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Jessica Lessin: Substack Commentators Raised the Standard for Tech Journalists

Jessica Lessin · #70: Is Apple’s Vision Out of Focus? · More or Less Podcast · Oct 25, 2024 · at 17:59

Jessica Lessin, founder and CEO of The Information, reflects on how independent newsletter writers and industry insiders have elevated expectations for journalism.

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“I do think that the bar of expertise and sophistication that journalists have to meet in their coverage is getting higher and higher, and that's like a good thing. Like, people often Talk about, like, the impact of the substack economy and all these expert opiner pundits, and I think the impact to, like, competition to the whole news industry is sort of overstated, but one way I think that ecosystem has changed the news industry is, like, when you have people who really, really understand the business, even if they're not reporting, but they're sort of opining, it does, like, raise the public's expectation for, like, How much a journalist is going to actually understand, you know, what DPI is, or that it's important to understand how much cash was put in, or, you know, things that people in the industry rightly, I think, have gripes with the press for not understanding, and I think it's a good thing that the bar is going up, but I think I have lately felt that it's really going up.”

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