Nov 10, 2024 4 min read media

Populism can be more than one thing

Technology has changed media & journalism — torn its legacy distribution and business model to smithereens. However, excellent and impactful work still gets made everyday.

Photo by Joseph Chan / Unsplash

When your political wish doesn't come true after a big election, you start to question media, your sources, and the stories media told you. The best reporting in the world and investigation into why Donald Trump was a poor choice, didn't shake Americans. That's probably because many voters didn't see the stories, and they didn't care, despite earnest attempts by the media (the legacy giants from NYT to The Atlantic to WSJ).

It can feel like media — facts and truth and lots of reporting work — don't matter. But of course this is what happens when media has become the enemy to many voters. This is what happens when local news is gutted, as Politico reporter Heidi Przybla pointed out on Threads . This is what happens when Trump does a better job broadcasting a message, and so many people think his vision, his ideas, at this time, are a better choice for our current context.

However, good journalism does matter. Technology has changed media & journalism — torn its legacy distribution and business model to smithereens. It's on a wobbly axis — the middle ground of media companies has turned to quick sand — which means its power has lessened. However, excellent and impactful work still gets made.

I feel strongly outlets like 404 Media are a piece of the future (and present), and their work matters. Lead by four relentless rebels who push and publish, 404 writes about tech and people and what technology means for most people. They self describe their perspective as “Tech populism,” and “local reporting from the internet.”

Populism, which I didn't know as a framework, but have heard frequently, clearly means from the prospective of common people, usually in stark contrast to elite and powerful individuals. I confused this with nationalism, or narrowly caring just about the nation-state. I thought populism was more about homogeneous and success of the nation —at the expense of many others. Perhaps, too, I always associated populism with "right-wing populism." This is why I didn't like the word — I didn't want to follow the most hateful and nationalistic versions of right-wing populism, which squarely puts itself against the elites. A stance Trump has clearly taken.

This isn't my framework, but it's a relief to imagine there are stances like tech populism or leftist populism. Or, say, healthcare populism. Either way, I believe more genuine attention on the common person's experience is needed. As someone born to a "common" experience, it feels more real, relatable, and important.

The 404 founders write:

"..technology should make life better for the people who use it and for society as a whole. And it should not be radical to believe that the immense amount of wealth and so-called progress being created from technological progress should be spread evenly and thoughtfully among its users, not tech CEOs and an oligarch class."

And,

"...this means telling stories from the perspective of users and often lower-level tech employees, not by begging company communications professionals for access to executives or exclusive new features. Most of our articles tell the stories of hyperspecific communities of people who are using technology or are impacted by it in some way. By focusing on how technology impacts people, we have found that we can impact technology and make the world slightly better, regardless of who the president is."