knowledge center

State of the business model

State of Play:

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.

Artificial intelligence

CBS News gets a new leader, with an ideological agenda

If there’s nothing in Bari Weiss’s journalism resume that remotely qualifies her to be editor-in-chief of CBS News, there are plenty of clues as to what she likely plans to do with this opportunity. Weiss in July 2020 loudly left her job as a junior editor in the Times’s opinion section, decrying legacy media and claiming “constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views” in her resignation letter to Times Publisher AG Sulzberger. A letter she, naturally, released to the public.

Oct. 16, 2025

The web hurt the news business. Will AI hurt it more?

Who owns the future?

Some 30 years after the arrival of the first modern web browser — an initial, small crack in the economic foundation of the news business — the widespread availability of artificial intelligence services make urgent the question once again. The press of a different future, the question of ownership, is being felt keenly in any information business: data, news, entertainment, art. AI will create wealth, people are betting, but how will that wealth be distributed?

July 9, 2025

Editorial decisions are now business decisions, and it’s not going well

News and information have a bedrock role in supporting democracy, but that’s not the business model we’ve chosen for newsrooms.

May 30, 2024

Wanted (needed): a new model for news

What if the problem with the news business is the news itself? For all the hand-wringing and lamentations, the unavoidable truth is that many people have stopped buying news products. Half of all newspaper subscribers have vanished in the past 15 years.

Sept. 14, 2021

What if the press delivered the news people actually need?

Despite the recent election-driven revenue gains for the largest organizations, the landscape facing the news media remains perilous. Saddled with a teetering business model, a skeptical public and a hostile president, the press is groping for a clear path to the future.

Feb. 17, 2017

here today, more tomorrow

We’ve launched briefing.center with a focus on the press and media.

And we’ve added Citizen Cartwright, a daily quick-read news summary by veteran Washington journalist Linda Cartwright. We’ve also created a new voting rights knowledge center for Citizen Cartwright subscribers. (You can sign up for a dedicated morning email at citizencartwright.com.)

You can sign up here for full access to press and media and Citizen Cartwright on briefing.center.

You can use briefing.center as the center of your information management, or just one of your tools. We’re happy to discuss your information needs.

Sign up