The problem with outsourcing journalism and coverage to freelancers working piecemeal in an online 'free market' is that it's not actually a free market. It appears to be so, but it's dependent on an advertising paradigm that is tremendously opaque, rewards certain kinds of content (and not others), and is increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer entities. Google and Facebook shape the market for coverage and ideas because they control the ad marketplaces. You cannot scale and survive without them.
It's naive to trumpet the the 'free and open' nature of web publishing. Yeah, you can start 'your own blog', but it's nothing without Adsense or Adwords. And there's almost no access granted to learn about the way these 'marketplaces' actually function. It's a series of darkpools, and everyone is just trying to adapt as fast as they can (some have done better than others). Everyone from the outside is in a reactive position -- publishers, journalists, consumers. That kind of uncertainty breeds sensationalism and superficiality.
There is much to be said for the traditional model, which--though imperfect--invests time and space in fostering individual talent that can seek out stories that transcend clickbait and an ad paradigm that values only real time, superficial coverage (or which thrusts perpetual precarity on anyone with a modicum of ambition).
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