Welcome to 2067. Meet Dr. Deborah Koen, a historian of the digital era at NYU who was invited to write a chapter for an edited collection about the early decades of the digital era, 1990 to 2030. For this purpose, she chose to go back to an unusual mid-2020 text by Maya Ofek, an experienced Israeli journalist who shared her vision about the future of journalism. Her text was written in a difficult moment in time, as the world was struggling with pandemic and political turmoil. The chapter - titled Looking Back; Looking Forward - begins with two entries from the original 2020 text by Ofek, followed by Dr. Koen’s 2067 analysis of the zeitgeist and socio-political circumstances. Later readers are presented with another entry by Ofek the journalist in which she presents two futuristic news services - NaiR and SiFy - that would turn human journalists redundant. This is once again followed by Koen’s text that examines how things developed from 2020 to 2067. Did the future of journalism eventually unfold according to Ofek’s dark vision?
What I am about to present here may turn me into a subject of ridicule in the eyes of my friends and colleagues, but here I am, willing to take that risk. For a short time, I am not obligated to the facts. Rather, I dare to look into the endless, empty space of the future from my small bright Tel Aviv flat. This is not what I was educated to do as a journalist. I can almost hear my legendary editor roaring: “Don’t write about something that did not happen yet, you are not a fortune teller, you are a reporter! Stick to the facts, goddamnit.” It is certainly not in my comfort zone, but here’s what I discovered: futurism is liberating. Even if time will uncover my ridicule, who cares? I will probably not be around to witness this.
So, after this introduction let me tell you. Fifty years from now there will not be people like me, sitting in front of a screen, writing articles and news reports. What defined me as a person for decades will become obsolete, a thing of the past. But journalists will not be missed at all. We will all be surrounded with news, like water is to the fish in the sea. However, we will know much less about what is really going on. The information that really matters will not be available to us. Few people will care and fewer will be looking for ways to change this. (Maya Ofek, Times of Israel, June 6th, 2020).