Study Hall Digest 12/10/2018

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

Worker Databases: A Byproduct of the Gig Economy/Layoff Culture

It genuinely feels like media Twitter lately becomes a scroll of layoff announcements roughly once a week. It’s relentless and disheartening. As a result, this industry becomes further dependent on freelance labor. As a former staffer who was thrust into freelancing unexpectedly, I can attest that it is incredibly daunting and difficult to know where to begin.

Emma Specter, an editor at Garage, also knows what it’s like to be in this position. She was laid off from LAist around this time last year and was compelled to act after Mic axed its entire editorial staff the week before last. She created a Google doc called The Layoff List where writers seeking work can list their beats and contact information, making them more easily accessible to editors and hopefully making the transition a little less stressful than her own had been.

“[Being laid off] was just really horrible, and people were really gracious and kind,” said Specter. “A lot of people were like, ‘Slide into my DMs and I can help.’ But there was no centralized way for people who had been laid off to say, ‘Here’s what I’m doing, here’s what I cover, and here’s how you can get in touch with me.’”

The list, which is open not just to the recently laid-off but to any writer looking for work, now has over 70 entries after being in existence for about three days. Specter says she plans to use the database as an editor to solicit freelance work for Garage, and hopes to encourage other editors to do the same.

Speaking of Layoffs…

It’s not just writers who are hit, of course, but editors as well. The Verge, Vox Media’s tech publication, last week wiped out a portion of its culture desk, laying off editors Laura Hudson, Devon Maloney and Bryan Bishop.

The layoffs are the latest in what feels like a relentless series of blows to culture coverage. This past year has seen layoffs at Fader, GQ, Complex, and Fusion, not to mention the collapses of the Village Voice and Mic. As writer Kelsey McKinney previously noted, there seems to have been a pivot to political coverage over culture writing since the 2016 election, and the latest cuts at The Verge might be further evidence of that phenomenon.

And in the aftermath of layoffs: Writers are understandably frustrated and seem to be increasingly willing to dish out their impressions of their employers. For example:

• On Mic: Former staffer Zeeshan Aleem penned a newsletter detailing his impressions of the company’s nosedive. Mic, he says, bent over backwards to cater to Facebook’s algorithm that rewarded clickbait headlines. Then Facebook changed the algorithm. “Instead of trying to find ways to diversify traffic and adjust to the algorithm, Mic decided to start throwing everything that wasn’t guaranteed to generate virality under the bus,” writes Aleem. “I recall being told that an article with the words “health care” in the headlines was too stuffy, and implicitly that covering the topic was more or less pointless.”
• On The Fader: Contributor Will Bundy notes in a Twitter thread that The Fader founders Rob Stone and Jon Cohen are also heads of marketing agency Cornerstone, and that the two entities not only operate in tandem but that the founders have explicitly stated they seek to “dismantle the barrier” between the two. Meanwhile, amidst this genius strategy, the Fader became a revolving door: half the staff was fired after the founding duo touted their most successful year to date. “It starts to feel less like a series of oversights/casualties of industry shifts and more like a strategy,” writes Bundy.

I think it’s safe to say embracing brands is the future of editorial operations. The line between editorial and marketing will become increasingly blurred. But workers will not reap the benefits of that marriage, even if it keeps a magazine technically operating for longer than it otherwise would have. Remember: GQ recently axed a bunch of staffers and is throwing its weight behind business-to-consumer services like GQ Recommends so the magazine can reap affiliate cash.

So That’s Layoff Culture! Now, Temp Culture

Study Hall reported at the beginning of November that a large swathe of the workforce at New York Public Radio are temp workers, and those workers have fewer opportunities for advancement and experience frustration at being treated as lesser team members.

The Washington Post on Sunday published a deep-dive on the exploitative nature of temp work in the audio industry, noting roughly a quarter of NPR’s workforce are temps. There is a general feeling of resentment boiling beneath the surface among temps in the newsroom. Temps described being left in the dark about such fundamentals as the length of their assignments and how much they’d be paid, all the while laboring with the hope they’d eventually be brought on as staff…except, they weren’t brought on as staff, leading one NPR temp to put it this way: “You feel like you have the boyfriend who’s never going to put a ring on it.”

Sam Sanders, host of NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute,” called his employer out on Twitter, noting how the toxic temp culture is holding the company back.

Study Hall Comic Edition from Aude White:

SHORT LINKS:

— Every publication is for sale!!! Merge and acquire baby!! New York is looking to sell, Vox has been toying with buying, BuzzFeed is, of course, looking to unite with every other media company into a Voltron that will fight Mark Zuckerberg.

— Gimlet Media is going to produce a daily news podcast with the Wall Street Journal. Mirror mirror on the wall, who will be the most daily of them all?

— The New Republic chats with Tavi Gevinson about Rookie (RIP) and how its shut down reflects wider trends in the media, like the need for hyped-up “storytelling” over actual connection with readers.

— MTV News, which last year laid off much of its newsroom, is re-staffing. Terron Moore is now vice president and editorial director of MTV News Digital. He has brought on Michael Arceneaux and, um, “powerful feminist voice” Lauren Duca as contributors. How many more times can they pivot until they are in a perpetual state of motion and spin off the earth and into the sun?

— Netflix shelled out $100 fucking million to keep Friends at least through 2019 — AT&T’s Warner Media plans to launch its own streaming service, and it will have the ability to either retain it exclusively or let Netflix, the dominant streaming service, keep at it so AT&T can rake in an extra $75 million or so. Hmmm, what to do!

— GQ writer Zach Baron talks writing profiles, and weighs in on the productivity and scheduling discussion — he can only write in the morning!

— Kaitlin Tiffany tackles Spotify’s “algorithmic sexism” over at The Goods. Spotify’s most-streamed artists are men, and that’s seemingly by design. Will Spotify do anything about it?

— Conde Nast is shutting down its invoice portal for the rest of the month so uh sorry you can’t get paid lol: