Never Settle Down
Serious publications tend from time to time to hire talented people, educated, usually young, devoted to the craft of criticism, at least as it entails fidelity to an art and to a text under review. What usually happens is that such a critic writes for some time at his highest level: reporting and characterizing accurately; incorporating in whatever is judgmental evidence for what he’s saying (a sign of integrity in a critic, as opposed to an opinion monger, is that he tries for evidence; in reviewing prose forms, for example, he will quote); and producing insights, and allusions, which, if they are not downright brilliant, are apposite. What happens after a longer time is that he settles down.
-Renata Adler, “Toward a Radical Middle,” After the Tall Timber
The challenges this generation of journalists faces is unlike any that has come before. I’m not asking for your sympathy as much as attempting to state a fact. There are ethical challenges, sure, but the willingness of the industry to wrestle openly with its own ethics is actually a sign of health, not impending demise. The challenges I’m referring to are largely structural and economic.
No media organization is immune to the effects of these challenges. The economic outlook may be rosier than it was when I founded this publication in 2008, but widespread layoffs in the industry suggest it is a profession that has yet to regain its footing. Even our former partner ESPN, a company that dominates its chosen vertical unlike any other, was recently forced to cut staff so as to briefly steady itself atop the ever-shifting media landscape.
Why is this happening? I guess you could blame Reagan for deregulating the economy, or Al Gore for inventing the Internet, or CNN for inventing the 24-hour news cycle, or Mark Zuckerberg for inventing Facebook, or Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive for inventing the iPhone or Bi Sheng for inventing movable type. (Johannes Gutenberg did not invent the printing press. He merely introduced it to Europe.)
Personally, I don’t blame anyone in particular. I don’t think individuals are to blame for this sort of thing. But nonetheless the challenges the media face are real, and as members of the media we here at 48 Minutes of Hell must respond. The media has changed a lot over the last seven and a half years. It’s for the best that we change too.
There are lots of challenges that journalists face that are unique to this day and age, but that doesn’t mean the challenges that journalists used to face have subsided. They are still very present, and the greatest of those challenges is the temptation to “settle down.”
What’s rewarding about writing is that it is hard. Most everyone understands this — that it is hard, not that it is rewarding — at least implicitly. Even the most talented writers among us struggle with their craft.
What’s difficult about writing is, well, that it is hard. Most everyone understands this, at least implicitly. This is especially true in journalism, in which you are not just responsible for your own ideas but those of someone else. Over time most writers give in to the temptation to make our very difficult craft easier, if even for just a moment. Over time most of us settle down.
While the temptation to settle down and the challenges posed by the economic and structural transformations the media industry is undergoing do not have the same root cause, I believe the solution to the latter can be found in resistance to the former. I believe that the best way to not merely survive but thrive as a member of the media in 2015 is to not settle down.
Believe it or not, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about our audience. Partly this is because I’m still a little astounded anyone is the least bit interested in reading our writing, but mostly it’s because I don’t believe we will survive if we aren’t providing value to our audience. I’ve always been proud of what we’ve published, but recently I’ve questioned the amount of value we’re providing. This isn’t a question of quality. The matter at hand is scarcity.
If a commodity exists in infinite supply, it is rendered valueless. This is economics 101. Scarcity is what creates value. And content is the least scarce commodity in existence. If our goal at 48 Minutes of Hell is to provide value to our readers, then we face a very particular challenge: We must become alchemists, transforming a valueless commodity into a valuable one.
The best way — the only way — to do this is to refuse to settle down. And that is what we intend to do.
A lot of things are going to change. For instance, we’ll be doing away with things like game recaps. Why? Because you likely watched the game, and even if you didn’t, you can find a recap elsewhere. Our goal is to bring you ideas, information, and stories about the San Antonio Spurs that you can’t readily find elsewhere. Sometimes our ideas will flash by on Twitter. Other times they will be unpackaged over the course of thousands of words. The time it takes us to capture the idea isn’t what matters. What matters is that, when you are finished reading, you should be confident that you donated your time to a group of writers who never settled down.
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