Study Hall Digest 11/27/2018

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

Bridging the Local and the National

Amidst Donald Trump’s rise in 2016, national media outlets adopted an anthropological interest in (white) middle America and the South — an interest that exploded after the election and spawned an entire genre of what I think could best be described as “What Happened?” journalism. We all know the genre: tedious and grating pieces on “working-class whites” suggesting visions of a prim coastal writer dropping their monocle in horror over the apparent furor of Trump supporters. (Remember the 2016 popularity of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy? The New York Times described it as “a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election.”) (This surge in fascination paved the way for other grifters — most notably, truck-driving “populist whisperer” Salena Zito.)

Now, Kentucky-based journalist Sarah Baird has launched a directory of freelancers that editors at national publications can use to find writers on the ground — the directory, called Shoeleather, has only been up and running for a few weeks but already has over 700 journalists, searchable by state, city, topics of coverage and identity markers such as ethnicity, disability or orientation.

“There’s a lack of excuse now,” Baird told Study Hall. “If you do still feel the need to parachute your person in to do this reporting, there is someone on the ground that knows that place better than you and the least you could do is share a byline.”

Baird said around 20 editors have reached out to her to say they will be using the database.

An unforeseen side effect, noted Baird, has been regional publications using the database to find reporters in more remote areas: an editor at the Houston Chronicle reached out to Baird to say the paper plans to use Shoeleather for that purpose. “It’s a good resource not only for national editors, but larger regional papers who want to figure out a way to reach out to the smaller communities,” said Baird.

Shoeleather will expand to include all U.S. territories in the coming weeks. By February, it will have gone international — beginning with Canada, said Baird, which has been in high demand since the launch.

The rise of parachute journalism in rural America had already spurred some attempts to take the focus off the coasts. ProPublica launched a Local Reporting Network program to support investigative journalism in smaller cities. Popula explicitly solicits pitches from writers not in major coastal media hubs. A database of this kind has been a long time coming.

Baird hopes to expand Shoeleather to create a sort of social network for writers not in coastal hubs. “You go to the middle of Iowa and you’re the only one, there is no community, so the question becomes how to build these local communities out,” she said.

Everybody’s Doing It: Daily News Podcasts

The Washington Post is gearing up to launch its daily news podcast “Post Reports,” following a trend of major news publications crafting audio accompaniments to their reporting. The New York Times equivalent, The Daily, is wildly popular, with 5 million downloads per month and eight figures in annual revenue, according to Vanity Fair. Chase that money! Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a daily news podcast called Front Burner, Slate has a daily podcast called What Next and the Guardian just launched one called Today in Focus.

“They’re looking for a viable new market to get into, and audio is pretty sexy right now. It hasn’t quite been spoiled by all the other trappings of digital media,” Nicholas Quah, founder of podcast industry newsletter Hot Pod, told Study Hall.

But the massive success of The Daily means any replication of the model will have to avoid direct competition with it, noted Quah. Front Burner focuses on Canadian news and The Guardian takes on a global perspective, so no problems there. Post Reports may be a more obvious competitor, but it has chosen to take an afternoon time slot rather than the Daily’s morning, which is probably a wise move.

“The problem is when you get into a situation where a news organization launches a daily news podcast that ends up covering the same topics The Daily does,” said Quah. “You are reacting to a competitor you will never beat.”

With the Times’s resources, the Daily is the incumbent, though Bezos-WaPo could throw just as much money into a project. Quah predicted that the majority of daily news podcasts that have popped up in the last 10 months and that will pop up in the next year will not be around four to five years from now.

It’s a Daily bubble: “This kind of thing always happens. You have one Bitcoin company that works out, then 50 that follow and 48 die out,” he said. “That’s just kind of where we are right now.”

Glamour Cuts Print

Condé Nast has announced it will more or less cease all print publications of Glamour, with the exception of some special issues like the one highlighting its annual Women of the Year awards.

Its print subscriptions have remained consistent at 2.2 million, according to the Times. But its digital views have risen 12 percent under the leadership of editor Samantha Barry to 6.3 million uniques. And subscribers to the magazine’s YouTube channel have risen by 110 percent, to around 1.6 million.

The Internet is where the new money is, and money has been a concern of Condé, obviously, since it lost more than $120 million last year. The company is leasing office space and shopping three of its titles. But can Glamour compete as a digital publication in a space increasingly dominated by Insta Influencers? Barry says Glamour is a brand, not just a magazine — but what if individuals are an even greater draw than brands?

In Other Condé News: GQ laid off food and travel editor Marian Bull as well as executive editor Chris Cox, shortly after culture editor Kevin Nguyen announced he left the magazine to edit features at The Verge. Longtime editor-in-chief Jim Nelson left the magazine just last month and was replaced by GQ Style editor Will Welch, who might be doing some house-cleaning.

Civil?? It’s! Not! Going! Well!

The platform failed to complete the sale of its cryptocurrency when an initial fundraising effort fell (very) short. Now, journalists are griping that the company overstated the returns they’d be getting on their (currently nonexistent) crypto salaries.

According to a report by CoinDesk, staffers who accepted part of their payments in cryptocurrency claim they were misled by higher-ups who overstated the projected valuation of tokens. Journalist Jay Cassano told CoinDesk he left Civil-affiliated newsroom Sludge after finding himself unable to pay rent or student loans. Civil CEO Matt Iles denied that telling, insisting Civil had always been clear its predictions were nothing more than predictions and that there was inherent risk involved.

On the one hand, Civil is working to solve several problems in the industry: the pitfalls of the ad-based model and the public’s lack of trust in the press. On the other hand, it seems to be…inadequately addressing another major issue, which is the chronic lack of reliable income for journalists.

Study Hall Special #Relatable Comic Edition by Aude White:

SHORT LINKS:

— Amazon has bid on 22 regional sports networks, including the Yankees’ YES Network. How long until Amazon owns everything? Probably not that long!

— BuzzFeed, which is already running shows in partnership with Facebook and Twitter, envisions master-mergers with competing media companies like Vice and Vox to negotiate better terms with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Will the $100 BuzzFeed donation tote bags then have the names of every media company???

— A heartwarming tale of how a small local newspaper in rural Oregon is thriving after an editor from the Oregonian swooped in and saved it.

— After Lyz Lenz penned a scathing assessment in CJR of Axios’s “deep dives,” Axios CEO Jim VandeHei called her to complain — or rather, to condescendingly ask her WHO SHE IS! WHO ARE YOU, LYZ??

— Just look at this princely river otter snacking on fancy koi at Vancouver’s walled Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden. Koi for all!! Civil should pay in koi. I am an otter.