Kara Swisher Warns of ‘Even Bigger’ Threats Coming for Digital Media
Kara Swisher describes herself in the final pages of her new memoir as “a longtime tech reporter and raconteur,” someone able to tell stories in a captivating, amusing way. It’s a necessary skill for explaining the ongoing collapse of digital media, especially following the last two months’ “extinction-level” layoffs at publications from the Los Angeles Times to the zombie-like Vice to the now-defunct The Messenger.
“I don't think they're particularly good businesses anymore,” Swisher told The Daily Beast over a Zoom interview late last week. That’s not just the fault of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, the respective owners of The Washington Post and the L.A. Times, but the natural progression of things under tech’s rapid advance: dominance and then antiquation.
“These businesses have economic systems not in line with our costs,” Swisher said. “That's pretty much one of the things media doesn't like to do is pretend costs need to meet revenues. Normal reporters don't think about that.”