From The Guardian:
Facebook’s Chris Hughes says he doesn’t want to ‘listicalize’ the New Republic. Then why is Buzzfeed still winning the internet?
Over the weekend, an open letter by some of the outgoing writers and editors of the New Republic appeared on the Facebook page of Robert Reich, the former labor secretary turned professional pundit, following a mass resignation of staff and unpaid “contributing editors” from the magazine. The letter, which lamented that “The promise of American life has been dealt a lamentable blow” with the resignation of editor Franklin Foer and literary critic Leon Wieseltier over plans to replace the former, also railed against what the authors described as “liberalism’s central journal” being “scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon” – a reference to internal changes being introduced by the 100-year old title’s owner Chris Hughes, a 31-year-old co-founder of Facebook.
The irony of the New Republic’s retreating elite posting their displeasure on Facebook was heightened by Hughes publishing a defense of his plans for the magazine – plans which recently-appointed chief executive Guy Vidra described as changing the publication into a “vertically integrated digital product”, whatever that means – through that most traditional of outlets: the Washington Post. To see the changes at TNR as part of the ongoing battle between Silicon Valley and traditional journalism, Hughes wrote, “dangerously oversimplifies a debate many journalistic institutions are having today”.
The debate, we thought, was mostly over. No serious news organisation can expect to have an audience or a future if it hasn’t already worked out its place in the digital ecosystem. However, as Silicon Valley culture moves beyond Palo Alto and into every aspect of our lives, from personal transportation to venerable political magazines, the cultural aftershocks persist.
The changes at the New Republic – and the ongoing fallout – are the latest lightning rod for the suppressed existential rage at the heart of American journalism’s chaotically mesmerising transformation. The people who now invest most in journalism come from outside the field, which disturbs and excites traditionalists in equal measure. It is the tech billionaires who are changing digital media – men like Hughes and Jeff Bezos (who bought TNR and the Washington Post, respectively), and Pierre Omidyar (who founded First Look Media), Jonah Peretti (the founder of BuzzFeed) and Ken Lerer (who’s been behind the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Thrillist, The Dodo and more). But will the media change with them?
Hughes, Omidyar and Bezos were hailed as journalism’s saviors: they have the money, from Facebook and eBay and Amazon, to underwrite the journalism – and the business pedigree to implement the technological changes that will be necessary and constant.
The tension between an engineering culture and an editorial culture is – as Hughes correctly identified – damaging and oversimplified … but definitely real. At the recent Newsgeist conference – a coming-together of technologists, educators, journalists and executives – one of the most animated sessions was called “Product versus Editorial” and, if there had been an option for us to express ourselves with primal screaming, it would have shattered the windows, such was the frustration of those who have to work with both....MORE
