DailyDirt: Journalism 2.0 Owned By Billionaires?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
It isn’t exactly news that newspapers are facing some serious business difficulties. But if you haven’t been keeping up with the business of journalism (and who could blame you since most of the news is crap), you might have missed seeing that some tech billionaires are starting to invest in journalistic endeavors. Sure, billionaires have always owned all the major news organizations (eg. Hearst, Bloomberg, Zuckerman), but the key part here is that technology-savvy billionaires are getting into the game. Maybe that small detail will matter. Or Maybe it won’t. In case you haven’t been reading any of this news, here are some examples of this billionaire buying trend.
- Pierre Omidyar is the latest billionaire to invest in a journalistic enterprise and create a new kind of sustainable journalism. Omidyar was considering buying the Washington Post, but he decided to start from scratch, so he’ll find out whether his millions would have been better spent on an existing news organization. [url]
- Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million, and everyone will be watching the natural experiment of how the Washington Post evolves, compared to Omidyar’s new media startup. Will any Washington Post journalists cover this story? [url]
- Chris Hughes bought The New Republic last year, and he wasn’t the first billionaire to buy a media outlet — but he might be one of the youngest. TNR has re-designed its layout, and Hughes thinks editorial decisions can’t be isolated from the business side of his magazine. Hughes aims to make the company profitable in the next few years…. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: billionaires, chris hughes, jeff bezos, journalism, media trends, news, pierre omidyar
Companies: the new republic, washington post
Comments on “DailyDirt: Journalism 2.0 Owned By Billionaires?”
Propaganda
So you have people owning more newspapers…
How will this not be focused on newspapers that don’t attack those people?
This is truly a conflict of interest.
And Rupert Murdoch is news?
They’ve been doing it for a long time, Mike.
So how come you just noticed?
Re: And Rupert Murdoch is news?
Notice he is talking about TECH-SAVVY rich people.
I believe these experiences may be quite interesting. I wonder if they can be truly neutral and let the outfits write about themselves if any negative thing arises.
It will be worth watching. The news world is in the middle of a huge earthquake that was set off by the internet. There are all sorts of attempts of doing journalism in a new way and i’s difficult to see how this will end.
You guys suck I don’t want the truth I need FOX to fill my head with tons of lies and propaganda that in some way strokes my ego.
Just like my wife after sex.
Billionaires buying newsprint ops
It’s about point-of-sale (POS) local commerce from a digital local-topical branded news/content fountain, and through a digital app, to wit: Bezos (WaPo) w/also, same day real-world delivery from online ecommerce; John Henry (GoSox) (Boston Globe Media Group – formed 10/24/13) straddling MULTIPLE online-offline print AND digital product distribution, throughout west-eastern Massachusetts/New England. POS transactions w/commission monetization and mfg/dealer local co-operative advertising funding. Of course ‘content’ continues to morph digital, as does legacy advertising models; cha-ching.
Just the next logical step
The first step in the destruction of mainstream journalism in the US was when the big media companies bought up all of the news outlets so they could control the public narrative.
Now that this has resulted in the predicted downfall of newspapers we move on to the next step, which is to pick up the corpses, dust them off, apply some makeup, and have a whole new set of companies use them to control the public narrative.
It will certainly be interesting to see. Will it make a difference in news? Or will the power corrupt?