i’d argue the issue is less with music and more with journalism–although Pitchfork is probably in a worse situation than the typical journalistic outlet–because we’re a month into 2024 and layoffs have badly decimated Sports Illustrated, the LA Times, TIME, and a bunch of other publications. and outside of the separately unionized websites (of which Pitchfork is one) Conde Nast’s website portfolio just went on a one-day strike to protest the cuts they’re proposing (5%) to the workforce.
Agreed. The path to enshittification may have been slightly different for music journalism than for journalism as a whole, but the end result is quite the same.
i do suspect the publications with a niche like Pitchfork are basically goners without a change–actual newspapers can at least pretend to limp along in a severely gutted fashion for years (because large swathes of the industry are doing that right now, especially smaller papers acquired by hedge funds) but you can’t… really do that with a publication that prides itself on having contrarian views and an independent tone of voice. something like Pitchfork completely rides or dies by the quality of its writers. G/O Media gutting its unique voices are why i don’t read Deadspin despite having religiously done so when it was under the first iteration of Gawker, and why i support Defector now.
i’d argue the issue is less with music and more with journalism–although Pitchfork is probably in a worse situation than the typical journalistic outlet–because we’re a month into 2024 and layoffs have badly decimated Sports Illustrated, the LA Times, TIME, and a bunch of other publications. and outside of the separately unionized websites (of which Pitchfork is one) Conde Nast’s website portfolio just went on a one-day strike to protest the cuts they’re proposing (5%) to the workforce.
There’s probably also just generally less demand for music journalism because of streaming recommendation algorithms.
almost certainly yeah
Agreed. The path to enshittification may have been slightly different for music journalism than for journalism as a whole, but the end result is quite the same.
i do suspect the publications with a niche like Pitchfork are basically goners without a change–actual newspapers can at least pretend to limp along in a severely gutted fashion for years (because large swathes of the industry are doing that right now, especially smaller papers acquired by hedge funds) but you can’t… really do that with a publication that prides itself on having contrarian views and an independent tone of voice. something like Pitchfork completely rides or dies by the quality of its writers. G/O Media gutting its unique voices are why i don’t read Deadspin despite having religiously done so when it was under the first iteration of Gawker, and why i support Defector now.