Successful publication is all about the mix. What Buzzfeed discovered was that people like cat pictures. We can pretend to be embarrassed about that as a species, but it is actually a truth. So Buzzfeed publishes a lot of cat pictures. But they use the money from cat pictures to build an exceptional newsroom that publishes stories that far fewer people want to read, but it is very important journalism.
Henry BlodgetBefore the internet, a journalist would write an article about a company that the company felt was unfair and missed a point. All they could do was write a letter to the editor and wait, and maybe a week later it would be printed, or not. Now, they can go to medium.com and immediately publish a long rebuttal, saying the journalist forgot this and did not consider that, the analyst is wrong here. Everybody pulls that immediately into the debate. So it is a much more democratic field for ideas.
Henry BlodgetThe definition of strong leadership is not about making decisions that are popular. Making popular decisions is easy - you don't need to be a leader to do that. The definition of strong leadership is to make decisions that are unpopular, but are nevertheless sound.
Henry Blodget