Elon Musk sticks journalists in the eye with latest X change that will have major impact on newsrooms

Elon Musk confirmed Monday that X will change how links to news articles appear on the platform — a move that has infuriated journalists. X will soon remove the headline and text while retaining just the lead image from links to news articles shared on the platform, Musk said in a post late on Monday. “This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics [sic],” the billionaire businessman said. Fortune, which first reported the change, said Musk’s intention appears to be to shorten the height of posts on X, which will allow more posts to appear on each user’s timeline. Musk also reportedly believes the change will reduce clickbait on X. The change is also in line with Musk’s goal to get users to spend more time on X and sign up as subscribers rather than leave the site for outside content. Dropping headlines from news articles would be the latest in a series of changes coming to X, the website formerly known as Twitter, since Musk acquired the platform last year in a $44 billion deal. And like many of Musk’s changes so far, users on the platform reacted with great skepticism, particularly journalists who know newsrooms rely on strong headlines to grab readers’ attention and drive traffic to their websites. “This isn’t small. This is disastrous for journalism, particularly independent journalism, which means democracy,” said Jeff Sharlet, a journalism professor at Dartmouth College and bestselling author. “Musk is doing absolutely everything he can to drive journalists off this platform,” remarked Peter Sterne, an editor at City & State NY. Several large X accounts expressed dismay at Musk on Sunday when he announced another change — that the “block” feature on Twitter is “going away.” But the headline change prompted even greater blowback from reporters, who understand that any change that impacts headline traffic will hurt their newsroom’s bottom line. James Palmer, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy magazine, called it “incredible” how Musk “comes up with a dumber idea every day.” “The man has melted his brain with a cocktail of bad divorce and worse drugs,” Palmer posted on X, referring to a Wall Street Journal report that Musk uses ketamine, a hallucinogenic drug. Dustin P. Walsh, a senior reporter for Crains Business Detroit, observed that Musk’s proposed change is likely to accelerate an exodus of news outlets from X. “Most journalists prefer Twitter to other outlets, but the reality is for non-NYT, WaPo, etc. outlets, Twitter isn’t an effective click through platform,” Walsh posted. “WAY more people get their news from Facebook. This will only exacerbate this. Twitter is not real life and it shows.” NPR was the first major U.S. newsgroup to leave Musk’s Twitter in April after Musk affixed a “state-affiliated media” label to NPR’s account. Twitter did not respond when asked how many more media outlets have left the platform since Musk assumed control in October. All of Musk’s changes come as he has pitched X as a more relevant platform for content creators. Premium subscribers can now post longer videos, their posts are shown higher up, and they also receive a cut of ad sales.