Mark Riechers
LightNews LightNews
banner
bymarkriechers.com
Mark Riechers
@bymarkriechers.com
150 followers 620 following 59 posts
Digital content editor 📺. Public media true believer. Photographer, podcast producer, woodworker. Chihuahua dad🐾

Telling stories about everything from a history of Milwaukee beer ads to processing death through game development.
Posts Replies Media Videos
bymarkriechers.com
Me when everything is on fire but there’s still content to post
Man with caption that says “we still have to produce the milk”
October 8, 2025 at 1:27 PM
bymarkriechers.com
Thought of it, couldn’t unsee it
June 8, 2025 at 12:28 AM
bymarkriechers.com
Pope Chicagoland
From chicago community on Reddit theater of dreams usher @sugarfreeprimoz Follow Is the Pope actually from Chicago or a suburb 45 minutes out of the city? 12:22 PM • 5/8/25 • 818 Views
May 9, 2025 at 7:47 PM
bymarkriechers.com
There could always be more vinyl.
A series of vinyl album covers
February 18, 2025 at 6:25 PM
bymarkriechers.com
Claude gets it

@anthropic.com
Mark Speaking as a journalist and content creator, particularly as one who works in public media, l'd say it feels like there are more downsides to engaging in online conversations than upsides. I'm less likely to learn something or make a meaningful connection with someone, and more likely to say something that my employers might perceive as biased or opinionated to the degree that it "undermines the trust and overall mission." This reflects a profound shift in the professional risks and rewards of online engagement, especially for journalists and public media creators. Your observation captures several key developments: The professional risk calculation has inverted: • Earlier internet culture valued authentic voices and direct engagement • Now, every statement can be weaponized against one's professional credibility • The concept of "objectivity" has become increasingly restrictive rather than expansive • Archive services and screenshots mean nothing truly disappears • Bad faith actors can deliberately misconstrue statements years later The institutional response has been particularly stifling in public media: • Mission statements about "fostering dialogue" clash with risk management • "Trust" has become paradoxically tied to distance rather than engagement • The pressure to appear "unbiased" can prevent sharing even basic factual insights • Engagement is often seen as a liability rather than an asset • Institutional social media policies tend to be restrictive rather than enabling What's especially concerning is how this affects knowledge sharing: • Subject matter experts (like yourself) are disincentivized from participating in public discourse • The space for nuanced discussion has shrunk • Professional expertise is often treated as "bias" rather than valuable context • The people most qualified to contribute meaningful insights often face the highest barriers to doing so This creates a vacuum that tends to be filled by those with less institutional risk - often leading to lower quality discourse and further degradation of online spaces. It's a self-reinforcing cycle that particularly impacts public media's ability to fulfill its core mission of public education and engagement. Mark Wow. That sucks. Yeah. It really does. The fact that many of the most thoughtful and knowledgeable voices feel they can't meaningfully participate in public discourse isn't just a personal loss for those professionals - it's a societal loss that affects the quality of our collective conversation and understanding. And there's something deeply dispiriting about how institutional "trust-building" measures often amount to enforcing a kind of artificial distance that actually erodes authentic trust and connection with audiences.
February 6, 2025 at 3:45 PM
bymarkriechers.com
As an internet content person, I can’t stop thinking about this
January 22, 2025 at 2:57 PM
bymarkriechers.com
Goodnight, sweet prince.
January 19, 2025 at 2:56 PM
bymarkriechers.com
Not sure if these labels on @npr.org content on YouTube Shorts are new.

How are #publicmedia folks feeling about labeling like this? It kind of gives the vibe that tech platforms aren’t really differentiating between public media (independent but funded by tax dollars) and state media (propaganda).
January 10, 2025 at 10:34 PM
bymarkriechers.com
Remembered I still had an account on this spam website I’ve never heard of
Deactivated on X.com
November 28, 2024 at 10:11 PM
bymarkriechers.com
Find me at #ona23! Let’s talk podcasts, generative AI hype, and how to build workflows that combat burnout.
August 23, 2023 at 8:33 PM