When the line between legacy media and Substack is erased...
Where do we go from here?
Bari Weiss will now be the editor-in-chief of CBS News? That’s huge. That means the line between legacy media and Substack has essentially been erased. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, fewer people are reading the news, and more people are watching reels and TikToks. It’s pushing the average journalist into leaving this field behind, or pivoting into becoming a content creator of sorts. Or just getting left behind by the times.
If every average person can pick up their phone and start recording, and start interviewing people on the street for man-on-the-street interviews, taking photos of their food and posting reviews like they’re the next big food critic, then journalism has indeed been democratized. And in this loud, crowded bar, where we’re shouting over one another, who is getting listened to? It may sometimes be the children of those we once listened to. Power, in all its forms, may still look a lot like it did fifty years ago. The social media hustle does benefit a lucky few, but for a quiet majority, it is just a time sink, with little payout.
If everyone and their uncle has a Substack, how is anyone supposed to keep up? If we all want to DJ and nobody wants to dance, and we all want to be writers but nobody wants to read, how is that sustainable? I imagine a future full of motionless parties, with massive holes in the center of the dance floor, as people bashfully stand in corners so they’re not embarrassed. A tumbleweed blows through, as one lone newspaper lands on the ground, no one to pick it up.
The challenge is amplified on platforms that seem to elevate the most controversial opinions and the loudest voices. Things are either too divisive or they’re often too bland. I’ve noticed the proliferation of slop on YouTube, and Netflix, of content that doesn’t seem to say too much and doesn’t feel like it has a point. And of course, with AI video tools now, that is only projected to get worse.
Yet media isn’t entirely dead. One reader is still better than none. If no one else dances, you can be the one who does, and rack up all the views for it, too.
