Conversation

I suspect there was a time when journalism had the loose-knit co-opetition feel blogging still does. When it wasn’t a sort of tight, doctrinaire, inquisitorial cult built around an editorial party line and top-down reporting conventions, and micromanaged vocabulary and style. 🤔
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Individuals mostly pursuing what was interesting to them using some shared distribution infrastructure (printing press = Wordpress) and a bit of healthy competition for inches, front page access (front page = aggregator front page) etc. I suspect such looseness is essential.
Replying to
Reading old reporting and even opinion pieces, you get a sense of individual voices coming through. An impression of newsrooms behind the scenes as idea markets (like Twitter) and charismatic editors as tastemakers and prioritizers rather than Chief Politican Officers.
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Now you get a sense that the machine snaps up hungry grinders with no point of view, no personal curiosities, and nothing they want to see or say, but able to write, and programs them to go around mining confirmation for whatever like the CPOs want to pursue.
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Old media writing has the feel of coming from a besieged place these days. Which I suppose it is. It’s where the joy of writing seems to go to commit suicide now.
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