*They've got the editor from TIME magazine in charge now. Well, okay.
*I've got a Medium account with a lot of long-form stuff lodged inside it, but I'm wondering what the heck gives with the prospects of that. This certainly isn't about the horse understanding the automobile; it's more like the "pivot to nowhere."
You might want to peruse those Bruce Sterling texts in case they vanish like the dew suddenly
*There's one thing I'm pretty happy about today, amid this dire media news. As it happens, I've got a degree in journalism, and after my graduation I seriously pondered going all-in as a professional news-man. And I didn't. That's what I'm glad about.
*I knew how to do it, at the time. Maybe get a modest post on a daily, then aspire to a slicker weekly magazine; develop a beat of my own (in popular science, most probably), and then, after the apprentice years, maybe get into editing, or maybe writing some long-form non-fiction books while I rubbed elbows with my talented, street-wise, Fourth Estate newshound peers...
*Or, I could just get by for a while on some dumb day-job, while I screwed around writing sci-fi. As for work in professional journalism, well, I might occasionally dabbling in tech or futurism mags.
*That was a hippie dropout's choice to drink career poison, but man am I glad I chose to do that. I got tossed around a lot on my one-man freelance inflatable rubber raft, and it'll likely end in tears because a creative writers' life generally does, but at least I didn't have to spend decades of my adult lifetime as a hard-working deck hand on the glamorous Titanic. There are few things sadder in life than loyally committing to a great institution that just can't institute. When I think of the sacrifices people in that profession have made... And despite the commercial collapse of their business, the jails are still full of journalists. Journalists get shot every day.
*Now imagine Facebook suddenly collapsing and being an ex-Facebook minion. Man, what would you do with yourself?
Vanity Fair can't figure out MEDIUM because neither can anyone else including themselves
by Joe Pompeo
Medium, the pro-am Web-publishing outfit founded by former Twitter C.E.O. Ev Williams, is bringing on a new editor to oversee its content strategy, and Time magazine has lost another editor as it begins a new chapter under the ownership of Meredith Corporation. Siobhan O’Connor, most recently executive editor at Time, left the newsweekly after nearly four years on January 17, and will begin a new job as Medium’s vice president of editorial on February 5, reporting directly to Williams and based in New York.
Medium—best known as an online community where people (often well-known people like politicians, executives, and journalists) can self-publish op-eds, personal essays, and reportage, potentially attracting a large audience—has gone through various iterations since its founding in 2012. The most recent is a subscription play, to which Medium pivoted last year after an ad-based model proved difficult. Some outlets—The Awl, The Ringer, and Pacific Standard, among others—had even moved their content over to the platform, but subsequently pulled out... (((etc etc)))
