A song to read by: “I Idolize You,” by Ike and Tina Turner

What I’m reading: “Afterparties,” by Anthony Veasna So

When I first moved to Brooklyn and began going out to parties with my girlfriend, she quickly developed a game: How long will it take Mark to bring up “the creator economy” with a stranger? On a good night, I could do it in under 30 seconds.

I will admit: I had drunk the proverbial Flat Tummy Tea and seen the Ring Light. I penned a prediction for Nieman Lab arguing that the next generation of journalists must embrace the dark arts of the influencer to game the attention economy, and I wondered openly whether the new Tip Jar feature on Twitter might one day bankroll the solo pursuits of star reporters.

As time passed, though, I began thinking more critically about the precarity of making a living from social media, and my optimism started to dim. 

As the cultural perception of social media soured more broadly, I started thinking of the platforms and the open internet as a hazard, a place one frequented out of necessity rather than pleasure. I imagined that, in the future, the wealthy might pay others to attend to their digital errands for them, saving them the discomfort of callusing their hands with labor in the same way the affluent now pay gig workers pennies to spare them the impropriety of grocery shopping.

Now, as every new day brings fresh horrors from the social platforms, the pendulum appears poised to swing even further from their favor. And in the news media, a number of influential figures have recently sent signals that the era of a social media-dominated information ecosystem could soon become a vestige of the past.

At CNN, the newly installed chief executive Chris Licht has unfurled a campaign championing the milquetoast. In his first six weeks, Licht has drastically narrowed the circumstances under which the network can deploy its favorite bauble, the “breaking news” chyron. 

He has also, according to Puck, began evaluating partisan talent to bring a semblance of parity to its left-leaning coverage. And on his first day in the new role, Licht deleted his Twitter, sending a clear message to staff about his view of its importance. 

Licht is far from alone in flipping the bird in effigy. 

Dean Baquet, the outgoing executive editor of The New York Times, made his thoughts on the value of the platform clear in an interview with The New Yorker. He decried it as a distraction and a funhouse mirror that journalists mistake for reality. 

And recently his successor, the Harvard final club Joe Kahn, echoed the thoughts of his predecessor. For the two elder journalists, Twitter has become the tail that wags the dog, a technically useful tool that too often distorts coverage and invites bad-faith dialogue.

More visibly, a similarly new chord has been struck in recent weeks at The Washington Post. 

In the wake of the high drama that followed a low-brow retweet, the freshly appointed executive editor Sally Buzzbee took the opportunity to send a message about social media propriety under her tenure. 

Buzzbee fired Felicia Somnez for her public criticisms of her colleagues and her choice to air those grievances on Twitter, and The Post is reportedly putting the finishing touches on a new social media policy that promises to take an even more draconian approach to the platforms than before. 

These three instances dovetail with the still gestating Semafor, the new media company on its way from the unrelated Ben and Justin Smith. While the two have offered little in terms of specifics, astute readers of the tea leaves know that the two share a professional disdain for the ways social media has warped news media. 

In September, I wrote about how the next generation of news publishers might devise ways to deliver information to readers without requiring them to set foot on social media or the open web. While it remains to be seen how Semafor goes about distribution, the company will likely place far less emphasis on the platforms, a departure from the prevailing modus operandi of the last decade but a smart decision that reads the room well.

In truth, although I should know better by now than to believe in silver bullets, I agree that social media has played a critical role in sewing division in our (actual) social networks. 

It remains to be seen how this new diminishment of the platforms shapes the warp and weft of the industry, whether it reduces the agency of journalists or empowers them to report without fear of a mob that lives only on their phone.

But it is increasingly clear that Twitter in particular, long a double-edged sword, has of late become more liability than asset.

Some Good Readin’

— I finally subscribed to Puck and have not regretted it. (Puck)

— The recent news about platforms paying publishers that buried the lede. (Wall Street Journal)

— How influencer culture distorts real life. (Real Life Mag)

— The latest from Dean Kissick, on taste. (Spike Art Magazine)

— The Atlantic article about San Francisco, which I liked. (The Atlantic)

Cover image: "The Escape Ladder,” by Joan Miro