Actually, there’s a lot of sense in @kelz 3 points.
For instance, I totally agree with your last point - the media business is very brutal. And ‘brutal’ is an understatement. The truth is, Facebook/Google are the 300 pound gorilla that’s sucking all the oxygen in the room. You don’t need to read Ben Thompson’s articles to know that publishers go directly to FB/Google to place ads and cut-off the middleman. They have the platform, people, and data. At the other end, Ms. CEO can also go directly to Medium/Facebook/etc to reach her audience.
In other words, because of the new tools and platforms, everyone is a publisher or can reach audience.
The point is the whole media business model is in a lot of flux. This is not by any means restricted to Nigeria - same struggles faced by Buzzfeed, Vox, etc of the world. Not sure how this angle is controversial.
Tbh, the second point about finding talent is not too strong. Arguably, BC hacked this successfully in the past. A decent number of bloggers/journalists in the tech space had their break with them. Not saying it’s guaranteed they always hack it. But, don’t see any reason why they can’t continue to find great talent.
But your first point is the most important but needs a little bit of nuance ( it’s also linked to the 3rd point). I think we have a good crop of startups doing interesting things. And there’s a lot to be excited about in our tech space. But, crucially, the writing of what’s happening is not exciting.
In Nigeria Tech space, pls point me to a critical piece you’ve seen in the last 6 months? I’m not talking of slanderous. Just purely investigative writing that peels the layers on what’s really going on? The good thing about TC is that they’re opinionated, but even they get called out if founder xyz or publisher yxz doesn’t like what they wrote about something.
There’s also the ‘chummy’ ‘padi padi’ angle which also means bloggers/journalists naturally don’t want to offend their ‘friends’. So all they publish to us the public - is syrupy articles. We are no. 1 in self-censorship (Exactly the same way @kelz has gone ahead to delete his well written post). China should send their journalists to us so they can perfect their skills.
Well, guess what, if all you’re reading everyday is that xx raise yy amount. Or fawning interviews/articles with founders/publishers where they spew BS all over your face - because only mush mush questions( At this point, the blogger/journalist is virtually a docile hostage, and can’t turn around to write what she really wants. Exciting articles dies a slow but certain death.
Because, remember, the business model and numbers are no longer working and you can’t afford to alienate anyone. Then you will even get ‘not exciting’ news.
Anyways, Big Cabal are Big boys and can take care of themselves - they will be just fine. Or at least, whatever their version of fine is.
