Here in the Hell Gate executive suite, we think it's best practice to pull back the curtain every once in a while and have some straight talk with our consumers about how we're thinking about the journalism business, the major upheavals that continue to transform that business, and how we at Hell Gate are positioning our organization to survive and thrive in the future that awaits us.
From the printing press to Craigslist, news reporting has been the dog that has been wagged by the tail of technological progress. But while the overturn of the business models that undergirded the American free press for the better part of a century, destroying thousands of journalism jobs and leaving vast swaths of the country in journalism-free news deserts, has unfortunate downsides, we have always believed that it also provides a lot of opportunities for innovation.
Longtime readers of Hell Gate may recall Hell Apes, our early foray into blockchain-based non-fungible tokens, which encountered some unforeseen (and, frankly, unforeseeable) headwinds. Having learned our lesson about speculative bubbles driven by people who don't have the best interests of journalism at heart, we have, more recently, pivoted to putting all our chips on artificial intelligence.
Those efforts are bearing real fruit. They have strengthened Hell Gate management's negotiating position with respect to our flesh-based reporters immeasurably, driving down costs and enhancing newsroom discipline in coverage of politically sensitive subjects.