Study Hall Digest: 7/9/2018

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

Ethical Mass-Consumption of Unwitting Strangers: Does it Exist? (No.)

As has been recognized by many, the “plane bae” saga is a particularly egregious instance of unthoughtful documentation born of a culture wherein it’s honestly become pretty normal to drag non-consenting strangers into one’s social media hell. It’s some combination of the incessantness and unnerving intimacy of the minute-by-minute thread and the attention-seeking and profit-grabbing motives of the truly grating original tweeter, Rosey Blair, who continues to bask shamelessly in the limelight of her making with glamor shots of herself, self-indulgent posts about herself, and cloying tweets begging for jobs and opportunities…for herself. Meanwhile, the utterly unwilling female subject of the thread has been harassed off the internet. But it’s ok, because she’s just a character in Rosey Blair’s rom com — read her screenplay, you guys!!

But while it may be uniquely grating, this debacle didn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s pretty common for Twitter users to post photos of strangers on the subway or snippets of overheard conversations in coffee shops. Most of these instances are utterly benign, but I’m plagued by the question of how certain we can be of that benign nature when we post, and whether we are adequately confronting the ethical considerations that must come into play when we snap someone up and ship them off for mass consumption on social media. Being intrusive and craving fame are hardly new phenomena, but we’ve entered a truly strange and unprecedented cultural moment in which a gleefully oblivious UCB performer can take a plane passenger who truly believes they are talking to one person and shove them before an audience of millions against their will, and we clearly have not adequately reckoned with that power. If the previously agreed-upon social contract of existing in public doesn’t exist anymore, what does that mean? What considerations do we owe others? And what do they owe us? Certainly not to be cast in our sociopathic rom-com fantasies, at the very least.

I’m Told Media People Gather at a Bar

A story about a bar that has become a popular media hangout had media Twitter abuzz last week — Sharlene’s, which may or may not be a dive and may or may not be the new Algonquin, got a loving tribute in Punch as a delightfully “inhospitable” gathering place for writers, fact checkers, podcasters et al. Some responded with loving tributes of their own, some with notes of appreciation, but others deemed the piece little more than tedious navel-gazing. A surprisingly (to me!) earnest debate on the merits of such a piece ensued. We’re all still friends, I hope. Anyway, I have no opinion on the matter. (Fellow non-drinkers of NYC media, if you exist: Hello, what is up? How’s it going? Where do you hang out? Is there a media park bench where you chug iced coffee and chain smoke? Hit me up.)

Univision Wants to Offload Fusion After Axing Staff

Well, well, well. Looks like all that canning of longtime employees, who actually took buyouts to deter further layoffs, wasn’t exactly in good faith. Univision is looking to sell Fusion Media Group, the Wall Street Journal has reported. This bombshell came Friday evening at the tail end of an avalanche of unwelcome news from the company — first that over 40 Gizmodo staffers took buyouts after learning of impending layoffs, then that Univision is moving to cut 15-percent of staff at the Onion Inc. (which includes The Onion, the A.V. Club and Clickhole). The company had just bought Gizmodo Media Group in late 2016, and after a failed IPO looks like it’s already trying to offload the acquisition. I’m not sure what else to say besides, this fucking sucks. Probably not a good time to try to freelance for them!

Anyway, here are some more Gizmodo staffers — all from Jezebel — confirmed to be leaving with the aforementioned round of buyouts:

— Joanna Rothkopf

— Kelly Stout

— Ellie Shechet

— Phoebe Bradford

Atlantic Sells Quartz

Meanwhile, in acquisitions, the Atlantic will sell business news site Quartz to Japanese media company Uzabase for a reported $75 million to $110 million. Uzabase operates a business news app called NewsPicks, the English-language version of which will now fall to Quartz. In a letter announcing the sale, Quartz honchos said that while much will remain the same, the new leadership will spawn changes allowing readers to go “even deeper” with their coverage with subscription services. How deep were you going before? How deep will you go now? How deep is too deep? We’ll just have to wait and see.

The Times Establishes an Alan Dershowitz Beat

Ok, I don’t really have the emotional energy to fully engage with this one so bear with me. Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, as you may have heard, wrote an op-ed in the Hill arguing against impeaching Trump and has since been shunned by his pals at Martha’s Vineyard, which he calls “the Island” and is ostensibly insulated from the outside world. “It’s a tragedy that it’s come to the Island,” he says. “This is supposed to be a place where you leave your politics at the door.” Sure, let’s just throw around the word “tragedy” — do you also leave the MEANINGS of WORDS at the door of “the Island”? I think it’s a tragedy my local bagel shop jacked up their prices and I also think it’s a tragedy I’m awoken by blaring air horns every morning courtesy of an adjacent construction site — it’s a tragedy this has come to my apartment, an indoor place where you’re supposed to leave outside at the door.

The Times has since published two additional pieces on Dershowitz — a profile on this supposed modern-day “McCarthyism” and another profile discussing his book arguing against impeachment. Everyone seemed floored the Times dedicated so much manpower to the Dershowitz beat, but I’m not surprised — the first piece was a hit. It elicited a lot of mockery, from the right and the left, and therefore a lot of online traffic.

Unrelatedly, I had to google Martha’s Vineyard because I did not know where it was.

Longread of the Week: Rejected by AA, a deeply upsetting but important piece in the New Republic about how the rigidness of 12-step programs can cost addicts their lives.

Short Links:

— Sitting is Out, Walking is In: Not one, but TWO pieces were published this past week on successful media people who use treadmill desks — The Cut’s interview with Joanna Coles and a piece from the Times about their own Nellie Bowles.

— A Plea from the Daily News to Fund Local Journalism with Taxpayer Money: Yeah, why not?

— Fast Company Breaks Down the Disconcerting Difference Between How the Times Disciplined Ali Watkins versus How it Disciplined Glenn Thrush: Sexism.

— Annals of Job Changes: Adrian Chen has left the New Yorker, apparently to work on a book about gamers. Alex Vadukul, after churning out countless colorful features on New York City as a freelancer, is now a City Correspondent at the New York Times.