Study Hall Digest 4/15/2019

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

How Twitter Kick-Starts Bad-Faith Attacks

• A single tweet sparked the faux moral outrage at Ilhan Omar’s very innocuous and willfully misconstrued reference to 9/11. The actual 20-minute speech in which these words appeared aired weeks ago to no reaction whatsoever, and it was only when controversial Australian figure Mohamad Tawhidi tweeted the “some people did something” sound bite that the right-wing pile-on began.
• That out-of-context quote was on the cover of the New York Post the next day. Trump tweeted a video editing the sound bite over 9/11 footage — after which, Omar said, she began to receive more death threats.
• Twitter didn’t invent faux outrage or racism, nor did it invent taking quotes out of context. But the viral potential of Twitter means that a controversial public figure in Australia can put out a weeks-old sound bite in a way that is explicitly dishonest, and it will be at the center of American political discourse almost immediately.
• Twitter has packaged the attacks on Omar in a “moment” as part of a debate with two sides, including tweets supporting the Congresswoman alongside the President’s tweet that has encouraged death threats.
• Twitter leadership is being careful not to step on any conservatives’ toes after fending off allegations of “shadow banning,” so they’re going to be predictably spineless in their handling of conservative-driven hate campaigns. They will never deplatform right-wing ghouls and racists, and they certainly won’t deplatform the president.

HOWEVER, A Great Week for Wholesome Memes

So Twitter can make inflammatory what is inherently innocuous, and it can make viral what is old and dead, but I am often DELIGHTED by the latter, like this past week when a truly unhinged piece of cinema from 1998 — this scene in Meet Joe Black, which I refuse to spoil — went viral, leading several sites to write pieces explaining the unexpected trending topic, resulting debates over when Brad Pitt achieved peak hotness.

Then there were the threads comparing celebrities to various objects, my personal favorite being Ben Affleck as Dunkin’ Donuts beverages, though Rihanna as lab equipmentis also very good. I love this content!!! While scrolling, I 100% forgot I’m going to die one day!!

A Pivot to You, the Reader

As news organizations struggle to fix public distrust in the media, one potential solution that has emerged and continues to gain traction is to center the reader, reforming the traditionally one-way product/consumer relationship into a mutual dialogue. Readers aren’t just readers anymore, they’re “members,” and they’re being held up as an essential part of the editorial process.

• Most recently on this front: Matt Murray, Editor in Chief of the The Wall Street Journal, sent an email last week to subscribers announcing the paper’s intentions to “lead the way in pushing for elevated discourse.” He explains that polling has revealed the public would love to weigh in on the comments section but they are “turned off by the growing toxicity that is rampant all over the Internet.” So the Journal is revamping the comments section, the theory being that in better facilitating wholesome commenting, the discourse will be elevated. Here’s how he plans to make that happen:
  • Only some articles will have comments, commenting is only possible for 48 hours, and only members can comment
  • A WSJ reporter will kick off with a question to lead the discussion
  • Moderation will be stronger, and moderators will highlight comments that exemplify thoughtfulness and civility
• At a glance, this seems like a clamping down on the comments section, but I actually see it as the opposite. It’s an “elevation” of the comments section from a barely-regulated formality — here’s a place to put your opinion, if that makes you feel good — to an essential part of the editorial operation, worthy of active engagement from the newspaper’s staff.
• The Journal is not the first national newspaper to make changes along these lines. The Los Angeles Times in April of 2017 debuted a more interactive commenting platform. Two months later, the New York Times created a Reader Center (after cutting the Public Editor position), signaling a commitment to more actively engage with readers. (Note how soon after the 2016 election these changes took place.)
• Reforming comment sections has been framed as a means through which news organizations will reclaim public trust. Marie K. Shanahan, a journalism professor at the University of Connecticut, wrote recently in Nieman Lab that news organizations should “become a driving force for better online public discourse,” in part to combat the inadequacy of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which have apparently laid claim to the discourse and made it toxic.
• The natural conclusion of this shift is to recast the role of the reader entirely, from subscriber to member. The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas recently published a study on membership models and what the media can learn from them. One of the chief takeaways was that there is “deep value in listening, testing, and being fascinated with what members value.” I wouldn’t be surprised if membership models rooted in this understanding prove to be the future of journalism. Obviously it’s difficult to now look at The Correspondent as an aspirational model for the future, but one of its 10 founding principles was a collaborative relationship with members, and it did raise a lot of money.

TFW Your Freelance Employer Doesn’t Have Your Back

The Boston Globe hired the famously civil Luke O’Neil, author of the newsletter Welcome to Hell World and a member of Study Hall, to write columns, and happily published his opinion that servers should mess with Kistjen Nielson’s food. Yet the paper almost immediately caved to pressure when Fox News pundits feigned shock and outrage, first editing the piece in an attempt to cut down on the edgy content and finally removing it altogether and making a note that O’Neil isn’t on staff.

Editorial editor Shirley Leung, who had initially shared the piece on Twitter, has since said it “did not meet Globe standards and we regret that it got posted.” Leung told WGBH Newsthe change of heart came when Boston Globe owners, billionaires John and Linza Pizzuti Henry, read the column. At least it was a rare admission of the truth: owners, not editors, dictate what we see in the media.

Longread of the Week: A devastating but beautifully written excerpt from Jayson Greene’s upcoming memoir Once More We Saw Stars, on losing a child. Heartbreaking, but also a reminder that this kind of writing is just as important and valuable as online political warfare.

Study Hall Comic Edition

By Aude White 

EVERYTHING ELSE

— TWITTER LAST NIGHT WAS LITERALLY JUST A GAME OF THRONES CHAT ROOM. So this is just going to be Sunday nights for a while. I’m so happy for all of you. I don’t care about Game of Thrones and I’m aware that’s not a personality. All I ask is that you let me enjoy the new Star Wars in peace!!

— Katrina vanden Heuvel has stepped down as editor of The Nation after 25 years, but has said she will remain the publisher and will take on a new role as editorial director. This is the latest in a series of significant changes at the magazine within the last few months. The Nation Institute seems to have broken off from the editorial operation and rebranded as Type Media, while Nation Books, previously a joint project of the Nation Institute and Hachette Book Group, has rebranded as Bold Type Books. Word has it that vanden Heuvel’s money was the only thing keeping Nation afloat, so it might not shake out well for the magazine.

— Print is NOT DEAD: Netflix will put out a free glossy magazine to promote its shows ahead of Emmy season. How much do they pay…?

— Mayor Pete, in what is being called a “radical new approach to campaign branding,” has put out a design template for supporters looking to promote his campaign, which includes his own brand typography. “Radical” is definitely the appropriate word here.

— Speaking “radical” approaches to branding: Normcore clothing band Everlane has partnered with the New York Times to produce a sweatshirt with the slogan, “Truth. It affects us all.” What does that mean?? Like, the concept of truth affects us all? Things that are true affect us all?

— Here’s an interesting look at the business of running a local news startup: last year journalist Tasneem Raja co-founded a local news site called The Loop in Tyler, Texas and is now working to recruit members. There are currently 120 members. The Loop needs 400 to be sustainable. (When The Correspondent was accused of misleading its founding members, Raja tweeted about how that lack of transparency hurt smaller efforts to fundraise).

— CNN employees are revolting against a move from management to take away a steep Equinox discount.

— And finally, thanks to BuzzFeed, I am now fully sex-negative. But seriously, why are all the pictures from Disney movies? Is this the grossest form of sponsored content?