An oral history of the epic collision between journalism and digital technology, 1980 to the present

A project of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy

An oral history of the epic collision between journalism and digital technology, from 1980 to the present

Impact of Mobility on News Business

Volume 1:
CEOs, Coders, News Execs, Disrupters

And then that changed, and online for the Wall Street Journal there was still that sense of this is what’s really important. This is of less importance. And, of course, as technology allowed…somebody recently used the phrase, “the nuggetization of content.”.
It was the fact that you didn’t have to go to a callbox or to a landlin.
Any social network says your friends and famous people will keep you fed with content. I don’t see that as a replacement for a comprehensive ranking, whoever it comes from.

Explore more topics Vol. 1 

The Future of Journalism

Volume 2:
Tech Journalists

The world will always need something more than a sea of amateur bloggers whom they don’t know.
David Pogue
I didn’t see the bus coming and I don’t know what the salvation will be, but people have been doing this stuff for a really long time. It’s not going to stop.
Deborah Branscum
By the way, that’s the part of journalism I’m most worried about, right? City Hall accountability is at an all-time low and this is a civic crisis. That is terrible. You’re right. I’m lucky. I do feel like I didn’t quite choose tech journalism. It chose me.
Julia Angwin

Explore more topics Vol. 2 

The Big Picture

For most of the 20th century, any list of America’s wealthiest families would include quite a few publishers generally considered to be in the “news business”: the Hearsts, the Pulitzers, the Sulzbergers, the Grahams, the Chandlers, the Coxes, the Knights, the Ridders, the Luces, the Bancrofts — a tribute to the fabulous business model that once delivered the country its news. While many of those families remain wealthy today, their historic core businesses are in steep decline (or worse), and their position at the top of the wealth builders has long since been eclipsed by people with other names: Gates, Page and Brin and Schmidt, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Case, and Jobs — builders of digital platforms that, while not specifically targeted at the “news business,” have nonetheless severely disrupted it.

Keep reading Vol 1. 

The Tech Journalists

A transformative wave washed over the world economy this past quarter-century and technology journalists were its chroniclers and front-row witnesses. Many, among the twenty interviewed, say a catastrophic disruption of the news business was to be expected. But they feel their warnings went largely unheard within their workplaces, a contributing factor to the industry’s late and ineffectual counter-efforts. In contrast to pessimism about the future financial underpinnings of their business, they’re optimistic about the outlook for journalism as new tools, audiences and approaches emerge and evolve.

Keep reading Vol 2. 

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Volume
Vol 1: CEOs, Coders, News Execs, Disrupters
Vol 2: Tech Journalists

Four veterans of digital journalism and media — John Huey, Martin Nisenholtz, Paul Sagan, and later John Geddes — interviewed dozens of people who played important roles in the intersection of media and technology — from CEOs to coders, journalists to disruptors.

Riptide is the result: more than 50 hours of video interviews and two narrative essays that trace the evolution of digital news from early experiments to today. It’s what really happened to the news business.

Read Vol. 1  
See interviews