Tech Journalism
The Rookie VC #10
Hi everyone ! Today I wanted to dive into the future of tech-related journalism. Two reasons prompted me to do this:
The recent tech vs. journalist feud in the US. I will obviously come back to this and give more context, but I’ve come to wonder about what caused the Balaji vs. Taylor Lorenz feud and what it meant about the relationship between the tech ecosystem and journalist covering it.
A conversation with my grandparents this past weekend. Ever since I’ve graduated high school (with a major in literature) in 2012, my grandparents have insisted that I should explore journalism as a professional calling, arguing that ideas would be better friends than numbers for me. As I tried to explain to them how the landscape was changing, I came to wonder: is there a new path for tech journalists in Europe, something new that could be done ?
Journalism isn’t broken, the traditional media economy is
Before we talk specifically about tech journalism, I wanted to come back to the current situation in the media landscape and brush on what causes many of us to think that good reporting is in danger.
In my view, the relative decay of good reporting and editorial writing in the way we knew it thus far (traditional newspapers, magazines, internet pure players) boils down to a small number of key catalysts :
The consolidation of media ownership. In the US, the inflection point was the Telecommunications Act of 1996 signed by President Clinton, that lifted caps on the number of newspapers, networks and stations a single corporation could own. This law, as many oligopoly inducing deregulation waves, was heavily influenced by lobbyists. In France, the post-war governments left and right have coerced audio and televisual media to serve their interest from 1923 to 1982, before President Mitterrand decided to liberalize : first “La Cinq” privatized to Berlusconi’s Mediaset, then (with the help of a pro-business cohabitation government led by right-winger proponent Jacques Chirac) Canal + (Havas), TF1 (Bouygues), etc. More recently, the written press has seen an impressive wave of consolidation, as explained in this article by non-profit Acrimed. Below are two maps illustrating the trend, both in the US and in France:
The political threats. In France, recent scandals shine a pretty fearful light on the threat to good reporting and accountability that concentrated ownership can pose in written media. This past week, one of the biggest private media owners, LVMH, has been accused by left-wing politician François Ruffin and activist newspaper and information site Fakir of using state resources for surveillance against them. Over the Atlantic, the combined influence of right-wing powerhouse Fox News in giving resonance to alternative facts fed by the Trump administration and the echo it finds on platforms like Facebook that showed little effort to fact-check cause a great deal of worry to journalists.
The attention economy. This is perhaps the most salient cause in the loss of quality in written reporting in the US and in France: pure players and traditional media all flock to the same click-driven tactics to fight for the attention of readers, at the detriment of fair, appealable reporting of facts and opinions. As a result, media houses whose revenue depends on ads and traffic are enticed to favor narratives that do not reflect an open and healthy debate. These incentives tend to flank the voice of honest reporters seeking for truthful and factual reporting, and do not guarantee them independence in this quest. Many freelancers are left scrambling for a few stories, earning sometimes less than $35k a year while combining several corporate gigs and some independently run columns.
These catalysts call for two different ways out :
Rope ladder money ? The first, wanted by many distribution partners (search engines like Google, social media like Facebook and others) is to heavily send “rescue money” to creators and call for a fairer redistribution of proceeds for attention.
Breaking free of the attention economy. The second is the rise of platforms enabling reporters and writers to go independent and fund a living by coming back to the subscription model. Neither are a silver bullet, but I tend to think the latter will favor great reporting more than the former.
The rise of Substack
Substack was founded in 2017 by former independent journalist Hamish McKenzie and Kik alumni Chris Best and Jaraj Sethi, on the vision of providing writers with all the needed tech to start making money from independent publications, enabling them to build strong, resilient businesses on top.
Against the decay catalysts we discussed earlier, the company’s view is the following : If the deck is stacked, build another ship. By coming back to email, an open platform, Substack has the grander vision of creating a safe haven and a new economy for independent writers :
“The internet makes distribution frictionless and free – what used to take hours in trucks now takes milliseconds on the web. It makes a writer’s potential audience global instead of local. And it makes it easy to get paid. With a tool like Substack, you don’t need a complicated setup to manage the flow of information and money. When you don’t have to worry about a tech stack, design, back-office admin, or advertisers, you can spend all your time and energy on the most important thing: the journalism itself.”
Hamish McKenzie in his great essay ”What’s Next For Journalists”
In a little over three years, the platform has opened a wide array of opportunities for credentialed and rookie writers, with a significant number generating six figures within a year of launch - Of course I will care to list my favorites later in this essay.
Email is the purest form of independence , which has been further guaranteed by safeguards Substack put in place for its writers : full backup of patiently built email lists, soon-to-come legal help for reporters facing threat and intimidations for publishing their writing, grants to subsidize up-and-coming publications, etc.
Graduating out of email ?
An important debate, in my opinion, is whether or not Substack should encourage the reporters and writers it empowers to graduate out of email. Some voices suggest that content-rich publications may want features that would stack up to an extent Substack could not handle, risking dilution of its initial value proposition.
Recently, the platform gave way to bundling publications to eliminate dead-weight loss in demand for paid newsletters and allow writers to be stronger by regrouping. Other product decisions were made to enrich the content that could be published: you can now have your podcast hosted on Substack, create open threads for discussion and debate around a piece. Next steps could include marginally customized designs, webinar sharing, etc.
In the broader Passion Economy driving the rise of platforms like Substack, some content entrepreneurs and tool builders argue that a “Shopify of community” or “Shopify of content” should be built to embrace the bundling of the entrepreneurial aspiration of getting paid for content online.
Would something of this kind favor the emergence of huge subscription-based, ad-free media houses gathering tens of creators ? Or should this new population remain instead atomized in many smaller publications, channels, etc ? It seems like the pioneers of this economy are themselves quite hesitant on which route to take, as the dust has barely begun to settle on this part of the passion economy.
Before delving on what is being done and what could be done in the Old Continent, let’s turn to the US in an attempt to understand the foes of a mature ecosystem and the reporters covering it in traditional media houses and internet pure players.
The difficult relationship of tech and media in Uncle Sam country
Now is the time for more context on what happened a few weeks ago and how it illustrates a growing divide and distrust between tech journalists and influential members of the ecosystem.
What happened ? (Chronological order, more context in this great piece)
Tech publication The Verge writes a negative story about the work environment at luggage D2C brand Away
Away founder Steph Korey (F) reacts and implies she’s the victim of a larger punitive scheme targeted at female founders
New York Times tech reporter Taylor Laurenz (F) writes an offensive tweet targeting Steph Korey
Silicon Valley star Balaji Srinivasan (M, Former CTO of Coinbase and GP at a16z) takes exception on Korey’s behalf
Taylor and Balaji are in the same room on Clubhouse, as soon as Balaji enters Taylor leaves. Controversy and Twitter crossfire ensues about whether she should’ve left or not.
Vice leaks bits of audio from the private conversation, leading to more controversy and accusations of framing or context suppression to make the techies in the conversation look bad and over-critical of journalists, failing to note instead that half the talking time was to journalist
What are the accusations made in a broader level ?
That the NYT, The Verge and Vice are under clickshare dynamics and will publish negative story catering to a “silent majority” that is wary of the tech ecosystem and its negative reputation it has recently garnered.
That these same publications would target underrepresented minorities and founders in the context of negative reporting, hence discrediting their actions and quest for truth in the current context
This exemplifies how fragile and razor-thin the trust has come to be between the tech ecosystem and the reporters covering it. Us French people tend to see (with our experience of a more diverse public debate) debates on the other side of the Atlantic as particularly antagonizing and polarized.
In my humble opinion, what this situation highlights is that creating a new way for journalists to produce honest and truthful commentary outside of traffic concerns can help any tech ecosystem in holding itself accountable, gaining the trust of the broader public opinion.
People, now more than ever, want to read interesting, well-researched and balanced stories that do not respond to clickshare dynamics. While this has been exemplified by this recent feud, I think that more people writing independently and on running on subscriptions can be part of the answer.
I’ll later cover how this can inspire us Europeans and French to explore that route to break out of our current status-quo. While our ecosystem has garnered far less controversy, there is still a huge gap in comprehension of the broader stakes in the innovation economy that more quality independent reporting can help bridge.
What the best reporters are already doing to fix this
Fortunately, the new wave of independent writers has not waited for feuds to unfold to try and take on the problem of a broken media economy, and many independent voices are rising and producing A+ content to break news and provide thoughtful analysis.
We are beginning to see a mix of career technologists (engineers, product people, strategists) writing long editorial and analytical pieces that might eat up a significant portion of the attention initially catered to by the incumbent outlets.
Here is a short list of my favorites :
Big Technology (free but will eventually be paid) by former Buzzfeed journalist Alex Kantrowitz. Alex has decided to leap forward and leave the news initiative of the grand masters of attention-driven media. I don’t know Alex’s writing in great depth, but the quality of his book Always Day One about how Big Tech stays on top of innovation bodes very well for the future of this publication. He’s a great example of how career journalists going independent are an excellent contribution to the conversation and could lead to reconcile tech and journalism going forward.
Erin For Tech (free) by NYU student and product enthusiast Erin Mikail. What I love about Erin is the fresh tone and perspective she takes on tech news and editorial content. Her publication is full of subtle pop and meme culture references that sublimate the quality of her reporting instead of hindering it, which in my humble opinion is quite a tough exercise. Unfortunately, most students in my vicinity will only curate content instead of voicing their own opinion with vigor, be it right or wrong. I think Erin’s work can inspire many to do better !
The Everything Bundle. Everything was the first paid newsletter I have ever subscribed to, and was started by ex-Substack VP of Product Nathan Baschez and product executive Dan Shipper, and now regroups 4 different business publications. This bundle focuses on long form essays and editorial content about business, productivity, investing and math and is increasingly diversifying in podcasts, open conversations, and so on. The level of insight and research the team is putting into Everything is really astounding and underlines the impact you can make on an audience when writing full-time and committing to thorough research. In tech and business, Everything is perhaps one of the only and the most valuable bundle there is. I would pay multiples of what it currently costs for a European-led publication of that type with several contributors.
While not all of these publications were started by career journalists, I really do hope it gives perspective to people currently employed by ad-supported houses or seeking employment as journalists to try another way.
Where are all the independent reporters at ?
I was prompted to look at the situation in Europe more closely by this great essay on the power of controversy by Nicolas Colin. I do agree on the fact that Europe lacks a common platform in which controversies and fruitful conversations would emerge and circulate. As Nicolas describes, this is linked to a variety of factors: language fragmentation, the strong US tropism of the best European investors and thinkers, and the London-centered coverage.
We are beginning to see operators, ecosystem personalities and investors taking the pen and launching paid media to cover investigative stories that are truly refreshing and go a step beyond the news headlines. Nicolas himself has spearheaded the conversation for a long time, and recently launched Capital Call with Willy Braun (founder of VC firm Daphni) and Vincent Touati (Marketing chief for London-based VC Northzone).
Capital Call exhorts investors to participate in a shared conversation rather than having endless monologues on separate tracks. The underlying idea, drawn for Nicola’s experience, is that European operators are too busy making magic happen to focus on high-level stories and content and that investors should fill up this role.
I think this is a fair and realistic point of view, and by writing this I am myself doing exactly that, but I am candidly wondering : Is it sustainable and desirable in the long run ?
The investor community, at least in France, has been repeatedly criticized for lacking diversity and being populated by ex-financiers with little operational experience (which I sincerely hope is not disqualifying, belonging to this category myself).
While investors form thoughtful, well researched commentary and opinions based on current news or their own views of a particular issue, can they be the ones holding the ecosystem accountable as it grows bigger ? Because they have skin in the game and the fear of reputational risk is still very present, this might be a bottleneck and the limit in turning them into full-blown journalists.
In the same way there are career journalists covering tech for traditional outlets, should we desire a slew of independent writers taking their pens and going full-time with no conflicting interests in sight ? Should they group to form an independent media house with local foothold first or be European by design, a European Mediapart of tech journalism ?
I remember talking to the most ambitious of my friends in journalism school and realizing that most of them viewed the game as a zero-sum one, thinking: “I must be exceptional and fit the criteria for mass media likability, therefore I will custom-build my editorial style to achieve my goals”. In tech journalism as well as in other thematics, I think the paradigm shift we are seeing offers a better way for ambitious individuals.
The lack of experience, credentials and personal brand as an operator should not hold anyone back from starting a discussion, attracting an audience and making a living out of it ! After all, it has never stopped anyone from starting companies!
Why we need independent tech and business journalists to flourish
As we hit a pivotal point in the history of mass communication, I can’t help but think about the grander motives that all journalists would ideally pursue: telling truthful stories that attract genuine interest and spark positive emotion or change in other people’s life. That sounded corny, but it’s also the reason why I don’t often read mainstream written media: it doesn’t have that effect on me.
Here’s why I think it’s important that anybody that wants to start an independent tech-focused media should go ahead and do it if they can :
It’s okay to reinvent the wheel. Just cause of all the attention in the world seems to already be taken does not mean people don’t want or deserve better reporting. In fact, they do more than ever as the threat of authoritarianism and state overreach is hanging on Western democracies.
Laetitia Vitaud wrote in this great essay about imposter syndrome :
“Writing is like life: what matters is the human connections you create. You need to learn to accept the idea of taking up some space and interacting with others.”
Great reporting should be a defining characteristic of any healthy business ecosystem. Journalism and business (& technology in particular), require very different but equally complementary skillsets. For instance, the empathy and curiosity for diverse viewpoints can contrast the entrepreneurial obsession on a single outcome or key value, in a broader quest for accountability.
“I’m largely convinced that we need the skills of both journalism and tech to create a better future. We’ll take empathy, social skills, listening, curiosity, research and a dedication to truth from journalism, and combine that with the skills of monetization, building, analytics, testing, and a willingness to try something completely out of left field right from the tech world”
Erin Mikail
Some great initiatives that inspire me
SeedTable - Gonz Sanchez. Seedtable is quickly taking the stage as a reference publication in tech-focused business strategy in Europe, and I think it’s a fair reward for the consistency Gonz has put in delivering it. And I think his approach is great: he does not disqualify traditional media but invites those who want to go further to make the leap and follow him on his editorial journey. Also, his accountability strategies are relentless, and he inspired me to donate to charity the only time I skipped a day in The Rookie VC.
Nouveau Départ - Nicolas Colin & Laetitia Vitaud. I think Nouveau Départ is a great idea and is in the continuity of Nicolas’ intent with European Straits: giving the opportunity to a broader population of business executives and intellectuals to understand the broader stakes of the tech industry and the dynamics of change with A+ editorial content. And the publication doesn’t only cover tech and tackles some of my favorite subjects as well, such as political commentary! The pace at which the duo produces content is hard to keep up with, and I have admittedly not subscribed to the paid version just yet but am starting to not stand the itch anymore.
And this is it for now. Two things to conclude :
I want to see the glass half-full. The fact that I found a limited number of initiatives in Europe highlights that almost everything remains to be done and that this space !
This was written with the intent of sparking debate (controversy even?). Do @ me on Twitter at @LarocheUlysse to discuss if you’re planning on being part of the conversation or if you want to react !
Ressource list :
The Everything Bundle - (Nathan Baschez, Dan Shipper, Adam Keesling, Tiago Forte)
European Tech: We Need More Controversies!, Nicolas Colin
Emails Overload, Newsletters & Impostor Syndrome, Laetitia Vitaud
What Journalists Say When No One is Listening, Jeremy Arnold
Why Laid Off Journalist Should Launch Their Own Media Companies, Simon Owens
Why Big Media Should Not Get Bigger, Bill Moyers
Media Consolidation: Why Should Anyone Care ? , Bill Moyers
Médias Français: Qui Possède Quoi ?, Le Monde Diplomatique
Histoire des Médias Sous Contrôle, Félix Treguer, Blog Mediapart