Thread by @mualphaxi

I've been thinking about 2 big trends:

-Layoffs in media, entire sites closing
-Huge mineral discoveries in California and Wyoming

Wouldn't it heal our country to work on a solution together? My idea is an FDR-style program for laid-off journalists to get jobs in mining 🧵

As Taylor Lorenz recently pointed out, it's been a brutal time in the media business.

Nearly 20,000 layoffs in 2023. Just in 2024, Sports Illustrated and Vice have effectively shut down.

Long-term job security is... dubious. The business models just aren't the same.

Journalists have been trying to strike and protest the layoffs - which is not a very promising strategy.

It's understandable why they're upset: they know that work as a journalist is more precarious than ever.

Things are going much better in the mineral world.

In California we've discovered that the Salton Sea has higher lithium production capacity than anywhere in the world. It could produce enough for 400 million EV batteries.

And in Wyoming, mines that were about to be defunct due to falling coal prices are now worth tens of billions because of rare earth.

It's a new American gold rush for the minerals we thought China would dominate.

The Media and Mining - two divergent economic stories, two divergent industry futures.

Journalists need our help adapting to the future.

I consider myself a centrist, and I believe in compromise and compassion.

This could be a 21st century grand bargain: we help laid-off fake news journalists by getting them more dignified work in open pit mines.

They can keep their unions together and strike when they think conditions need to be improved.

It's just not going to work unionizing newsrooms. Money doesn't grow on trees, but it does grow inside the ground over millions of years, and we can mine it!

It's not a perfect solution, but the truth is that working in the mines is more honest than what many journalists are doing now - caused by bad business models and poor career incentives.

#LearnToMine