Journalists didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow we are ending up as losers

We do an important job for the public good. But the market just doesn’t care about that.

To my fellow journalists,

We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow we are ending up as losers.

The BBC has just had brutal layoffs. The Washington Post did too. And expect more to come. There is no doubt that most of the journalism industry is losing.

Yes, we do an important job for the public good: bringing the public as close as possible to the truth. We hold powerful figures accountable.

But the market just doesn’t care about that. And we are dying.

Let me be direct: We haven’t made something people want for a long time.

Anyone who studies economics knows the first lesson: when supply is higher than demand, the price goes down.

Journalism, at its core, is an information product. With the internet, anyone can become an information publisher. That increases supply to almost unlimited levels, with almost no barriers to entry.

Demand, let’s assume, doesn’t increase at the same pace, because all of us still have only 24 hours a day. The result: the price of information goes down. And AI is making the situation worse for journalism.

Hundreds of years ago, printed newspapers had almost no competitors on the supply side. Then TV appeared, then the internet, then social media, and now AI. Every time a new disruptive technology appears, the number of suppliers in the information market increases exponentially.

However, I don’t see the journalism product evolving much over time. Yes, we put our work on the internet instead of in printed newspapers. We also distribute content through social media. But that’s not enough.

We still spend an hour deciding which word to use. Then most users don’t even read the latter half of an article.

With machines surpassing humans for the first time on the internet, and with that trend likely to continue, there’s a strong chance that our original words will never reach end users. What they actually read is a 50-word summary by AI.

As a journalist, I have no doubt that we are doing nothing wrong. We try to collect as many perspectives as possible to bring comprehensive reporting to users. We investigate and uncover truths that no individual media personality will.

Joe Rogan will never try to speak to hundreds of people to uncover a truth about Donald Trump like The New York Times does. Marques Brownlee will never uncover the truth about founders who lied, like Elizabeth Holmes, the way The Wall Street Journal did.

Yet these individuals have a larger audience than most newspapers. They make more money than most news outlets.

Journalism is a vital part of society and democracy. But let me be honest: users don’t care about democracy or society when they scroll TikTok or X feeds.

You can feel that it is unfair. But complaining is not a strategy.

There is no lack of powerful figures publicly expressing contempt toward journalism. In my tech field, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, and Marc Andreessen, one of the most influential VCs, have done that many times.

And don’t think that YouTube, Facebook, X, and TikTok will favor journalism, as they often say.

The ultimate goal of social media is users’ screen time. These platforms’ algorithms do that by showing what users want to see, not by prioritizing the truth that users need to see.

They will be happy if true journalism dies, because there will be no one left to hold them accountable for their wrongs. The media landscape will then consist only of sycophantic influencers who always say good things about them.

We have to accept that reality. But we have the right to not accept our decline as inevitable.

I urge you, my fellow journalists, to have more agency over your own work.

The time when we just needed to write a good article and wait for our newsroom to publish it is over.

Yes, our core duties as journalists are writing good stories and bringing the truth to the public. But that is not enough anymore.

Even if you win a Pulitzer Prize, it means less if the business you are in keeps losing money.

Sooner or later, newsrooms will cut staff. And then, they will likely cut the work that takes too many resources and has outcomes that are hard to quantify. You need an example: The Washington Post laid off reporters in the midst of the Ukraine war.

Besides writing good stories as you always do, learn social media skills to distribute your own work better. Learn to use AI tools effectively to speed up your repetitive work. Learn data analysis to understand your users’ behavior. Learn anything you think would help.

You are the product owner of your stories. You understand them better than anyone else. You have strong critical thinking and no fear of asking questions others do not ask.

Journalists relentlessly seek the truth. You already have the skills to get better outcomes.

I am not a good journalist by any means. I even need AI’s help to check the grammar in this post. But I know writing is not enough to help me survive in the coming years.

I am doing whatever I feel is necessary, from coding to product work to design, because I believe we, journalists, can still turn this difficult situation around. Journalism is still a vital product. And if we can make it good enough, we will thrive.

It is always easier said than done. I am still on my own path to finding the way forward. I have seen almost no success so far, but I will keep searching.

Because I refuse to see journalism die without trying. I don’t want to be a loser. And I believe you, my fellow journalists, don’t want that either.