DB

Journalism is in its death throes with its newest bout of layoffs, where you can read about in many places, but perhaps you can start here. I’m not a journalist, I’m a blogger-writing-goofy-guy, who puts up writing on the Internet. However, that’s not to say that I’m not affected by these layoffs as a reader.

I’ve enjoyed the confidence of reporting for VICE, who is one of the media companies that have announced its intention to layoff hundreds of employees. Lin Codega, who broke the OGL news regarding Wizards of the Coast, was let go despite their award-winning year and contribution to TTRPG journalism.

And I’m here wondering…what now?

Well, a few of the answers has been for independent, employee-owned news sites like Rascal News and Aftermath, who report on TTRPGs and video games respectively. They seem to be doing well for themselves, and on the Rascal News front they have been pushing out articles and blogposts that I’ve enjoyed (and which have introduced me to new games, which is half the joy of TTRPG journalism).

But, I’ve also learned quite a bit, which is another joy of journalism. Their skillset is to find and represent stories for…well, to represent perspectives that I’m not immediately aware of. The reason why I go to physicist to learn about physics is that they have a better understanding of the material than I do, and they could probably teach it a lot better than me trying to learn from a book. The reason why I go to a games journalist is that they can inform me of the different cultural influences, relevant events, and the people that made these wonderful games. Games are art, after all, and as much as I enjoy them, I enjoy and appreciate them from the perspective of a professional who can spend their paid, professional time, to dive deep into them.

With the death throes of the news industry, I do wonder something though: where does the truth come from now?

One of my biggest fears is the ease for folks to fabricate truth, and the ease with which all of us accept pieces–written, video, or other mediums–that validate our current understandings and beliefs. I’m prone to it as well. If we don’t have people whose profession is to represent significant events, conduct investigation, and supplement analysis of complex topics…where do we get any of this from? Who do we trust?

Do we trust people based on a proper track record of well-intended, unbiased reporting? How do we validate this track record? By the number of likes, and views that it has? We know that we can’t do that. We shouldn’t do that, not when the algorithms of our Internet spaces are made to make us spend more time on them. It sucks.

I don’t have answers to any of these questions. When I recognized my fear, it was mostly because of the ease that people were willing to fully believe fraudulent conspiracy theories. But now, the fear has cemented closer to reality, as a profit-driven news industry is shrinking.

I fear where we will be after its downsizing. And…I don’t know what to do.

Read books. Challenge truths.

End your sentences, or start them, with “I think”, or “my current understanding”.

Stay humble in your “knowledge” of the world, because it looks like it’s going to get even harder to navigate it.