Diana Moskovitz (and the team at Defector) is an absolute treasure. The absolute decimation of Deadspin at the hands of Gawker/Spanfeller is one of the biggest disappointments of my lifetime.
This situation is obviously complex and with many moving pieces. But I'm amazed at the lack of self awareness from every "what went wrong with journalism" piece that I see. A big part of why journalism is dying is that journalism is no longer trustworthy. Yes there are a multitude of reasons, but that's a big one. And yet I almost never see that kind of self-reflection in these think pieces. And when I do see it, it's always "well, if people don't trust us anymore, we should blame right wingers and misinformation". In other words, from what I've seen, journalists' explanation and solution for not being trusted is to double down on the very same one-sided narrative building that led them to lose trust in the first place! Even in this interview between two journalists who are clearly brilliant, they manage to demonize conservatives in several places. I just don't get how intelligent people can be so deeply inside a bubble as to miss something that the whole outside world is clamoring about. The loss of journalism is an incredible loss for civic society. And despite journalists' own behavior being part of the cause, I've yet to see any contrition. It just makes me feel angry at them or something. "Your twisting of the truth is part of what led to us losing our access to information. And yet you refuse to take any responsibility for it?" It's like if someone was trusted to be a steward of the forest, and instead contributed to burning it down. And then kept giving excuses and blaming others for it instead of apologizing.