Good reporting here. I worry the Atlantic got too big; overwhelming. Having too much money can do that. This is a cautionary tale, then, about white knights' money + about the cost of acquiring & maintaining subscriptions (costs rarely discussed in sub-supported businesses).
Of course, the Atlantic has done stellar work, leading with @edyong209's phenomenal COVID reporting. I finally couldn't keep up with the magazine as a whole. Focus from financial realism might help there.
Years ago, when I was on the board of one of Nick Denton's companies, I said one of the best things he had done before the Y2K crash was raise lots of money. @nicknotned characteristically disagreed, saying too much money lets bosses try too much. He as, as usual, right.
So the tale of the Atlantic leaves me all the more impressed with @JeffBezos's stewardship of the Washington Post. He provided resources *and* discipline, money *for* success. That is a lesson for other philanthropic white knights.

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More from @jeffjarvis

13 Jul
Listening to criticism of social media on Morning Joe now, I hear media's projection: Media, like FB, depends on driving engagement (sensationalism, conflict). Media, too, as @JoeNBC accuses FB, set fires & then claim credit for putting them out. We need self-examination, too.
There's plenty to criticize at FB. But when that criticism comes from un-self-aware media guilty of similar sins, the criticism is devalued.
Joe says FB refuses regulation. In fact, FB is advertising, begging for regulation: a classic case of regulatory capture: They can afford compliance competitors can't; regulation also shifts blame to regulators. I worry its impact on freedoms for all.
about.fb.com/regulations/?u…
Read 7 tweets
7 Jul
.@jkosseff's & @mmasnick's heads right now:
.@mmasnick: "This is the former President of the US arguing that private companies violated HIS 1st Amendment rights by conspiring with the government HE LED AT THE TIME to deplatform him. I cannot stress how absolutely laughably stupid this is." techdirt.com/articles/20210…
Read 5 tweets
7 Jul
Newspaper could and should have started Nextdoor. They left a huge gap into which this startup grew to $4.3b.
Neighborhood social network Nextdoor is going public axios.com/neighborhood-s…
Here's the Nextdoor deck. It is in one third of American homes. Or more properly put, one third of American homes are in it.
Years ago, I tried to broker a connection with a newspaper company & Nextdoor. It fizzled. Nextdoor didn't need the paper.
s28.q4cdn.com/517578190/file…
Interesting that Nextdoor tries to portray itself as the un-social-network, just like Google keeps saying: Stop calling us a platform. We're not all the same. It's a case of social cooties.
Read 4 tweets
29 Jun
New, packed Accenture report on the state of the newspaper business.🧵
Headline to me: Growth in search advertising came from new advertisers (e.g., small biz), directories, trade -- NOT from other media. That is, not from newspapers & magazines.
newsmedia-analysis.com/wp-content/upl… 1/
So newspapers whining that Google stole their advertising (as if God ever gave it to them) and owes them recompense? Not so much. 2/
In the period 2004-2018, newspaper revenue fell from a high of $60b to $27b, a drop of more than half. 3/
Read 12 tweets
28 Jun
So The New York Times writes a screed under the headline, "The Abolition of Privacy." A 🧵
They complain about the institutions killing privacy and about citizens too easily acquiescing. 1/
The Times intones: "People who may in charity be supposed to be sane, and to have some reasonable conception of their right to their own privacy, surrender themselves in apparently helplessness...." 2/
The Times declares that this is "a very unpleasant and discouraging incident in our recent social history, and one for which our people generally should be heartily ashamed." 3/
Read 9 tweets
26 Jun
The reborn UFO mania is driving me insane.
It is a symptom of human hubris that we think we must be able to explain everything we see, and if we cannot, then the source must be sinister or other-worldly.
Welcome back to the pre-Enlightenment. 1/nytimes.com/2021/06/25/us/…
As I wrote here, with help by @dweinberger & Alex Rosenberg, we face a crisis of cognition, of a failure of our our powers of explanation regarding neuroscience & machine learning/AI: that which we cannot predict or understand must be of malign origin. 2/
medium.com/whither-news/a…
I'd've hoped journalism might be a torch-bearer for enlightenment, evidence, & exploration. But, no. UFOs are circulation-bait. Especially Fox "News" but also all mass media are falling prone to the supermarket-tabloid sensationalism of the UFO story. video.foxnews.com/v/6261064511001 3/
Read 11 tweets

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