Why I left news

Back 10-15 years ago, a newspaper could break a story, and no other newspaper would be able to cover it til the next day! There was financial benefit to breaking news stories. Now, with the Internet and 24 hour news on every channel, when a newspaper breaks a story, it's posted in 10,000 other places within 10 minutes.

Newspapers and other MSM outlets are one of the last places this is happening. I don't think we'll miss newspapers when they finally disappear, but we're sure as heck going to miss editors.

My actual point is that for better journalism to happen (what you call better editing), it needs to be incentivized. I am still hopeful that somebody will figure out how to build a successful journalism platform, probably based on micropayments, that incentivizes good journalism.

I'm not sure if PG listed this in his essay from a while back about great world-changing startup ideas, but I think it would qualify.

I don't feel there is that much of a distinction between editors and journalists. What I'm saying is basically that by allowing instantaneous publishing, the web is allowing journalists to "go to press" in 3 seconds. There doesn't have to be much thought given to rewrites, or sourcing, or flow, or editorial content. In fact, I'd argue that the more time the modern journalist spends doing these things is a disadvantage.

Of course the web eventually sorts it all out: it's wrong a bunch but the correct story eventually makes it. But we're losing something. This is very similar to the comments made by old-timey C++ programmers looking at modern OO IDEs. Yes, you can do things really fast, but you're also losing an important part of the craft by doing it this way.

In my opinion these two roles, which of course could be performed by the same person, are separating. Long-format, well-edited work is going down a separate path than what we would consider traditional journalism. Beats me where it ends up. I don't think there will be a journalism platform built. This isn't a money problem. This is a structural problem. Technology has pulled apart the instantaneous recording of events from the polished presentation of "news"

As a result of the oversupply everyone's profits have drastically declined, and to make up for that they have moved into more garbage and less journalism. Because garbage sells really well. Great journalism is important, but people don't pay as much for it.

It's very disappointing to hear stories like this from people that care deeply about their profession, but it's how economics works. Supply is too great, so the amount of money each supplier gets goes down. So some suppliers see that its not worth it, and stop supplying things. At some point the market reaches equilibrium and the amount of suppliers becomes stable.

Eventually, the market will shakeout and the profits will rise to a sustainable level for those who are left. When this process finishes, hopefully we will be left with some great journalists not slinging garbage at us.