Risky time to be a journalist

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The entire staff of the iconic sports publication "Sports Illustrated" has been laid off in a bombshell letter that has since been leaked to the public by one employee.
https://www.news.com.au/sport/american- ... 1cca6772aa
Richard Deitsch, a sports media reporter who left Sports Illustrated for the Athletic, posted on X the email that all employees received.

“Some employees will be terminated immediately, and paid in lieu of the applicable notice period under the (union contract),” the notice read.

“Employees with a last working day of today will be contacted by the People team soon. Other employees will be expected to work through the end of the notice period, and will receive additional information shortly.”

Sports Illustrated staffers received this today. pic.twitter.com/Q0WdVRzuRb
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) January 19, 2024

The allegation is the sacking has to do with the magazine's use of AI on it's online platform. In November, the magazine came under fire when it scrubbed its site of AI-generated content that included bylines and photos of fake authors, per a report from Futurism. The spokesman said The Arena Group is “taking steps to ensure that” SI has gotten rid of the AI-generated content on its website.

Journalists have been leaving the industry for the past two decades!
Print media can't compete with the Internet. The first to go were the daily newspapers.
Nowadays I don't see any magazines in doctors' offices.
Nor do I see anyone reading a book besides myself.

Many magazines have already made their exit or transition to digital.

[opinion=mine]

Journalism has to be one of the most useless professions anyway, along with phone-wipers, motivational speakers, telemarketers, survey-takers, and those people who hand out flyers to strip clubs.

Reporters, on the other hand -- those who merely observe and report events without getting involved, interpreting the events, or inserting their own opinions among the facts -- are a in much more honest and honorable profession.

[/opinion]

I think it's the other way around-

https://www.theguardian.com/media/green ... publishing
'''
To illustrate his point he offers this straightforward comparison:

Reporting: A 747 aircraft crashed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean yesterday.

Journalism: A review of maintenance reports of the 747 aircraft that crashed last month revealed that the airplane had a faulty engine parts. Reports indicate that airline management ignored warnings that the parts were malfunctioning.
'''

The New York Times has a story on how Time Magazine, the LA Times, and the Washington Post are losing 10s of millions of dollars. They were all purchased by billionaires, which is why they haven't gone out of business.

In the old days journalism was also risky in that your occupation put you in physical danger of getting killed on the frontline of some armed conflict, insurrection or gang violence. There was a risk you would get arrested by some authoritarian regime for simply asking questions and rot in jail.

Then came the 2010s where the "good guys" could arrest you for whistleblowing state secrets or a celebrities private life through email hacks.

In 2020s the occupation is risky because it is becoming apparent that chatgpt can write better than you can. I think this is the biggest threat to the occupation in the history of journalism.