EXCLUSIVE: Good News Network, the digital publisher that champions stories of human progress, is under new management.
We can reveal a newly formed holding company, GNN Group, has acquired the company for an undisclosed amount, with Whalar Group co-founder and co-CEO and creator economy investor James Street on board.
Street will become GNN co-founder and lead investor, and will be co-chairman alongside another GNN co-founder Anthony Samadani, who will lead a production unit called GNN Studios and oversee original programming.
Stephanie Sharis, who held senior roles at AOL, SnagFilms, Indiewire, ViewLift and Cricket Media, has been named CEO of GNN, and Geri Weis-Corbley, who founded Good News Network in 1997, will continue with the company as founding editor.
Good News Network was launched 29 years ago and has since focused on finding positive stories, while expanding into a gamified daily app, a creator-led YouTube channel, and film and TV production. As its new parent, GNN plans to scale the business across platforms, with Street, who co-created early creator economy business Whalar.
“Good News Network has spent nearly 30 years giving people a reason to feel hopeful, and I wanted to be part of what comes next,” said Street. “I’m excited to bring what I’ve learned from the creator economy to help GNN reach new audiences and make good news travel further and wider. It’s some of the most meaningful work I could be doing.”
GNN noted “the acquisition comes at a moment when audiences are increasingly disengaging from traditional news while continuing to demonstrate demand for positive storytelling across entertainment,” pointing to Digital News Report 2026 stats that show 42% of people now actively avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017, and trust in news has fallen to a record low of 37% worldwide, and lower still in the U.S., at 25%.
The company also pointed the box office success of feelgood sci-fi movie Project Hail Mary; and revenues at the faith-based Angel Studios as examples of desire to good news content.
“There is real hardship in the world, and honest journalism should never look away from it,” said Weis-Corbley. “But good happens every single day too, and it rarely gets the same attention. When hope gets crowded out, people lose the sense that what they do matters. We started Good News Network in 1997 to tell the other half of the story.”
Weis-Corbley will now benefor from a “fully rebuilt” GNN website, which will launch before the end of the year, while Good News Break, the company’s daily newsletter will become a web-based app in early 2027.
Also launching is a GNN YouTube channel, which will be programmed by GNN Studios. The focus will be on inspiring content from creators, celebrities, athletes and entertainers. GNN said it will aggregate and amplify other creators’ work, not compete with it.
Street, whose Whalar business is built on building creator-led businesses, will help GNN develop partnerships with brands to work with creators and their audiences around stories and causes, and offer social media advice.
GNN Studios will also develop original programming, including YouTube-native series, feature documentaries, films and podcasts.
Under Samadani, the studio recently produced Dream Fever, a feature documentary that follows differently-abled singer Emmanuel Kelly from a shoebox in Iraq, where he was abandoned at birth, to stadium stages opening for Coldplay across Australia and New Zealand.
It’s currently in post-production, and additional partnerships and projects are expected to be announced in the coming months.
“The demand is no longer theoretical,” said Sharis. “Studios and streamers have proven the appetite at enormous scale. What nobody has done is build it in news and daily media, which is exactly where the harm is being done and exactly where people spend their attention every single day. That is the gap we are capitalized to close.”
“Good news has spent decades as the thing you tack onto the end of the broadcast,” said Samadani. “We are treating it as a category, and we intend to own it. The site tells the stories, Good News Break makes the habit something you look forward to, the YouTube channel gives creators who already inspire millions a home built for them, and GNN Studios turns the best of it into programming people actually choose.
“Shining a light on the best of humanity is the most underestimated force in media. It shifts culture. It opens hearts and minds. And it moves people, all over the world, to go do more good.”