In 2006, the launch of YouTube promised a democratization of creativity. Anyone with an internet connection could now share their work with the world, bypassing traditional gatekeepers in publishing, music, and film. Over the next two decades, platforms like Netflix, Spotify, and Instagram further dismantled barriers, offering creators direct acces... See more

Over the past ten years, media companies have responded to their loss of audience by creating “viral” editorial that performs well inside the platform’s engagement-at-all-costs ecosystem. Predictably, however, quality editorial – the context journalists create for a living – rarely qualifies as viral.