Future Imperfect #39: Journalism’s Disappearing Act
Welcome to Future Imperfect! This week I’ve been reading about the crumbling bargain of ad-supported journalism, a defense of Apple sans-headphone jack, a new app for direct democracy, and a new way to deter extremists through their Google searches. Oh, and Aleppo. Yes, that Aleppo.
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Journalism’s disappearing act
How many media outlets do you read in a given month? How many do you regularly subscribe to or donate to? Is the answer zero? There’s no shame in it — most people (myself included) are media nomads, flocking from one source to another based on whatever happens to come through social media, newsletters, or by word of mouth.
But it’s worth appreciating the financial impact when unique, and socially valuable, reporting goes unsupported. For instance, here’s what happened in the wake of Mother Jones’ private prison exposé (via Mashable).
Journalist Shane Bauer spent four months working within prisons for Corrections Corporation of America, chronicling the brutal conditions for the inmates and the broader failures of the companies running these institutions.
The story cost around $350,000 to produce. The banner ads that ran against the story generated around $5,000.
About six weeks later, the story was given renewed attention on Thursday when the U.S. Justice Department announced that it will end the use of private prisons.
Cue another round of acclaim. This time, however, Mother Jones was ready, thanks to a bit of a coincidence. On Wednesday, the magazine launched a new effort to spur readers to pay for its journalism.
In the era of digital optimism, the magazine is going with a tried and true approach — a direct appeal to its readers. Mother Jones is asking readers to pledge a monthly, tax-deductible gift that will go to sustaining its journalism.
Why does this matter? It’s easy to be appreciative of the impact of investigative reporting when you’re not the one footing the bill. But journalism’s advertising-supported business model is not a great long-term solution unless you’re in the business of making cat videos. Outlets that do the kind of work resulting in real policy changes can and will disappear due to lack of funding.
Consumers are in a tough spot too — we’ve grown accustomed to freedom of information on the internet, and only have so much money to spread around in subscriptions to the media outlets we would want to support. This was the original bargain to become the ad product anyway — selling ourselves as data points to marketers so that we could get the news for free.
But it seems clear to me that this bargain is breaking down. Consumers are revolting against poorly designed ads and intrusive tracking from undisclosed organizations, and media is caught in the middle. I think we’re going to see a lot more niche sites that are oriented around serving hundreds or thousands of people, not hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people. Luckily for you though, those niche sites won’t have ads that take up half of your screen, or send your data to international spammers!
Death to the headphone jack
I’ll admit—I was initially pretty disappointed in the messaging behind Apple’s decision to remove the headphone jack in the iPhone 7. But Ben Thompson (MB) has a good point here.
The truly wireless future that Ive hinted at doesn’t just entail cutting the cord between your phone and your headphones, but eventually a future where phones may not even be necessary. Given that Apple’s user experience advantages are still the greatest when it comes to physically interacting with your device, and the weakest when it comes to service dependent interactions like Siri, that is a frightening prospect.
And that is why I ultimately forgive Schiller for his “courage” hubris. To Apple’s credit they are, with the creation of AirPods, laying the foundation for a world beyond the iPhone. It is a world where, thanks to their being a product — not services — company, Apple is at a disadvantage; however, it is also a world that Apple, thanks to said product expertise, especially when it comes to chips, is uniquely equipped to create. That the company is running towards it is both wise — the sooner they get there, the longer they have to iterate and improve and hold off competitors — and also, yes, courageous. The easy thing would be to fight to keep us in a world where phones are all that matters, even if, in the long run, that would only prolong the end of Apple’s dominance.
Why does this matter? It’s easy to get caught up in the now. Was Apple’s execution here flawed? Definitely. Are they rolling this out too soon? Possibly. It’s no small thing to be demanding that your users completely overhaul their accessory set when these new “airpods” cost $159. But should we be counting on wired headphones when we have no idea what comes after the smartphone? Perhaps not.
Power to the people
Can democracy, with all of its ills, be revived? This week in Fast Company, a new direct democracy voting app: MiVote.
Like Democracy Earth, a nonprofit that started in Argentina, MiVote uses the blockchain to make digital voting and identity fully secure. Democracy Earth also plans to use a similar model of representation, running candidates who promise to adhere to the results of online votes rather than a particular ideology.
But MiVote takes a somewhat different approach to gathering opinions. The app will give users a notification when a new issue is addressed in the Australian parliament. Then, voters get access to a digital “information packet,” compiled by independent researchers, that lets them dive into four different approaches.
“We don’t talk about the bill or the legislation at all,” says Jacoby. “If you put it into a business context, the bill or the legislation is the contract. In no business would you write the contract before you know what the deal looks like. If we’re looking for genuine democracy, the bill has to be determined by the people . . . Once we know where the people want to go, then we focus on making sure the bill gets us there.”
If the parliament is going to vote about immigration, for example, you might get details about a humanitarian approach, a border security approach, a financially pragmatic approach, and an approach that focuses on international relations. For each frame of reference, the app lets you dive into as much information as you need to decide. If you don’t read anything, it won’t let you cast a vote.
Why does this matter? It’s an interesting take on direct democracy, and one that is perhaps more sophisticated than previous proposals that would totally reboot the legislature.
You could say it’s taking the ideal of the proportionally elected lower house in that it truly (in theory) elects candidates who are willing to be bound by the will of the electorate. And the electorate, in turn, is willing to be bound to a parallel ideal, that they will stay abreast of political affairs rather than just partisan shouting.
A digital antidote to online (and IRL) hatred
Combating extremist organizations like ISIS is the international challenge of our time, and now the tech companies are getting involved. How do you stop ISIS from recruiting susceptible individuals online? Serving them anti-ISIS Google results is a nice start.
The program, which Jigsaw calls the Redirect Method and plans to launch in a new phase this month, places advertising alongside results for any keywords and phrases that Jigsaw has determined people attracted to ISIS commonly search for. Those ads link to Arabic- and English-language YouTube channels that pull together preexisting videos Jigsaw believes can effectively undo ISIS’s brainwashing — clips like testimonials from former extremists, imams denouncing ISIS’s corruption of Islam, and surreptitiously filmed clips inside the group’s dysfunctional caliphate in Northern Syria and Iraq.
“This came out of an observation that there’s a lot of online demand for ISIS material, but there are also a lot of credible organic voices online debunking their narratives,” says Yasmin Green, Jigsaw’s head of research and development. “The Redirect Method is at its heart a targeted advertising campaign: Let’s take these individuals who are vulnerable to ISIS’ recruitment messaging and instead show them information that refutes it.”
The results, in a pilot project Jigsaw ran early this year, were surprisingly effective: Over the course of about two months, more than 300,000 people were drawn to the anti-ISIS YouTube channels. Searchers actually clicked on Jigsaw’s three or four times more often than a typical ad campaign. Those who clicked spent more than twice as long viewing the most effective playlists than the best estimates of how long people view YouTube as a whole. And this month, along with the London-based startup Moonshot Countering Violent Extremism and the US-based Gen Next Foundation, Jigsaw plans to relaunch the program in a second phase that will focus its method on North American extremists, applying the method to both potential ISIS recruits and violent white supremacists.
Why does this matter? Jigsaw may have stumbled into the most effective way to fight extremists—deterring them before they start. That’s a lot more effective and efficient than mass surveillance, entrapping individuals, drone strikes, or wars abroad. I’m looking forward to seeing whether progress on this front continues.
The enemy’s gate is down
Today’s sci-fi short: Uncanny Valley. “In the slums of the future, virtual reality junkies satisfy their violent impulses in online entertainment. An expert player discovers that the line between games and reality is starting to fade away.”
GIF of the Week: Don’t try this at home
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