The shocking diminishment of The Washington Post, which has just announced it is cutting a third of its staff, is not just another story of a great paper succumbing to algorithms, social media, and the march to idiocracy. In their zeal to be seen as fair and evenhanded, journalists tend to accept the common criticism that they failed to adapt that, basically, they didn't produce enough viral TikTok videos. There's some truth to that, but the main problem lies elsewhere.
Over the last couple of years, the most interesting thing I have noticed when studying the brands dominating in the digital era is that most of the successful new big market disruptors - those making millions of dollars a month from online ads alone - have risen to fame thanks to their own internal marketing teams. This is especially true for those in the e-commerce space, who have grown predominantly through Facebook advertising.
Mark Thompson's tenure at CNN has been quietly fascinating. Two years in, the British-born CEO remains something of an enigmarespected by staff, scrutinized by outsiders, and, by all accounts, remarkably calm in the eye of the storm. CNN, like all legacy media, faces a rapidly shifting landscape: cord-cutting, social platforms siphoning attention, AI reshaping journalism, and the relentless competition for viewers' trust.