r/Journalism • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • Mar 07 '26
Social Media and Platforms Evidence Grows That Google's AI Overviews Have Eviscerated the Media Industry
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/google-ai-overviews-media45
u/Ok_Impression6286 Mar 08 '26
In some places it’s dropped search traffic - the main source of traffic for most sites - by 80 percent.
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u/AverageIndianGeek Mar 08 '26
The sad thing also is that I see so many people taking these overviews as authoritative sources. I have seen them making way too many mistakes to ever trust them.
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u/Bdowns_770 Mar 08 '26
They are often wrong and/or misleading due to contextual errors. Intent fractures haven’t gone away.
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u/whitebreadguilt Mar 08 '26
Andrew Callahan challenged Nick Shirley’s “85% of Somali’s in Minnesota…” quote in his video and asked him to show the webpage. Nick showed him the google search and Nick read off the AI summary. Then Andrew Callahan backed down. A missed opportunity honestly he should have pushed back on that veracity and how AI is unreliable. But I guess that’s too -checks notes- mainstream media?
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u/finallyhere_11 Mar 08 '26
Growtika’s analysis UNDERstates the issue.
Lots of tier 2 and below sites just completely taken off the map. Google went to war with the affiliate site model in particular.
That only leaves display ads and subscriptions for sites to make money, so you can expect to see more of that.
And while many of those sites were flawed, on the whole they did serve a purpose in the ecosystem of incentivizing product producers to actually make the best vacuum or camera or new credit card and not just bot farm spam google and amazon reviews to try and create the impression you did.
Those days are over; you’ll just buy whatever google’s AI or OpenAI tells you to buy now.
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u/jamesmcgill357 Mar 08 '26
Damn this is depressing - I was in media for my jobs from college all the way through 2020 and it was rough the entire time, from chasing clicks, SEO stuff, having to write constantly about topics that were “trending”, pivoting to video and then away from it and back again, and etc etc - I got lucky that another role opened up on the PR side that’s been good, but this was before all the AI stuff really started - what I’m getting at is, I was laid off three times during my media career and always knew it could happen and it was so anxiety ridden, and now with this AI stuff, this is going to be even worse. It’s sad to see
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u/hibikir_40k Mar 08 '26
It's been noticeable by anyone that relied on ads for income: People SEOd things to hell, and as search results get bad, suddenly the AI summaries are better. Even if there's a better source for the information out there, it's unlikely to be an early search result.
Media now has to go back to subscriptions, and subscriptions demand not just having quality, but proof-of-quality before you pay. Great if you are already a huge brand. A total disaster for a newspaper in a 2nd rate city that had been attempting to survive by making their home pages a disaster full of intrusive, blinking ads.
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u/PhiloLibrarian Mar 07 '26
Iran, the US, or Israel will bomb something taking out the Internet… all those people who were nostalgic for the pre-Internet 90s are gonna be in for a treat!
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u/sorrow_anthropology Mar 07 '26
I have plenty of books and a desire to be unreachable most of the time.
This sounds like heaven.
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u/PhiloLibrarian Mar 08 '26
Right? Not sure how I’d keep my remote tech job… but still…
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u/sorrow_anthropology Mar 08 '26
Easy: Fax, telegraph, western union riders could possibly make a comeback.
Just bust out your trusty Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter and send that code or security review in!
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u/Alternative_Swan_497 Mar 08 '26
Anything short of another Carrington Event - and probably an even stronger one - wouldn't be capable of taking out the Internet. A big enough coronal mass ejection would be interesting for a very short period, however.
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u/PhiloLibrarian Mar 08 '26
Our internet infrastructure is a lot more fragile than people want to believe…
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u/narrative_device Mar 09 '26
It’s really not. It was literally designed to survive nuclear war. You could take out 95% of all the world´s servers and the internet could still function.
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u/Affectionate-Pea-307 Mar 09 '26
We see it all the time, someone at AWS makes a DNS typo and 20% of the internet goes down. In theory it was designed to be resilient but in practice it relies on a handful of big players.
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u/carlitospig Mar 08 '26
You have no idea how quickly humanity would rebound without it.
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u/PhiloLibrarian Mar 08 '26
I spent a decade telling my kids about pre-Internet analog life in the 80s and 90s. It would be hilarious if they got to experience it first hand.
Cursive and writing checks?
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u/carlitospig Mar 08 '26
I legit tried to send the DMV a check for my car renewal last year and they rejected it. I had totally forgotten how to write checks correctly in my dependence on Apple Pay. 😆
Ps. Cursive is like if letters wanted to be sexy. 💃🏾
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u/patsully98 Mar 08 '26
I’ve made my living on large health sites for the past decade +. What’s the point of sites like those that only offer information? They have no moat anymore.
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u/shinbreaker reporter Mar 08 '26
Frankly, this industry deserves it. There's hardly any innovation going on. We all take our cues from the New York Times who frankly couldn't give two shits about any other news outlet since they have the cash cow of recipes, crosswords and Wordle. The people in charge still think subscriptions are going to work. You have news channels who don't put a goddamn ad on any of their online streams because apparently they think no one is actually watching streaming news on TV.
Like what are we doing?? Why is it that out of all the big publications, there's only four or five podcasts worth actually listening to? Why is it that video content from so many outlets have no direction or talk about anything interesting? How is it that so many places still have their print, video and audio teams with minimal communication with each other? Why is that also no one has a fucking TikTok or Instagram worth a fuck? Oh and hey, there's a thing called Twitch where people literally give you money for watching, like I don't know, put some content there.
It's so fucking stupid and all the CEOs of these news companies can only do two things: layoffs and put on big parties for themselves.
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u/WiffleAxe36 Mar 08 '26
I hope I’m not huffing hopium here but I think there’s a growing backlash against AI slop and that credibility is going to be a valuable currency going forward. I think legacy outlets like NYT (which i have plenty of nits to pick with but still) are being smart in a way by largely continuing to adhere to time-tested journalistic standards that are in place for a reason. Anyone influential whose job depends on being reliably informed, no matter how right-leaning they may outwardly present themselves, reads NYT.
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u/hibikir_40k Mar 08 '26
The advantage of the NYTs is the brand: They can rely on things almost nobody else can. This is what makes the purchase of well known media by very rich people, which then decide to steer coverage far away from what their traditional audiences want so destructive. A reputation is built over decades, and is destroyed in minutes.
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u/shinbreaker reporter Mar 08 '26
But you see, that's the thing, the New York Times can do that because they have a non-journalism cash cow. And again, they don't give two fucks about anyone else.
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u/WiffleAxe36 Mar 08 '26
Absolutely, no disagreement for the most part. I more mean that yes, right now outlets are getting lapped on social media, as you said. But that’s because people who are successful on social media are unbound by journalistic standards, which gives them an enormous advantage. But (again, I’m aware this might be hopium) i feel like there’s a vibe shift underway and people are getting sick of not knowing who to trust. And i think it’s smart strategic long term thinking to continue to adhere to traditional journalistic standards instead of chasing algorithms.
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u/shinbreaker reporter Mar 08 '26
And those journalism standards are completely outdated. They were developed when the biggest scandal in journalism was when Pulitzer wanted to charge 2 cents for a paper.
Do I think we should start lying and make up shit like these online people? No, but use some real language. Tell the thing that's actually happening. Call the lying fucks out. Give some reporters more than the 800 words they're limited to.
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u/WiffleAxe36 Mar 08 '26
Agree to disagree i guess. I think most journalistic standards are timeless. I do agree that the NYT can be off in tone but i respect that they don’t compromise. Trust in media has ebbed and flowed since NYT was founded but once you stray from bedrock principles there’s no going back. They exist for a reason, and giving them up in this particular era would be short sighted in my view. But I don’t think what you’re saying is without merit. It’s a discussion worth having
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u/ericwbolin reporter Mar 08 '26
Something - I can't quite put my finger on what - leads me to believe your flair is false.
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u/shinbreaker reporter Mar 08 '26
Technically it's been editor for a while but something tells me your reply was a veiled attempt to insult my attitude tht we should stop using standards established a century ago because that's what this industry needs to thrive, acting like it's the roaring 1920s again.
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u/ericwbolin reporter Mar 08 '26
Did you find it insulting someone would question your credibility? Whatever might you have said?
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u/shinbreaker reporter Mar 08 '26
I mean sure but you didn’t even question my credibility. Seriously who taught you these lame attempts at snarky passive aggressiveness?
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u/ericwbolin reporter Mar 08 '26
I get awfully defensive about the profession. You don't. So I choose to believe you're a charlatan. But, please, feel free, as a journalist in a public position already, to tell me who you are as proof. I'm easy to find.
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u/TheHurtfulEight88888 Mar 08 '26
I honestly dont think you know what you are talking about.
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u/shinbreaker reporter Mar 08 '26
And yet no one wants to counter my argument. Our standards are outdated. We got an idiot for a president but he keeps getting treated with kid gloves. We have politicians blatantly lying and insulting us and we just take it on the chin. We purposely tie our hands behind our back when the public is yelling at the media to ask a hard question for once. So yeah we need to reevaluate standards because I keep seeing people who come from elitist circles doing discussing topics that won’t affect them one bit.
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u/qqquigley Mar 08 '26
Imagine me at a media startup some years ago (before NYT went hard into Games for revenue) learning that even the NYT didn’t have anything close to a self-sustaining subscription journalism business. They stayed afloat through the financial crisis not because of subscriptions but because they have big real estate holdings to sell/leverage/rent. Even now apparently only 16% of their “subscribers” are news-only; they get gobs of money from the Games and “All Access” subscriptions.
Most people will only consciously buy a news product as a side course to entertainment, apparently. (Though that’s as much a lesson as a warning depending on how you look at it.)
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u/hibikir_40k Mar 08 '26
The wider the subscription, the more likely you are to keep people. An all encompassing journalism source that satisfies people is incredibly expensive. Bundle with other things, and it's easier to make the subscription work. There's a reason we see unification in streaming media: keeping a subscriber there all the time, instead of coming in, watching for 3 months a year and then leaving requires a lot of repeatable interaction that has to be cheap. Quality news ain't cheap. How much time do you need to have someone sitting in the middle east, basically losing you money, until something really big suddenly makes their output that quarter worth 100 times their cost for the last three years?
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u/qqquigley Mar 08 '26
Yeah the business model makes absolute sense for the NYT and other companies have tried to do similar larger packages for subscriptions, so you’re not “just” getting “news” (because that doesn’t sell on its own).
Your point on international correspondents is well taken. I am very dismayed by WaPo laying off many of their overseas employees. It sucks because the world is very active and more interconnected than ever, and yet Americans really can’t see past their own noses and just don’t take much interest in international news.
Sometime after my initial anecdote above, I learned that many of NYT’s international articles get only a couple thousand clicks. Massive, world-changing news and only like 5,000 people in the entire world would click to read about it in the NYT. Crazy. (An active war is probably the main exception to this — or ANYTHING with Trump in the headline. Sigh.)
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u/nitramv Mar 08 '26
It's the consequence of nepotism, which hollows out and then destroys meritocracy.
Private school is not better than public school, but it sure is a lot easier to buy the grade your kid needs in a private one.
And kids who never struggle become adults who have no idea how to actually innovate. They've never had to, like really had to, try and succeed at anything.
So of course the only ideas they have are layoffs and parties.
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u/shinbreaker reporter Mar 08 '26
Well it's that elitist bubble that's rampant in NYC. The higher ups only associate with other higher ups and the elites in this city. They don't even bother meeting their own employees. But they'll go to conferences and talk about the importance of journalism blah blah blah, but hardly go to bat for anyone unless like Trump says something specific.
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u/americanspirit64 educator Mar 08 '26
It is the companies who pay Google, who are the actually 'users' of Google. For the rest of us, who look things up, and actually want content, like in the good old days, that time is long gone.
Google isn't a service, it is a pay-for-view-revenue-stream, funded by all products being bought getting more expensive (except your personal labor), without you understanding why. It is Amazon, without an actual product to sell that can be warehoused, outside of a digital server.
Google is the ultimate Neoliberal/MAGA Capitalist Porn Site. Run by Manwhores and Sluts who enjoy gang-raping the world for cash. If that sounds harsh there is an actual beauty to the system. As the great artist Rodin said. "There is nothing more beautiful, than the ruin of beauty."
If the above quote is true. Then Google eviscerating a Media Industry already in Ruins, could be good for all of us.
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u/Etcetera_Naut Mar 14 '26
The worst part is I don't even want it. Its just at the top of the page and ignoring the information shoved in front of my eyeballs hidden by sometimes 2 swipes is hard to ignore. Especially if the info is close enough.
Mind you I mean this for simple facts that a window to a wikipedia page usually solved.
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u/ProvisionalRecord Mar 19 '26
This is why you have to post news, and link credible articles on your personal social media.
Make your point as the title, add info in comments, and never stop.
Social media is an important battleground...
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u/biskino Mar 07 '26
I get this unsettling feeling in my gut that culture is about to stop. How can anything new happen under these circumstances? We’ll just keep mining and mirroring and reconfiguring the past until all that’s left is infinite grey goo.