The mainstream media is crumbling — it’s about time |
The mainstream media is crumbling — it’s about time
Bumbling CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’s announcement last week that the network would lay off 6 percent of its workforce and shutter its storied CBS News Radio division seemed par for the course in today’s brutal media landscape.
Just a week earlier, one-time media juggernaut Buzzfeed announced it had “substantial doubt” about its financial future. Last month, the 158-year-old Atlanta Journal-Constitution slashed another 15 percent of its remaining staff after ending its print edition at the end of last year. CNN employees are also bracing for sweeping layoffs ahead of new owner David Ellison’s arrival.
It’s a different story at MeidasTouch, the left-of-center digital media company founded by brothers Ben, Brett and Jordan Meiselas in 2020. The network raised eyebrows this week after hiring former CBS News fixture Scott MacFarlane to head up their Washington bureau. The MeidasTouch Podcast now boasts more than 5 million subscribers, and the network’s made-for-sharing video clips blanket Twitter, Bluesky and Threads.
MeidasTouch certainly isn’t a traditional news network. That’s turning out to be a good thing. And MacFarlane’s defection to the world of digital start-up media makes more sense when you consider how legacy outlets have come to resemble their upstart peers.
Legacy media used to contrast itself from lefty digital outlets like MeidasTouch, More Perfect Union and the right-wing Daily Wire by promising objectivity. That was always an aspirational goal at........