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Your first bullet is totally correct, barrier to entry has collapsed and it's easy to do high-quality journalism without the backing of an institution. The pe
by michaelrpeskin 3y ago
Your first bullet is totally correct, barrier to entry has collapsed and it's easy to do high-quality journalism without the backing of an institution. The people who are good journalists that people want to read have gone to platforms like Substack where they can directly monetize their work. The mediocre journalist stay with the institutions, so there's a net talent drain from the publishers. Which leads to lower quality work and that causes more subscribers to leave (of course annoying ads and everything contribute), and as you say the finance base has gone down the drain.
I see it as a net positive, you have a decentralized distributed group of investitive journalists who are directly reliant on their subscriber base rather than the political whims of the institution. So they are more incentivized to do good work and are harder to silence when the go against the powers-that-be.
It's a shift to merit (are you a good journalist) from credentialism (the BigPublisherCo gives you a job as a writer).
- eszed 3y agoWho's doing long-form investigative journalism on Substack? That's not snark: if they're on there I want to subscribe. I don't know who they are.
- michaelrpeskin 3y agoUnfortunately, any one I pick will anger one side or the other of the isle, so I'll refrain from naming names. There area bout a half dozen good long form Substacks that I follow and I know my friends follow a few others that I don't. They sound good too, but I don't want to devote that much time to reading :)
- phatfish 3y agoI feel like there are very few "high-quality" journalists that can support themselves on Substack/Patreon alone. A story might take months of research and travel to do properly.
- mschuster91 3y ago> I see it as a net positive, you have a decentralized distributed group of investitive journalists who are directly reliant on their subscriber base rather than the political whims of the institution. So they are more incentivized to do good work and are harder to silence when the go against the powers-that-be. The problem: with a massive media powerhouse such as the NYT backing you, you can go against large international conglomerates - their lawyers will have your back, and you won't have to pay out of your personal pocket in case of the other side winning in court. Once you go freelance, that protection vanishes.
- michaelrpeskin 3y agoGood point. However, the conglomerates just buy ad space on the the powerhouses such as the NYT and they're not as firewalled as you'd hope. The NYT will never allow a negative article go out against someone who has major ad buys.