I think one thing to keep in mind as to why all of the other media empires are so quick to roll over and embrace AI - all of these companies are survivors of the massive media purge of the late 2000s, when blogs and cheap online news just completely gutted the traditional news and publishing world.

Outside of a few standouts, the companies that survived did not do so by embracing quality journalism and independent reporting.

Now the bloggers and upstart publishers that killed traditional media are the incumbents.

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j2kun 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> the companies that survived did not do so by embracing quality journalism and independent reporting

Out of curiosity, which companies embraced quality journalism and failed because of it?

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legitster 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Washington Post, LA Times, Grantland, New Republic, most of the traditional Conde Nast publications.

More importantly, you can add in all of the local independent newspaper, tv, and radio channels that were either shut down or gobbled up by large corporations and gutted (Sinclair, Clear Channel, etc). Over 3000 newspapers were closed down, as well as nearly every foreign or government bureau.

This is when the largest drop ever of professional reporters in the US happened - we entered the 2020s with less than half of the number of employed reporters as we had in 2000.

The slopification of news started before AI.

	▲	1vuio0pswjnm7 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The parent asked whether embracing quality journalism led to failure: "Out of curiosity, which companies embraced quality journalism and failed because of it?" Advertising revenue stolen by so-called "tech" companies acting as intermediaries (middlemen) had nothing to do with staff reductions, i.e., "failure" Is that what this reply is suggesting What if the success or failure of news organisations isn't necessarily a result of the quality of the journalism they produce What if there is some other factor For example, control over distribution (losing it to middlemen)