Journalism is pivoting away from... journalism?

Business Insider is laying off 21 percent of its employees, as reported in a recent edition of The Information AM. 

While devastating for the people who lost their jobs, this kind of story doesn’t attract much attention in 2025. A media outlet announcing layoffs is now as newsworthy as a fish proclaiming that it’s wet.

However, there was an eye-opening justification for the layoffs that is quite telling of the state of the media these days: According to The Information: the outlet’s parent company Axel Springer is:

Live events have been the journalism industry’s favorite set of jangly keys for at least a decade now. From Forbes’ array of conferences for lucrative demographics to the Wall Street Journal’s glorified vacations for executives to the endless proliferation of award shows and live podcasts and fireside chats, it’s now hard to go a week without being invited to an exclusive convening of thought leaders and luminaries (maybe with food trucks, or a meditation room, or a special musical guest).

The logic is straightforward: if lots of regular people won’t pay for a digital subscription, then target a smaller group of professionals whose companies will foot the bill for something more tangible—like a networking experience, with happy hours.

The math works, in theory. Some of those tickets start upwards of $5,000, which equals a lot of $50 subscriptions. And media outlets can sell sponsorships, or team up with corporations to offer special products, or tap one of the other creative money-making opportunities that just don’t exist for a traditional words-and-pictures business. 

The only problem is that these media outlets are undermining their own appeal. Nobody goes to Forbes Women for the canapés—they go because Forbes carries a cachet that can only be earned from years of being a trusted industry voice. Appearing in those pages bestows a unique status (or at least used to) because a (supposedly) objective journalist decided you were interesting and important enough to write about, with the actual writing being indispensable as it allows you, years in the future, to point at that story and say: “Look, here’s me in the news.”

There’s nothing wrong with media outlets exploring new revenue streams, and newsrooms are always fluctuating in size. But outlets can only hollow out their core product so much before it collapses entirely, and a growing number of media organizations seem to be reaching that point now.

Once a news company stops making news, how long before it makes itself irrelevant?

Oh, and one more thing…

Because the last word is rarely the end of the conversation.

• The Guardian’s headline writers are widely regarded as some of the best in the business, but this one is spectacular even for them: “Three giant ‘doomsday fish’ wash up in one week, but harbinger of calamity a damp squib, say experts.”

• “My website is ugly because I made it” is the kind of creative, humorous, deeply intelligent and hard to define piece that made the internet feel magical (a thousand years ago).

• Getty opened a new Creative Commons archive with over 90,000 images, and they are extremely cool/fun to browse.

Pebbles of the month

Much like penguins, we enjoy bringing you little gifts to show we care:

We’d prefer a world where advice on what to do if you’re targeted by the White House isn’t necessary, but since this is the world we have, this piece is worth a read if you work in any industry besides “weapons” or “red hats.”

Speaking of the White House, this cross-Greenland travelogue is a fascinating look at the U.S.’ history of conquest due to deepseated boredom and ennui.

Asian American Futures is hiring a Communications & Development Manager—fully remote, $80-85k a year plus comprehensive benefits (and every other Friday off).

Books are still good

Here’s what one of us is currently reading:

You Could Look It Up: The Reference Shelf From Ancient Babylon to Wikipedia – Jack Lynch

How do people know what they know? In a world of shifting, sliding information, it’s fascinating and surprisingly relevant to look at how people have answered this crucial question for the past few thousand years. 

Bonus bit: we all know that algebra was named by a famous math whiz during the Abbasid Caliphate. But did you know that the same dude is the source of the word “algorithm”?

“We can be certain, though, that Muhammed bin Mush Al-Khwarizmi was a polymath. He gave us two words whose importance has only grown in the centuries since he lived: the title of his book Kitab al-muktasar fi hisab al-jabr wal-mugabala, or The Concise Book on Calculation by Restoration and Compensation, is the source of the word algebra (al-jabr means ‘compensation’), and his name, al-Khwarizmi, once Latinized and then passed around through the modern languages, gave us the algorithm. Every high-tech computer calculation pays tribute to the ninth-century Islamic genius.”

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