What I learned in the first five years of Platformer
Casey Newton's annual updates are always great. This year, perhaps predictably, the biggest highlight for me is his ambitions around community. We need stronger community platforms to support newsrooms.
Casey Newton’s annual recaps are always great. Platformer has been a shining example of what going out on your own can look like: first as a thriving solo effort, and now as a bona fide small newsroom with a real staff. All running from an independent Ghost site.
For me, perhaps predictably, the biggest callout is his ambitions around community:
“The one place where I feel like Platformer has failed on basically every level is in cultivating a community. Our audience of tech executives and rank-and-file employees has never felt safe posting comments or interacting with each other in our Discord. For the most part, people who work on tech policy would rather gather in spaces where they can talk off the record. And for my part, I haven’t invested enough energy in cultivating a community among those of you who would be willing to share your thoughts.”
I think it’s clear that Discord is not the platform for this. It’s not private enough, it doesn’t support safe information-passing from sources, and it’s too grounded in real-time chat: a newsroom’s community is going to need to engage in asynchronous discussion. Platformer needs, well, a platform. Something that truly supports its efforts. And that doesn’t quite exist — at least, not right now.
It’s delightful to see Platformer thrive. I love reading it. I can’t wait to see how it evolves over the next year.
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