• by Ray Schultz , August 22, 2023

Fox is among the news outlets that object to Elon Musk’s latest pronouncement: that there will be no more headlines or text allowed with news links on X, the former Twitter.   

“Elon Musk sticks journalists in the eye with latest X change that will have major impact on newsroom,” the Fox Business headline states.  

Media outlets like Fox depend on strong headlines to draw traffic. But Musk has decided that X will no longer include headlines or texts with story links, only the article’s lead image.  

"This is coming from me directly,” Musk announced on Monday. “Will greatly improve the esthetics.” (The spelling is Musk’s).  

Reaction from publishing sources has been negative.

“"This isn’t small,” Jeff Sharlet, a journalism professor at Dartmouth College, told Fox. “This is disastrous for journalism, particularly independent journalism, which means democracy."  

Peter Sterne, an editor at City & State NY, says "Musk is doing absolutely everything he can to drive journalists off this platform," according to Fox.  

Musk apparently believes that this move—and others—will force users to spend more time on X and not jump to stories on other platforms. It also will reduce clickbait, he reportedly contends.  

The story was originally reported by Fortune.