In this episode, we’re joined by a special guest, Hamilton Nolan, a journalist, author on labor and politics, union organizer, and activist. We talk about how journalism survived the death of print only to be swallowed and spit out by Big Tech, private equity, and monopoly capitalism.

We trace the rise and fall of online media, digging into Hamilton’s early days at Gawker. We discuss how corporate greed and tech oligarchs crushed newsrooms, turned mainstream media into compliant mouthpieces, and left independent reporting fighting for air. If you’ve ever wondered why layoffs hit newsrooms every few months, or why your favorite journalists are drifting onto Substack, or why AI summaries answer your questions without sending you to the article, this is why.

We delve into how Google’s algorithms and collapsing ad revenue triggered a traffic apocalypse, and how generative AI now threatens to replace the very labor it feeds on. We also talk about why unions are critical for the last remaining scraps of editorial independence and why journalism still matters in an era where "everything is content and nothing is read." Finally, Hamilton shares his take on solutions that might stop the ship from sinking, before the internet finishes eating itself.

To learn more about Hamilton Nolan, check out his website How Things Work and his book The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor.