CJR fellow Karen Maniraho talks with five very online journalists — Ryan Broderick, Jason Parham, Taylor Lorenz, Rebecca Jennings, and Rusty Foster — about what it’s like to cover tech and internet culture today, how they navigate through viral moments and algorithms, and how they look for meaning in a constantly noise-polluted, chaotic space.
Because the internet is very nonlinear. So oftentimes, the thing that’s happening right now could be reacting to a thing that actually happened like five years ago, but then got stuck in an algorithm and came back. Or it’s impacting a thing that hasn’t happened yet. It’s a very bizarre space to operate in. And I think it’s gotten much more bizarre since the pandemic, because there’s just a lot more people online. At least that’s what it feels like.
I don’t think people are really meant to engage with the whole world. It is exhausting. I feel like everybody who works on social media needs to know that you have to be making plans for what you’re going to do when you can’t do this anymore.
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