It’s obviously cliche at this point, but I do really worry about the future of publicly available, long-form writing. Investigative journalism in particular.
What’s surprising here is that this all sounds like something I — as a software developer — have been through with like 70% of the places I’ve ever done contract work at. The stress of external VC cash, the loose interconnectedness of employees, and the vague indifference towards pulling the plug. These are, to me, cultural artifacts specific to software startups. Why does a media company need to run this way? Software is eating the world, but maybe not in ways that are immediately apparent.
YouTube channels are big money for the right company.
There's been multiple waves of VCs to invest in traditional media. Out of both economic opportunism, as well as a desire to at least save a bit of the industry that died because of digital advertising.
Every single one failed, not one large success. Hiring rooms of journalists to publish articles is very high cost and risk without any economies of scale that software people have.
I’m proud of much of the work I did there, like a career-spanning chat with Godfrey Reggio, a very funny back-and-forth with Cord Jefferson, and a review of Barbie that included extra commentary from Amy Taubin, which went a bit viral.
I wouldn't worry about that too much at this place. There is investigative journalism going on, for example Andrew Callaghan has been doing a lot on the homeless, drugs and the border crisis with his "Channel 5," exposés of the type I haven't seen for quite a while. Investigative journalism is making a resurgence by independent people who have cut out the middle man.