I’ve recently been reading a scintillating book, “Postjournalism,” that has really helped clarify my understanding around the decline of journalism in the last couple decades.

Sadly, the author of that book, Andrey Mir, doesn’t like going on camera, so I did the next best thing which was to interview his great friend, also a brilliant thinker, Martin Gurri, a former CIA media analyst and writer of “The Fifth Wave” Substack.

Post-journalism is the new business model, Gurri says, and it’s essentially the idea that journalism “commodifies polarization.”

Instead of seeking objectivity and broad appeal to the general public, media seek to become a refuge for a subset of the population: a comforting “temple of ideology” for people who share the same worldview, he says.

The impetus towards polarization extends far beyond journalism. It pervades our entire information ecosystem.

Just decades ago, only a tiny fraction of the population had the means and ability to distribute their message to a broad population. Today, anyone with access to the internet can blast out any message they want.

In a room with 5 billion people in it all talking and vying for attention, who wins out? The most outraged, divisive, and sharp-tongued voices dominate, gathering followers along the way.

Everyone’s shouting, but is anyone listening?

This is an abbreviated version of my interview with Martin Gurri.

You can check out the full episode here on EpochTV.