Digest 4/25/2022

The rise and fall of CNN+, the epidemic of harmful editorial practices around COVID, and more.

THE PEOPLE DIDN’T WANT CNN+, NEITHER DID DISCOVER

The thing we can’t agree on, the thing that media executives fall over themselves searching for in pivots to video/newsletters/podcasts is who does the general public really want to hear from? What voice does your best friend’s mom want to hear relaying the latest death count first thing in the morning? What website will she sit and scroll through over mouthfuls of toast?

As we all know very well by now, she likely did not want to hear or see anything on CNN+, which cut off its own circulation after just one month of expensive ad campaigning and, upsettingly, genuine attempts at creating great journalism.

All the self-satisfied social media posts and gossip-y articles about CNN+’s American exit can be summarized pretty quickly; it lived the short life of a fly, after all. Management changed (network head Jeff Zucker resigned, Discovery appointed Chris Licht his replacement ahead of its now-complete WarnerMedia merger), things weren’t looking so good (the service amassed just 150,000-ish subscribers), and that’s about it (200 jobs lost).

According to a source familiar with the situation, the CNN newsroom is now a place of mistrust and apprehension as Discovery continues to cut staff. Employees are demoralized by the effort they put into what they feel was a misguided grab for streaming legacy.

CNN+’s polished, personality-based programming wasn’t really a replacement for CNN, and even its star personalities like Wolf Blitzer weren’t quite intriguing enough for it to exist untethered, at least not for $5.99 a month. For most Americans, that money most realistically belongs to a niche Patreon for rustic reed whistle making, or something like that.

In other words, with all the hyper-specific garbage the internet will coax you into buying, all the highly-individualized content algorithms, it makes sense that CNN’s middle-class, Millennial audience — who polls indicate prefer to watch news during election seasons, anyway — didn’t want to know what Jake Tapper was up to for a couple more hours of the day. They’re reading news for free on their phones, and when they aren’t, they’d like to pay a Twitch streamer to say their names out loud.

So when conservative and homophobic Twitter account Libs of TikTok, which Taylor Lorenz totally doxxed by, um, printing its owners name, commented on the situation, I begrudgingly had to agree.

“I (0 background in journalism/media) get more impressions within one hour of posting a single tweet than CNN+ had in their entire short existence and that’s without the $300 million in funding,” account owner Chaya Raichik wrote on Twitter. “What a spectacular failure.”

“Hahahahahahahaha libs are always owned,” one commentator replied. Yeah, OK.

But also… yeah, OK! The public has expressed over and over again in recent years that they don’t want journalism and big-budget production; they want to be entertained.

Donald Trump’s presidency and the way Fox News dominates other channels tell us people are attracted to the promise of no-bullshit, unbuckled truth. Whether it’s actually the truth is of no importance as long as it’s delivered by someone relatable, aspirational, or entertaining, which is what influencers and BTS fan pages tell us people want — and delivered directly (“directly”) from the individual people have developed a parasocial relationship with, unmediated by a network.

Journalists like Lorenz, who flirt with influencer-dom and know it well, never really cross over to it because they’re busy working for publications like New York Times, The Washington Post, and, in Jake Tapper’s case, CNN. All of these platforms scream “Buttons! Legacy institutions! You can’t trust me because of how shiny my hair looks in photos!” They’re what communicate legitimacy to people invested in “real journalism,” and what turn off people looking for media as entertainment.

Journalism as it stands loves its traditions and shiny hair. And CNN+’s failure tells us that journalism right now is too attached to legacy to spear what private individuals, including those tangential to the media industry, have already utilized — YouTube jump cuts, going on Instagram Live with no makeup on, and making a bunch of money giving the general public what they want. Now, a new question: what should we do about it?

HEADLINES FOR YOUR HEALTH 

If you learned everything you know about COVID-19 from New York Times headlines, you would be confused. “As New Coronavirus Spread, China’s Old Habits Delayed Fight,” the Times published on February 7, 2020. Then, “The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus” on July 10, 2020 (headlines vilifying China don’t count as racial inequity, I suppose). “Concerns Rise as Passenger Masks Fall,” Times published on April 22, 2022. But just a few days earlier, on April 19, 2022, Times wrote that “For Airlines, the Mask Mandate Couldn’t End Soon Enough.” Huh?

“I’m pretty forgiving about how the pandemic was reported early on. Which is not to say it was perfect — anything but, in some cases — but I think the crisis was so visceral and new and terrifying and most well-intentioned journalists were genuinely trying to figure out and convey what was happening,” Inverse’s health reporter Katie MacBride told me.

Slowly, the world learned more about the virus through research and experience, and the accuracy of reporting improved. By 2021, reporting helped us understand we needed to get our boosters, wear our masks, and try not to vomit our particles all over the place.

That same year, the Times accompanied a graphic of an accumulating “wall of grief” on its front page with the headline “U.S. virus deaths nearing 500,000 in just one year — more than in 3 wars.” It’s a little dramatic and maudlin, but with some sincerely thoughtful reporting behind it. It makes it seem like the Times totally cares about taking a serious stance on covid because of how totally sad it is about the very real, very high death tolls. Right?

Debatable. Though the world continues to suffer from death and infection, the U.S. has largely dropped its restrictions. Less restrictions have incorrectly generated the sentiment that COVID-19 has somehow become less dangerous. Now, it seems like some Times reporting chooses to either reanimate dormant panic with sensational headlines or mirror the U.S.’ current indifference.

“Is That Sniffle a Cold? Or Is It Covid?” the Times prodded on December 20, 2021. But then on April 7, 2022, a month after New York City dropped most of its mask and vaccine restrictions, the Times wondered more lazily, “Covid Cases Are Rising Again, How Cautious Should We Be?”

These headlines might fall under what MacBride notes as an unwelcome shift in COVID-19 reporting — a metamorphosis into “culture wars and this fucked up oscillation between ‘let’s get back to normal’ and ‘this next variant is a three-headed monster that’s going to kill us all.’”

“Nuance matters here and it’s been lost. Risk exists on a spectrum and is going to be different for different people,” she said. “What we can predict about future variants is pretty limited. I would like to see more outlets bake those realities into their reporting.”

In the meantime, the Times recently published a newsletter with the headline “Big Screaming Headlines,” as it were.

“Coronavirus cases have risen in major cities,” the description reads. “Hospitalizations have not.” So cavalier, and yet so disingenuous spilling from the Times’ mouth. Why spend all that time publishing reporting on how the virus wrecks the body through even “normal” infection just to undermine it all in one email?

“The pressure all newsrooms are under to create SEO-friendly, clickbaity headlines is always dangerous, but especially so during a pandemic,” MacBride said. “It sounds so obvious as to be laughable but I think the ideal health headline is an accurate one. But I am not in charge of a newsroom and most journalists don’t pick the headlines for their stories.”

In a perfect world, publications would allow writers to report on health not like a choose-your-own-adventure, but with integrity. Editors shouldn’t need to bend to the will of big media companies that really, really want employees to come back to the office, or readers that think masks will make them infertile, or traffic spikes that reward face-melting headlines that sound great, but aren’t real.

“Being overconfident kills public trust when it’s most needed,” says MacBride. “As a country, we are so short-sighted about everything. ‘There’s a surge and everyone should be scared! The surge has subsided and people are hitting the bars!’ There’s an entire world between those two ends of the spectrum. There are overdoses, mental health challenges, grief, disability. There are a lot of journalists reporting on this well, better than I ever could. But there are also people out there doing very real damage and not thinking twice about it.”

COVID-19 is a great reason for journalism to drop its pretenses. Sticky headlines work for Google and The Bachelor coverage, but when it comes to public health, newsrooms should opt for the most informative headline, not the most grotesque. Looking beyond the Times, publications like the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal should honor journalism’s (supposed) purpose to inform and serve the public and completely drop paywall restrictions on important COVID-19 coverage. Reporting doesn’t always come with the power to literally shape people’s lives and health — that power should be treated with respect and humility. Maybe there’s still time.

COMINGS AND GOINGS

— The Washington Post, whose Guild tells Study Hall operates using “systems [that] have reinforced racism and other prejudices” in the newsroom, allegedly published an article without properly citing a Black writer. The article has since been updated to cite the professor Tera Hunter, and the article’s author, Kim Kelly, wrote that her initial, citation-free article “reflects a deeper pattern of white writers receiving credit for the labor of Black writers.”

— CORRECTION: The April 25, 2022 Digest incorrectly suggested author Kim Kelly failed to cite scholar Tera Hunter in Kelly’s book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. The Washington Post removed the citations from the book chapter they excerpted. Our original phrasing implied that Kelly wrote an article for the Post ; this was also incorrect.

— Courtney E. Smith will serve as editor of Eater Dallas.

— Jim Crutchfield will join The Marshall Project as Editor-in-Chief of its local news team.

— Eli Rosenberg will end his five-year stint at The Washington Post to join NBC News as an investigative reporter on May 9.

— The Lingerie Addict, a blog created and maintained by Cora Harrington, is ceasing operations after 14 years (and it will be missed!).

— Giulia Heyward leaves the New York Times and Aallyah Wright leaves Stateline to join Capital B as national education and national rural issues reporter, respectively.

— Joseph Kahn, “suppressing a sly smile,” will act as executive editor of the New York Times. Women Hate This.

EVERYTHING ELSE

— Nicole Froio described on Twitter the behind-the-scenes of trying and failing to get hired at Bitch while based out of the United States.

— Stel Kline took to Twitter to share the story behind their recent termination at SDPB News, where they allegedly faced discrimination as the station’s only trans employee and were told that they were “not objective.” Kline is now pursuing a wrongful termination appeal.

— The New York Times does not know how to write about trans people — or maybe worse, it thinks it does. Trans journalist Tuck Woodstock obtained a leaked copy of NYT’s internal guidance on writing about trans people, which includes such gems as, “In many cases, pronouns and courtesy titles can be gracefully avoided altogether. If not, deftly explain the nontraditional usage.” Anyways, here’s the Trans Journalists Association’s style guide.

— The Native American Journalists Association, however, knows how to write about Inuit communities, and has released its first Inuktitut guide on how to do so.

— In good media news, Lilly Wachowski (of the Matrix Wachowskis) helped save the Chicago Reader by signing its Union’s open letter. If you are a journalist with a Chicago connection, you can sign and help too.

— In bad media news, in 2016 and 2019, Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg pushed the Daily Mail to drop unflattering stories on Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick, who she was dating at the time. It worked. That’s bad!

— My condolences to Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp, who got ratioed so hard for wondering why young voters are losing faith in Joe Biden. The ratio was so hard and so violent, my fingers and toes briefly turned into frogs, like in the Bible.

— Twitter isn’t hell. Twitter is a place for people to post boobs and opinions they formed after reading one whole book. You know nothing of hell. When Elon Musk acquires Twitter for $43 billion and takes it private, which he is expected to do, then you will know hell.

— Hey! You! Stop what you’re doing! Did you know you can make SO much $$$ writing 73 articles a week chronicling all the different kooky hats Kate Middleton has?