Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonrobot
Online cycling media is bloated and for the most part completely useless. Trimming the fat at this juncture was probably a good thing for all involved and hopefully there will be more cuts in the future. We're drowning in quantity with zero quality, I think these are mostly joke jobs - the mcdonald's fry cook of the media world.
Anyone who works in media or content creation and thinks they have a secure future has their head buried in the sand. In the modern economy there is zero reason to hitch your wagon to a giant corporation working with a broken advertising modern funded by perverse incentives - when self-funding is more accessible than any time in history.
If the "Nerd Alert" podcast or whatever is so awesome there should be no shortage of subscribers from patreon or substack or whichever. Build a better moustrap and don't cry when the giant unfeeling corporation doesn't want to sell it for you.
Imagine thinking a podcast needs corporate funding - in 2022!
Hard to believe there were layoffs with gold like this hitting the front page
https://cyclingtips.com/2022/11/i-do...e-about-today/ |
While this is a fairly heartless and cruel take, I'll dignify some of the nitty gritty bits as someone who's occasionally taken part in making cycling (and other) journalism.
Substack and Patreon, while decent for individual creators and longer-form editorial pieces, are not great outlets for reportage. They feel like further exploitation and gigification of segments of the economy where labor can be continued to be paid less (and without any predictability/consistency), as well as without any labor protections. Sure, there are a few success stories, but by and large, both platforms are awash in folks doing it primarily as a sidehustle, not as professional journalists. There's no editorial oversight...which, contrary to popular belief, does matter. No travel budgets. No gear budget, if you'd like to dive into the tech side of things. It's all a recipe for subpar work that's going to have a hard time growing or getting better.
I don't disagree that the advertising model behind publication journalism is fundamentally broken (like the rest of our economy), but there are sub-driven pubs out there that (seem) to be working.
Defector and
The Information are two great examples. Reporter and writer-driven journalism organizations can make money and consumers will pay for subs. Anecdotally, I pay around $200 a month for various journalism subscriptions (yes, including SS and Patreon), and did for CT until the Outside takeover and first round of layoffs. I really hope to see the Outside diaspora manage to come together in a collective way, like Defector did.
Anyway, this kind of shilling for the demise of professional journalism masquerading as "Where are your bootstraps, young man?!" is a crappy take, and smells like
Alden Capital agitprop, but you do you.