Digest 12/13/2021

Is DeuxMoi just one more outlet for press releases now?, the BuzzFeed SPAC fallout, Greg Tate passes at 64, and more.

PR HAS RUINED DEUXMOI

My frustrations with DeuxMoi, the Instagram account that posts user-submitted tips about celebrities, have been thoroughly documented. But I can’t quite quit it. I think citizen journalism is the future of celebrity news as Hollywood becomes an increasingly online, increasingly press-averse industry (see: their reaction to a very normal Jeremy Strong profile). That being said, the very things that made DeuxMoi revolutionary are the same things that cause it to lose meaning the bigger it grows.

In March 2020, the iteration of DeuxMoi we’re most familiar with began in earnest with 45,000 followers; users submitted tips about things like Leonardo DiCaprio’s sex life. Less than a year later in January 2021, it was amplifying claims of sexual manipulation and assault against Armie Hammer to 590,000 eager readers.

Today, DeuxMoi sits at over 1.3M followers, but the barrier to entry to appear in an infamous Instagram story remains the same: being able to write an email. The anonymous account owner is clear that they have no way of verifying the sources or information, which both allows for the magic of the whole project to be tarnished by obviously fake stories, and the content to be increasingly diluted with what are very clearly press releases.

People in media were the first to notice that a number of celebrity spots, appearing as anonymous emails screenshotted and then shared on Instagram Stories, used remarkably similar language to the deluge of press emails they received in their inbox—not to mention the fact that these particular spots have absolutely nothing interesting to say about the celebrities other than that they went to X restaurant the email is sure to name. Sometimes they’re so overt I can’t believe the account doesn’t exercise some judgement:

“I work for an A list party planner and EVERY client has been asking us to stock their parties with HAPE sake,” reads one tip, written by someone who is definitely not HAPE sake’s rep in a mustache and glasses.

I can’t blame brands for trying to cash in on how easy it is to get their message in front of a million extremely engaged people, but it’s remarkable to see an Instagram account willingly fall prey to the same pitfall digital media is currently trying to navigate its way out of. Journalism and advertising don’t mix. The more DeuxMoi works with brands and invites celebrities to sponsored events, the less objectivity it has, and it will need a new direction if it wants to stay true to its original audience. Has it thought about pivoting to video?

BUZZFEED SPAC TRAILS OFF IN VALUATION, SHAFTS EARLY EX-EMPLOYEES

BuzzFeed went public on December 6, charting a bold new path for digital media—unless, apparently, you’re an early former BuzzFeed employee, who, according to Axios and public lamentations on Twitter, have been unable to sell their shares due to an “administrative blunder.” Only after shares began trading were ex-employees told additional paperwork was necessary—paperwork that would take 3-5 days to process, as BuzzFeed stock was falling over 40%. Meanwhile, those who were able to trade from the get-go did so at $14.77. BuzzFeed did not respond to a request for comment, and for transparency’s sake, I should disclose that I don’t understand anything I’ve just written.

Although BuzzFeed’s initial performance as a publicly traded company didn’t look impressive to people who do know what they’re talking about, that’s only part of the story; SPAC mergers like the one BuzzFeed moved forward with have been considered by several major media orgs in the past year, including Vox and Vice Media, and many will be watching to see how this one plays out long term. Perhaps most importantly for them, BuzzFeed’s valuation over time can provide public market value comparison between large media orgs, and for people higher up the food chain, a pathway to profitability in a challenging time for digital media. If this week was any indication, that profitability won’t benefit everyone equally.

REMEMBERING GREG TATE

Greg Tate, a writer and critic whose work appeared in The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, as well as a number of published books, died last week at the age of 64. A cause of death was not given. Tate became a leading Black cultural critic starting in the 80s when he began contributing music reviews to The Village Voice after graduating from Howard University with a degree in journalism and film. A collection of his Voice works were published in the book Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America in 1992.

In addition to writing, Tate helped form the Black Rock Coalition, and left The Voice in 2005 to become a visiting professor at Brown and Columbia universities.

Tate is survived by his daughter, Chinara, brother Brian, sister Geri Augusto, and a grandson, Nile.

TUDUM?

Tudum.

COMINGS AND GOINGS

— Julia B. Chan is leaving her role as managing editor of KQED News to join The 19th as editor-in-chief.

— Ella Cerón has joined Bloomberg’s equality team as a trending news reporter.

— Max Tani has joined Politico’s White House team to cover Biden and political media.

— Genetta Adams is now the managing editor of opinion at The Grio.

— Louise Matsakis is the latest to join NBC News’s tech team, focusing on Amazon and TikTok.

— Both Matt Phillips and Neil Irwin are leaving The New York Times to join Axios as a correspondent and chief correspondent, respectively, covering economics.

EVERYTHING ELSE

— Missed this last week: The AV Club editor-in-chief Scott Robson “invited” the Chicago-based editorial team to relocate to the newly-established Los Angeles office the same way my closest friends are “invited” to my birthday party: don’t come and you’re dead to me. In a leaked Zoom call recording obtained by Gawker, Robson declined to say that relocation was mandatory, but that the “the jobs are going to be moving to L.A.” Employees who choose not to move by the May 1 deadline will receive severance, according to G/O’s Human Resources Manager, Vanessa Fils-Aimé.

— The Save Journalism Committee took a deeper look into the accusations that journalist Ian Urbina was profiting off the royalties from artists who contributed music for the promotion of his 2019 book The Outlaw Ocean. Turns out, the damning accusations made by Benn Jordan don’t entirely hold up to scrutiny. The Save Journalism Committee believes the project is “emphatically not” a scam.

— The Wirecutter union says the New York Times is illegally withholding holiday pay in retaliation for their Black Friday/Cyber Monday strike. The union is filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.

— Please read this restaurant review. And now read their response.

— Over 200 newspapers across the country have filed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook and Google, alleging they “monopolized the digital ad market for revenue that would otherwise go to local news,” per Axios.