Charting a path out of the slop bucket

"For more than a decade now, we've been trying to chart the right path to survive in an ecosystem where reader attention is dominated by a handful of Big Tech apps. We've pivoted to video, pivoted back again, we've written short posts, long posts, we've attached images, we've detached images, we've stopped including links to our actual content - all in a bid to please the unknowable algorithmic gods. In 2026, there is, maybe, a hope of an escape hatch."

"The big tech companies are embracing it, seemingly unbothered by the idea of serving their users a mix of the real and unreal. While we can all enjoy an infinite stream of cute kitten videos, what happens during a natural disaster? An active shooter incident? It feels inevitable that, at some point in 2026, there will be a major news event and social media feeds will be flooded by very convincing fake coverage, authored both by politically motivated actors and straightforward trolls."

News organizations have struggled for years to find sustainable strategies as reader attention concentrates on a few Big Tech apps, experimenting with formats to appease opaque algorithms. AI-generated video has become increasingly realistic and fast, raising the risk that major events will be flooded with convincing fake coverage produced by political actors and trolls. When visual trust collapses, author verification becomes one of the few reliable cues, allowing verified outlets to assert credibility. Existing engagement-optimized algorithms nonetheless amplify sensational fakes over slow, accurate reporting. The strategic goal should be to extract users from low-quality feeds and onto trusted platforms or apps.

Read at Nieman Lab