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Streaming’s Death Spiral
I’m a fan of Kara Swisher, the host of the New York Time’s Sway podcast (about tech and leadership and futurology), who has a rather no-nonsense approach to the way the digital media landscape is shaping up. In a way, she’s sort-of the anti-Joe Rogan in this area: where he is wildly credulous and optimistic, Swisher is more grounded and pessimistic. Like me, which is perhaps why her analysis appeals more to me than his.
Anyhow, I was just listening to her podcast on the death spiral of the streaming video industry, with noted American media watchers Matt Belloni and Ben Smith, and I was struck by just how much of what I was listening to was total guesswork. This is, perhaps, a naive realisation about journalism, which is 90% bluff and bluster, and 10% research and genuine expertise. But journalism about journalism — or journalism about the media — has an inbuilt advantage. It has that immediate, experiential expertise. Anyone who’s worked in a newsroom or in a TV studio or broadcast on live radio can contribute something to analysis of the media — which means that almost any ‘journalist’ can call themselves an expert.
