The Rise and Fall of Alt-Weeklies, and Journalism in an AI World

On the Media

WNYC Studios

Magazine, Newspapers, Media, 1st, Advertising, Social Sciences, Studios, Radio, Transparency, Tv, History, Science, News Commentary, Npr, Technology, Amendment, Newspaper, Wnyc, News, Journalism

4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The story of how The Village Voice changed journalism, and a peek inside the AI clickbait industry taking over old news websites.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The village voice is no more.
0:02.0	After more than four decades in print, the city paper is shutting down.
0:06.7	A weekly connection to Twin Cities culture, now just a 41-year chapter in its journalistic history.
0:13.6	Whatever happened to the off-beat irreverent all-weeklies that used to populate newsstands
0:18.8	across the country?
0:20.7	From WNYC in New York, this is on the media, I'm Michael Lohanger.
0:25.0	On this week's show, an ode to the village voice.
0:29.0	The voice was their guide delight from people who cared about what they were covering with such intensity that
0:35.6	there were fist bites and drawles inside the paper. That's gone.
0:40.3	Plus how to earn big bucks by reanimating defunct news sites and filling them with AI
0:47.1	sludge. There's a lot of posts that are about dream interpretation. It's just
0:52.2	clearly written by an AI. Kind of the worst thing you've ever
0:54.9	read in your life. It's all coming up after this. From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.
1:03.6	Brooke Gladstone is out this week.
1:05.3	I'm like a loanger.
1:07.1	At the beginning of the summer, a small but revered paper
1:10.7	in St Louis, Missouri Missouri closed up shop.
1:13.2	The end of an era.
1:14.8	That is how some are describing the not-so-secret sale of the Riverfront Times
1:19.8	to a secret buyer.
1:21.2	People close to the paper now fear it is gone for good.
1:24.9	The staff got word yesterday morning that they were all losing their jobs.
	...

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