Why Web Journalism Has Failed
On The Verge of gossip columns (pun intended)
In many senses, journalism everywhere is dead. We can debate how much actual journalism still goes on in TV news and newspapers. Web journalism, people on the Web writing about the Web, is completely dead. It has been for years, it just doesn’t realize it, or perhaps just doesn’t care.
Frank Zappa once said that music journalism is “People who can’t write, doing interviews with people who can’t think, in order to prepare articles for people who can’t read.” Truer words have seldom been uttered. Zappa’s sentiment is even more true about what passes for writing on most Web sites about technology and the Internet.
I was reminded of the failure of Web journalism when someone on Twitter posted a link to a typical rumor-mongering-innuendo-to-create-an-appearance-of-controversy article by someone named Casey Newton, entitled “Why Medium Failed.”
I hope the irony is not lost on you of you reading on Medium about Newton’s article. Newton must think you are a failure for reading this. Perhaps he thinks my monthly paycheck from Medium is a failure.
Anyway, to summarize the article, the author has two claims. The first claim is that, without giving supportive evidence, Medium has “failed” because it gets most of its views from…
