confident, I wouldn’t be doing this.” Full access to the site will cost users $8 per month, or $72 per year. There’s also a $500 per year “founding member” option that includes a signed copy of his book and exclusive Zoom calls with the host.
He also joined The Guardian as a regular columnist. “I have been poring over columns in the Guardian since I was a teenager. Now I get to write some of my own, in what is perhaps one of the busiest and biggest news years of my lifetime,” he told Semafor. “It’s a huge honor and a privilege.”
MSNBC faced flak for its decision to cancel Hasan’s shows. Although the cable news network said the changes were made with 2024 election coverage in mind, those supporting Hasan claimed that the liberal host, one of the few Muslim hosts in cable news, lost his job for his views on Israel and Palestine. Politico noted that the news came as “MSNBC has faced scrutiny for its treatment of Muslim on-air personalities since the outset of Israel’s war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.”