THE FALL OF JOURNALISM
Recent trends within the past few months have pointed to a major problem; the fall of journalism. According to The Daily Beast, Vox Media, CNN, the Washington Post, and NPR have announced various layoffs within the last six months. Even more recently, Buzzfeed News announced its closure.
While many associate the Buzzfeed company with its more fun, light-hearted articles, its separate news site employed a number of talented investigative journalists. For example, in 2021, Buzzfeed News’ investigative unit won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Chinese detention camps containing Muslims in Xinjiang. This trend has trickled down to other news sites, with Vice Media heading for bankruptcy, Insider Magazine slating to lay off ten percent of its staff, and Paper Magazine laying off all of its editorial staff last week. Can the shift in interest from written journalism to video journalism be to blame? Could the use of ChatGPT or other AI systems be the cause of all these layoffs? There are a number of factors that could point to the decline in these media outlets, and with the rate of which these publications are closing, it is likely that it won’t take long for more major publications to shut down. |