In his book World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech Companies, Franklin Foer, now a national correspondent for The Atlantic, ruminates on the power he sees large tech companies holding over media outlets — a power he believes is detrimental to journalistic neutrality, the pursuit of truth, and intellectual rigor. I spoke to Foer about the dependence of media organizations on large tech platforms, his views on subscription-based models, and how he thinks journalism institutions should think about data and algorithms.
"Journalism has a commitment about holding people to truth, and that’s not the core commitment of the tech companies."