Vox populi

Looking forward to seeing some of you at tonight’s event at Gannett | USA Today headquarters. I’ll be recording an episode of The Rebooting Show with an array of Gannett executives on the topic of practical ways the publisher is using AI. We are at capacity for the event. We plan to do these kinds of events regularly in 2025; get in touch if you want to collaborate on one.

Unlocking AI’s potential for news publishers

The conversation around AI in the news industry often focuses on risks, but the real opportunity lies in its ability to streamline operations, enhance the reader experience, and amplify impactful journalism. Recently I sat down with Nota's CEO, Josh Brandau to examine different publisher use cases —big and small—and how they are leveraging A.I. So, whether you’re a niche publication or a media powerhouse, this session covered practical, responsible AI strategies to balance innovation, trust, and profitability across your organization.

Vox populi

A year ago yesterday, Elon Musk took to X to cosplay Caesar:

Jones, who was banned from Twitter for his rants about Sandy Hook and other subjects, was restored. “The people have spoken,” Musk declared.

A year later, it’s clear that we are in a populist time, with Trump preparing his return to office and the ascendency of a counterweight to the mainstream media. “You are the media,” as Musk likes to say. It’s a textbook populist position, tapping into societal discontent at elites. Musk has stoked this populist fervor against all manner of institutions, including the media, government and more.

That makes the outpouring of support for Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, all the more uncomfortable. Those who have ridden the populist wave despite their own elite status – Ben Shapiro, Musk, et al – are understanding that populism cuts across political ideologies. Shapiro took the typical conservative position decrying not just the killing (duh) but trying to pin the outpouring of disgust for the U.S. health insurance industry on the left. Not so fast. Many commenters quickly informed Shapiro that hating insurance companies is a bipartisan passion. 

Much to the chagrin of the powerful people who have spent the last decade trying to delegitimize mainstream media, the support for Mangione is not coming from the mainstream media whose demise Musk cheers. Mainstream media has not driven this story at all. In fact, it has lined up to decry it. It is instead from a decentralized Information Space that operates mostly free of gatekeepers. The elites who weaponized populism suddenly have little time for it when it moves from government workers to CEOs. 

What a miss by mainstream news organizations not to have owned this health care issue rather than being obsessed with the latest Trump micro drama. There’s clearly a vein of discontent with the state of many aspects of the economy that news organizations have been unable to address. The pat response is to point at dry investigative and explanatory pieces. Time to make a different product if it took an assassination to speak to this. One way to win back trust is to speak to real issues that affect people instead of the fake controversies and outrages that tend to get outsized attention.

The capture of Mangione doesn’t mark the end of this story. Many understandably want to bottle back up the passions and move on. Call him crazy, point out he went to a $37,000 a year prep school, etc. That’s missing the point. The Information Space is filled with heterodox thinking that doesn’t line up with the artificial lanes of politics. The people who weaponized trans issues suddenly want to tamp down anger at a broken health care system. Doesn’t work that way. Powerful people co-opting populism is like bringing a chimp home as a pet. There’s always a chance it’s going to rip your face off.

This will come as a shock to Andrew Ross Sorkin, who went to the royal we to moralize over the lack of empathy shown to the murdered CEO. Let’s be real: This is the easiest position to take. Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day calls this the “hall monitor” class. Bill Burr is more in touch with what is truly going on than Sorkin.

From early reports, Mangione is a habituee of the manosphere, ticking the boxes of health consciousness, faith in tech and fluency in a gaming worldview where most people go through their lives as NPCs. He’s a compelling character: handsome, smart, good family. The comic book touches – the “defend, deny, depose” bullet casing etchings, the Citibike escape, the manifesto, the Monopoly money in the backpack, the apparent Goodreads review of Ted Kaczynski’s book (four stars) – are essential elements. 

His personal motivations are mostly beside the point. In the Information Space, facts frequently act as prompts for everything from jokes to conspiracy theories to political debates to tribal affiliation. The actual fact – a man was murdered in Midtown at dawn – is almost forgotten. The lookalike contests and merch are both in poor taste and par for the course in the Information Space, where everything becomes content.

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