“Media companies have been much too slow to shift to digital; they’ve clung to print and broadcast, even when it was clear audiences are moving elsewhere. This means the budgets for quality journalism are focused on the wrong places, creating a void that is filled by the cheapest possible content, often from questionable sources. The attention has moved, but the content creation resources mostly haven’t.”
Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti is a brilliant guy with a great handle on how the internet has changed our world and where it’s headed. His year-end memo to his staff is well worth a read.
He breaks down what we’ve learned from the internet so far, including a suggestion that the root of the internet’s fake news and journalism issues are that the advertising industry hasn’t shifted its dollars to where the audience’s attention is.