The Washington Monthly Can Save Journalism From Big Tech
As a technology enthusiast and longtime opinion writer, it has been my pleasure to contribute to this great magazine over the years. When many magazines were reluctant to jump in, the Washington Monthly was technologically ahead – and embraced the blogging medium that started me. Today is the Monthly remains an essential source for informed political analysis.
Unfortunately, technology has not been a good friend to journalism over the past 25 years. First, digital readers have cut into print subscriptions, and cheaper online advertising has replaced glossy ads in magazines and classified sections in newspapers. Then Google took over the digital ad space, cutting into already depleted ad revenue. Facebook’s News Feed shifted publishing incentives to sensationalism while depriving newsrooms of revenue. Based on misleading statistics from Facebook, many media companies went bankrupt and tried to “pivot to video” after the social media giant encouraged them to do so.
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Now Elon Musk and artificial intelligence are threatening to do away with journalism and quality public affairs analysis altogether. Twitter’s new owner is openly hostile to journalism and wants to replace it with a network of trolls and a sewer of misinformation. Advances in artificial intelligence have already enabled automated programs to generate perfunctory stories in place of journalists, and these programs threaten to take over more ambitious forms of journalism – even political analysis – in the future.
Of course, technological advances have brought enormous benefits to readers and writers. Readers can instantly access a wealth of information wherever they are, and no trees need to be cut down. Authors can publish and update information instantly.
But writers and editors cannot survive on confirmation of clicks and shares alone. We need our readers to keep the lights on.
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By the Washington Monthly, we pride ourselves on providing in-depth reporting on many under-covered issues, from monopolization to community college to protecting the vote. We are motivated by the belief that discerning readers deserve quality in a sea of hot takes.
But now more than ever, the threats to good journalism are great. The tech world isn’t just twisting opinion journalism into divisive content — it’s threatening its very existence at a time when authoritarianism spawned from disinformation and far-right populism threaten global democracy.
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However, with your help we can weather this storm. Help us continue the good work. Please contribute to the Washington Monthly today.
