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Journalism and the (Inexistent) Magic Bullet Business Model

Alberto Puliafito
6 min readJul 4, 2019

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June 30, 2019. New York, several minutes before the Pride March.

Follow the money.
Sometimes it’s the best way to understand what’s happening since the money has a so huge role and importance in our society.

Follow the money is, of course, a good prescription for journalists.

It’s also a famous line spoken by Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook) in the film All the President’s Men. The actual Deep Throat — the film is based on the true story of about the Watergate scandal — apparently never said exactly that sentence. But it’s perfect for a movie.

Follow the money is a prescription I wrote in one of Slow Journalism’s chapter I personally wrote. I used it to understand what happened in journalism landscape from the beginning of the so-called digital revolution in the last 20 years (at least in western countries).

The simpler version of a long story is: newspapers are struggling against a deep crisis. The old business model has gone with the oligopoly of production and distribution of news.
The old business money means:

  • selling of hardcopies
  • subscriptions
  • advertising
  • other revenue streams (announcements, obituaries, judicial auction publications)

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Alberto Puliafito
Alberto Puliafito

Written by Alberto Puliafito

Slow News Editor-in-Chief. My nickname is Malaparte. I resist against state of emergency. Formerly Blogo. Director, SEO, communication strategist.

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