Since I have pondered the condition of the newspaper at some length this link gets its own post — Freddie deBoer sorts out why the newspaper industry is tanking, and why its writers are up in arms over Substack. He contends it ain’t just jealousy and hypocrisy at work — it’s displacement.
Lot to be said about this of course, and I’d better let it alone for the time being, since what I really want & need to do is read more. But briefly: something deBoer seems to sidestep is that a good deal of the ire (this guy’s, for instance) takes no notice of him or fellow celebrity writers Substack has been ready with a timely offer for, but is concerned rather with a persistent pattern of misrepresentation by VC-inflated digital-service companies of their business models — what the product is, what the relation between company and customer is, how the money works — that keeps being gotten away with. Undoubtedly a segment of journalism & creative twitterati are taking it more than usually personally in this case. But to make that the story would be to miss something a good deal larger.
ReplyDeleteHey man -- one cheer for Substack from me. But where deBoer wins me is with the observation of how the MSM has adopted a monotone that does not serve anyone well. WaPo and The Gray Lady give 46 a foot massage, while dropping the hammer on weirdos like SlateStarCodex? How does that play in Peoria, baby?
ReplyDeleteI see you've also followed deBoer over to Substack. I've just been reading the free articles, but I've always found deboer to be a fascinating writer.
ReplyDelete...that being said, I don't always have the patience to read him to the end. This particular article, for example, I only got about halfway through.
You already know where I come down on privileging the NYT and its kin. I don’t think they’ve ever been worthy of their reputations in respect to public trust. Far from it. But then I was formed, of course, and have spent a good deal more of my life than not, in environments where dismissing and condemning the ‘MSM’ on terms very close to deBoer & friends’ was routine. (Relatedly, I have to be careful about letting myself get into a rant about the Democrats here with T., because at some point she’ll get upset and charge me with reverting to prejudices of my youth, and whatever value there might have been in my point will go to the wind.)
ReplyDeleteI’m terribly interested in this whole question of media industry evolution — and, again, I’d better keep myself to minimum comment just here. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to explore the subject in different directions in conversations to come. But deBoer: I confess I just don’t find especially compelling his account, or accounts like his, of what’s coming to issue in the long succession of crises of these institution-businesses. I appreciate the elements of plain fact and good insight offered, certainly. But there’s a narrowness (in part tied to what seems to me leaden self-referentiality) that’s hard for me to linger long with, given what I want to get my head around.
Going to plug Simon Owens and Mark Stenberg here! Owens’ latest podcast is an interview with founding chief of The Information — which needless to say I don’t read, but which makes for a nice variation on the industry devolution theme here.
Am reading that Mailer piece too, now, by the way. One more for the pile, oy. ha
ReplyDelete