Jan 2, 2019 · 35m · a16z
a16z Podcast | Reinventing Media
Alexis Madrigal · 9m spoken Connie Guglielmo · 9m spoken Claire Kane Miller · 8m spoken Margit Wennmachers · 6m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this a16z podcast episode, media leaders from The New York Times, The Atlantic, and CNET discuss how legacy and digital publishers adapt to platform algorithms, shifting business metrics, expanded newsroom roles, and changing technology coverage.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 3.9 Guest teaching 3.9 Guest disagreement 2.0 The host pushing back 2.7
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 9:50 Rejecting single-mode journalism
Connie Guglielmo forcefully rejects the premise that modern digital journalism must adhere to a single data-driven template, calling one-size-fits-all journalism dogma 'kind of ridiculous'.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 15:46 Framing packaging as spinMargit directly challenges Alexis Madrigal's euphemistic framing of headline repackaging by calling it out plainly as 'spin', refusing to adopt his softer terminology.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:37 Facebook vs Twitter traffic realityAlexis Madrigal corrects common assumptions about social media traffic by demonstrating that Facebook sends an order of magnitude more readers than Twitter and the rest of the web combined.
The host holds their own ▶ 13:07 Confronting journalistic disdain for businessMargit asserts her venture and business background by challenging traditional media taboos, arguing that journalists' historical disdain for discussing company monetization was unhelpful and unnatural.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adapting Digital Strategy to Internet Disruption | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Margit introduces the panel and sets up polite broad questions regarding media disruption. Alexis and Connie explain how their respective publications adapt to Facebook's dominance and long-form digital shifts. | |
| The Upshot and the Power of Dark Social | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Alexis educates the host on 'dark social' and distribution analytics, revealing that Facebook drives an order of magnitude more traffic than Twitter. Margit acts as an appreciative audience, offering minor clarifying prompts. | |
| Defending Beat Reporting Against Pure Data Journalism | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | Connie rejects the premise that pure data journalism replacing traditional beat reporting is superior, calling single-approach dogma 'kind of ridiculous'. Margit supports the beat reporting perspective by noting the necessity of source-building. | |
| Changing Tools and Expanding Journalist Responsibilities | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Margit challenges the media industry's historical disdain for monetization, asserting that understanding business models is normal and healthy. Alexis gently counters her printing press analogy by recalling historic typesetting competitions. | |
| Packaging News and the Mechanics of Social Virality | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Margit calls out Alexis's multi-tier social packaging tactics directly as 'spin', cheekily forcing him to own the term. The guests elaborate on headline experimentation and the mechanics of viral packaging. | |
| Rethinking Success Metrics in Modern Digital Media | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Margit questions how outlets maintain editorial trust while resisting clickbait race-to-the-bottom dynamics. Connie and Alexis explain shifting metrics around influence versus pageviews and the increasingly cynical public mood regarding tech monopolies. | |
| Corporate Messaging, Control, and Direct-to-Consumer Channels | 6 | 4 | 3 | 5 | Claire attempts to turn the interview around on Margit as a PR professional, but Margit deflects back to moderating before articulating her own expertise on direct corporate communication channels. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Madrigal: Facebook currently dominates online media distribution and internet traffic
“Facebook right now has eaten the internet, you know.”
Miller: Readers view straight news as a commodity and demand deep analysis
“And people aren't looking for that kind of news anymore. That kind of news is almost a commodity. You know pretty quickly what happened, and people are looking for analysis of that news and deeper reporting.”
Madrigal: Facebook sends The Atlantic more traffic than the entire web combined
“And so we've been able to sort of back into a bunch of different types of experiments, and seeing natural experiments that are running and find that basically Facebook is sending more traffic to us than the entire rest of the internet that we can see combined.”
Madrigal: Facebook drives an order of magnitude more traffic than Twitter
“Oh, an order of magnitude.”
Miller: Deep beat reporting remains essential for producing valuable journalistic analysis
“I think that beats are still very important, if only because in order to do the kind of analysis that we're all talking about that people value, you really need to be steeped in a topic.”
Madrigal: Journalism tools remain unchanged except for accessible light data analysis
“In terms of the actual tools though, I don't think that much has changed. Except for the really easy availability and access and comfort that lots of people have doing, like, light data analysis.”
Madrigal: Exposing certain types of journalists to distribution metrics is dangerous
“I mean, I find it personally interesting, but I think that it's, you It is a, it's a dangerous thing to bring into contact with journalists of certain types.”
Miller: Reader engagement metrics should not dictate newsroom coverage decisions
“If a bomb killed six people in Baghdad, and not that many people read the news story, are we not supposed to be covering that? Of course not. It's still really important to cover that, so we shouldn't be determining what we cover based on what people are readi…”
Madrigal: Repackaging an Atlantic Facebook post boosted traffic to one million readers
“We had a story about tattoos and why, how tattoos work, like, within your body, and it's like a health story, and we sold it once on Facebook and I think on Wednesday, and kind of nothing happened. You know, maybe we're talking a few thousand unique visitors t…”
Guglielmo: Algorithmic distribution requires modern news outlets to actively sell content
“Because of technology and because of all these new ways of distribution, news has to be sold. Which in the past it wasn't. People had magazines, they had publications, readers came to a brand. Who decided what news was, right? Who decided what news was and wha…”
Guglielmo: Advertising pressures prevent newsrooms from measuring influence instead of traffic
“I don't think a lot of news organizations, though, think about it in those ways, because they're dealing with the pressures of Selling advertising and making their revenue numbers.”
Miller: Public interest in tech coverage will persist despite market downturns
“Even if, you know, the, in, the tech industry starts to not do so well, or VC funding goes down, we're all still going to have this iPhone in our pocket all the time, and it's really permeated our lives, so people have an interest in it that extends far beyond…”
Miller: Many former tech startups have grown into powerful corporate monopolies
“These companies that for a while were these little startups that, you know, were, funny, doing funny things out here, and you could bring your dogs to work, are now these huge monopolies, in many cases, with a ton of power.”
Madrigal: Facebook and Google hold hegemonic control over the mobile advertising market
“Facebook and Google essentially having hegemonic control over mobile advertising, which is where everyone sees things going.”
Miller: Big tech firms have grown increasingly controlling over their public messaging
“I think the companies, for the reasons I was saying before, that they are, have become such bigger players in our lives and in, you know, business and regulation and all of that, I think that they, I'm talking about the big companies here, like the Googles and…”
Madrigal: Direct self-publishing allows tech companies to bypass mass-market journalists
“A lot of these companies can actually have a better sense of who they're trying to reach, and so they don't have to, like, go, they don't have to lens through a reporter who's gonna try and mass market it, right? Instead, they're just gonna go, alright, there'…”
Madrigal: A startup's core idea is more compelling than its app features
“The idea that's embedded inside of these startups is usually more interesting than whatever thing their actual app is doing.”
Guglielmo: Startups must distill their pitch into a 63-character headline
“Now the onus is on the company to already figure out For me, what that 63 character headline is when they pitch their story, because it's not about a pitch, it's about that they've figured out and distilled it down to that point.”