A Peter Thiel-backed startup makes a surprising bet: Putting reporters in statehouses
State Affairs combines media and technology at a time when tensions between the two industries are at a fever pitch
Nothing opens up Silicon Valley wallets quite like artificial intelligence: AI promises to transform health care, education, even how militaries wage war.
But one AI start-up has attracted $70 million in investment from some of Northern California’s most prominent firms by doing something unusual for the move-fast-and-break-things tech sector: hiring local journalists and sticking them in statehouses.
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem