Weekly Roundup 006
Bite-sized observations on going direct, going offline, and the wigger renaissance
What Iβm Reading: Going Direct
βYou are so much more than the media nowβ β Elon Musk
If you needed further evidence of an βeternal seventies,β Hal Conte analyzes the corporate strategy of βgoing directβ β a 1970s-era communications approach shaped by circumstances that wouldnβt be out of place today.
"Reporters are not surrogates of the public", [former VP of Mobil Oil, Herbert] Schmertz argued, adding that they were demographic and ideological outliers from the American mainstream, disproportionately educated, irreligious, and Democratic. Add to this a business model based on targeting a professional class audience and the media could not but be woefully out of touch. (Schmertz went so far as to suggest media leaned in to coverage of then-controversial social issues such as sex education so more conservative low-income readers would unsubscribe, and this would boost a magazine's demographic profile for advertisers).
Schmertz concluded that this meant media was just a business, and its self-appointed mission as a protector of the public was unwarranted. He also wrote that the mediaβs background meant journalists have little understanding of business and are biased towards negative stories and social crusades.
What Iβve Been Thinking About
I recently spoke with internet culture writer Kathrine Dee about the early days of the internet. The full conversation is behind a paywall, but here are a few sections that have been on my mind for a while that I share below. (If you subscribe to her Substack, you may see my name anonymized β a practice she uses for all interviews in this series. But Iβm not anonymous, and I donβt mind anyone knowing it was me, obviously.)