Are creators the future of media?

And do journalists need to pivot to video?

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

If you can’t beat them… —Kate

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If there’s one reason for the increasingly frequent mass layoffs that have massacred digital (and print) media over the past decade, it is this: Executives following the latest industry whim. They pivoted to video. Then they pivoted back. The latest pivot, this time to AI, is especially ironic given who traditional journalism’s biggest competition is now: real people building audiences with their unique, individual voices. 

Lately, media companies are cutting even deeper into their staffs, and the remaining writers and editors are left wondering whether they need to build new careers outside of those companies. The rise of online personalities on platforms like TikTok, the thinking goes, has changed the way we consume culture. It’s content creators, not journalists, who will spread news. 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working in this industry, it’s that if it looks like things are going some sort of way, then, yes, they probably are. But cynically viewing creators as threats is, while perhaps understandable, misguided.