thmHow Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post
When looking at the bylines of many of those laid off, I noticed that many had written about 2-3 articles per month. I don't know how journalism works but it seems to me that low of productivity cannot be sustainable. Example, an 8 year tech columnist had about 15 articles since August and one was a black Friday article. With all the tech news happening today, this output feels low.
Those aren't comparable jobs. Reporters report; they go to locations, they develop sources, they make phone calls. Columnists opine, or synthesize other people's reporting.
I'm not bullish on the future of newspapers generally but this is the thing you're afraid of when you think about how they're receding: people conditioned to think that random Substacks or Engadget or whatever were ever doing serious first-draft-of-history journalism. A huge percentage of everything people read online is based on reporting work that's done at a pace of 2-3 articles per month. You'll definitely miss it when it's gone!