My partner, the founder of ProPakistani, and I have spent the past week locked in a surprisingly passionate debate: is the era of publishers and media outlets over? Is news, as we know it, actually dead?
Let’s walk through the battlefield.
AI is eating the middleman. We used to search for answers and click on articles. Now, we ask ChatGPT or Grok. That one skipped click might seem harmless, but for media outlets, it’s traffic lost, revenue gone, and another nail in the coffin.
Digital ad money isn’t coming our way. Brands still spend, sure. But now they’re going straight to Meta or running influencer campaigns. Digital budgets are growing, but publishers aren’t seeing a bigger slice of the pie.
News doesn’t break; it bleeds online first. X (formerly Twitter) gets there before anyone else. Scoops used to belong to journalists. Now, heads of state, athletes, and CEOs go directly to the world themselves. No filter. No delay. No newsroom needed.
Websites are out. Socials are in. From blogs to apps to now Instagram reels and TikTok scrolls, everything lives in the feed. No one’s rushing to download your app or type in your URL. The homepage is dead. The homepage is now the algorithm.
The pen has been replaced by the lens. We’ve shifted from written content to video-first everything. From explainers to mini documentaries, we’re in the middle of a format revolution. And many just can’t keep up.
Brands don’t build trust. People do. We’ve moved into the era of personality. The public trusts faces, not logos. The storyteller matters more than the publication they belong to.
Paywalls never really worked. Not globally. And certainly not here at home. People don’t want to pay to read the news unless they feel like they’re supporting a person, not a business.
