Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
1–10 of 65 posts
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#2I don't see how investing will save the industry from decline. If there was more revenue to be had, the legacy players wouldn't be struggling so badly. Investors chasing profits are just going to build a better Buzzfeed, not a better NY Times. Unless someone can crack the nut of profiting off of serious journalism and making the average TikTok scroller or Joe Rogan listener exercise a little more skepticism and understand the value of quality.
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#3Not sure if this guy has ever met a journalist.
Where precisely are the journalists who are paid sufficiently well for their skill that they have liquidity to invest in startups?
edit: alright turns out he's "former chief of staff at the Atlantic" but I still remain convinced he's decently out of touch with everyday journalists' financial situation.
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#4Not sure if this guy has ever met a journalist. Where precisely are the journalists who are paid sufficiently well for their skill that they have liquidity to invest in startups? edit: alright turns out he's "former chief of staff at the Atlantic" but I still remain convinced he's decently out of touch with everyday journalists' financial situation.
Yeah. I'm a freelance journalist and this is one of the worst journalism takes I've seen in a while. Paying bills is already hard enough as it is and I, like many others in this industry, don't even have health insurance: why in the fuck would any of us invest in a startup?
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#5I don't see how investing will save the industry from decline. If there was more revenue to be had, the legacy players wouldn't be struggling so badly. Investors chasing profits are just going to build a better Buzzfeed, not a better NY Times. Unless someone can crack the nut of profiting off of serious journalism and making the average TikTok scroller or Joe Rogan listener exercise a little more skepticism and under…
Agree in that “Startups” imply scale and that’s just race to the bottom clickbait with maybe a little real news on the side. However, one example here in Canada is “Canadaland”, which is profitable, funded partly by subscribers, and has investigated and broken real stories. The founder has made the point recently that journalism is not something that scales, but can be a successful business by serving an audience.
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#6Not sure if this guy has ever met a journalist. Where precisely are the journalists who are paid sufficiently well for their skill that they have liquidity to invest in startups? edit: alright turns out he's "former chief of staff at the Atlantic" but I still remain convinced he's decently out of touch with everyday journalists' financial situation.
Yeah. I'm a freelance journalist and this is one of the worst journalism takes I've seen in a while. Paying bills is already hard enough as it is and I, like many others in this industry, don't even have health insurance: why in the fuck would any of us invest in a startup?
To ensure the stability of the platform you are (seemingly) sacrificing being well-paid to stay on.
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#7> In recent years, many prominent journalists have left their posts to start their own publications. That’s certainly exciting when it happens. But looking ahead, I'd love to see more journalists on the other side of the table, with the resources to help fund the next generation of new publications
Are many of these profitable? What would make them investable? This industry doesn’t exactly print money.
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#8I don't see how investing will save the industry from decline. If there was more revenue to be had, the legacy players wouldn't be struggling so badly. Investors chasing profits are just going to build a better Buzzfeed, not a better NY Times. Unless someone can crack the nut of profiting off of serious journalism and making the average TikTok scroller or Joe Rogan listener exercise a little more skepticism and under…
There are definitely people on Substack who have been able to see success doing the whole "independent non biased news" schtick, but I'm not sure if it's possible to build a NYT level of business doing that.
At the same time, maybe smaller independent news outfits that are run by at most a handful of people, that cover more local news might be able to make it work if they keep their expenses low.
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. I'm a freelance journalist and this is one of the worst journalism takes I've seen in a while. Paying bills is already hard enough as it is and I, like many others in this industry, don't even have health insurance: why in the fuck would any of us invest in a startup?
To ensure the stability of the platform you are (seemingly) sacrificing being well-paid to stay on.
Why is the base assumption here that journalists be the ones to pay for this?
Re: Journalists should invest in journalism startups, particularly now
#10I don't see how investing will save the industry from decline. If there was more revenue to be had, the legacy players wouldn't be struggling so badly. Investors chasing profits are just going to build a better Buzzfeed, not a better NY Times. Unless someone can crack the nut of profiting off of serious journalism and making the average TikTok scroller or Joe Rogan listener exercise a little more skepticism and under…
Plenty of people would probably argue that Rogan has been leading the way to higher quality. It's why we now have countless of 3-5 hour podcasts where people are allowed to go through all nuances, finish their thoughts and we don't have to rely on the 30 seconds soundbites that TV and traditional media filters give us.