[mvanga]

Not entirely related to the article, but rather why I think we're seeing all these problems in journalism of late.

The rise of the internet gatekeepers (Google, Facebook, Twitter) has forever destroyed the old business model for journalism.

Today, in order to have any success at building an audience on these platforms, one needs to appease the algorithms that these gatekeepers employ.

Unfortunately, their algorithms are designed to bring out the sinister side of human nature; tribalism, extremes of opinion, polarization.

I suspect anyone that tries to stay on the neutral side of journalism will eventually be forced to pick a side to stay afloat. Not because of the gatekeepers themselves anymore, but because the gatekeepers have amplified qualities in all of us that have irreversibly changed individual behavior itself.

I'm not sure of what can be done to ebb the tide. The problem is you can no longer look to fixing the gatekeepers. The real problem is how to turn back the clock on individual behavior en masse.

[Nasrudith]

The algorithms are a scapegoat for them sucking at their job. The news media was already a rotten corpse who couldn't even compete with bloggers in accuracy and fact checking. Rainbow parties, breathlessly publishing grudge slang made up wholecloth, and satanic ritual panic for one.

Compounding that they were blind enough to use the youth and their hobbies as punching bags while getting the most basic details wrong. Then wonder why their demographics keep drifting older.