From an excellent New York piece on Nick Denton, Gawker Media, and journalism’s future:
“At the time of his public posturing, however, Denton was conceiving a comprehensive redesign of his blog network that signalled his steady march toward mainstream respectability. Gawker recently published a series of Fall Previews of books, music, television, and movies, such as you might find in your weekend Arts & Leisure section. The redesign, he told me, would “probably be seen as the end of the blog.” It was, in a way, the inevitable result of his original insight about transparency and objectivity. The problem with publishing some stories that are two thousand times as important as others is that it no longer makes sense to display them in reverse chronological order. His sites will soon abandon the scrolling layout in favor of a more conventional front page that is dominated by images and headlines. The only difference is that his story placement will be determined by algorithm—and that his standards are defiantly low-brow.”
Reverse-chronological. River of news. Call it what you will. It’s dying.
