Study Hall Digest 1/6/2020

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

Will Media Unions Push for Editorial Control?

Labor organizing is having a moment in newsrooms, with journalists negotiating for better wages, raises, job protections — and some degree of editorial control, which is not a new concern but became newly relevant last week in light of some questionable choices by New York Times management. But how much editorial control can a union exert, really?

“If you’re a part of the staff employee unionization wave, you can look at trends in collective bargaining and see there has been a push for greater journalistic autonomy,” said Matt Pearce, who was on the bargaining unit of the LA Times union and was recently elected secretary of Media Guild of the West, a local of the NewsGuild-CWA. He mentioned Gizmodo Media Group, whose contract solidified protections for editorial independence, ultimately allowing Deadspin to investigate its new owner. (The owners still intervened in the process and ultimately the Deadspin staff walked out over overbearing demands from higher-ups, so these protections only go so far.) Similarly, the Vice union contract stipulated that editorial employees will not be required to produce branded content.

In the case of the LA Times, the union negotiated the ability to withhold bylines if writers had ethical objections to an assignment. Staffers had further pushed for the ability to refuse assignments altogether, but were unable to get that into the contract, said Pearce.

There is also a clause in the Times contract stating that editorial decisions are to be made by editorial management, putting an official barrier between the paper’s editorial and business sides. “That’s a fuzzy protection, because editors are not in the bargaining unit and they could be facing certain pressures from above, but it puts our editors off the hook for having to carry out orders [from the business side],” said Pearce.

But staffers can only exert so much control over editorial content and keep their jobs. There is legal precedent for staff journalists pushing for editorial independence and then getting trounced by publishers, in part thanks to the courts’ interpretation of our beloved First Amendment.

In 2006, reporters at the Santa Barbara News-Press felt their publisher was interfering with editorial operations and staged a revolt. Several editors resigned, another was fired, and remaining staffers held protests and issued demands, including a restoration of ethics and editorial independence and the re-hiring of the departed editors. The National Labor Relations Board sided with the publisher, as did a Court of Appeals decision citing their First Amendment rights — the publisher has the right to publish freely, the decision argues, and any government interference in how the publisher runs the paper would impinge on that right. At the end of the day, the decision states, “the First Amendment wholly favors protection of the employer’s interest in editorial control.”

“The First Amendment has historically been kind of a barrier [to providing] labor protections for journalists who are agitating for their ethical autonomy,” said Pearce. Journalist unions are making an effort to protect editorial freedom, but courts seem unlikely to legally preserve it. That leaves the question of how else newsrooms can enforce independence.

Only WWII Could Make Me Agree with Tucker Carlson

I never thought I’d say this, but can we have 2019 back? Somehow, within 48 hours of hurtling into this decade, the internet was already meme-crying its way into a conversation about the very real threat of a war with Iran.

If you’ve miraculously been living under a rock or bludgeoned yourself with one to avoid the Depressing News spiral, welcome to hell. Very long story cut very short: Trump let the U.S. military kill Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, in an airstrike without any congressional authorization.

As the dust cleared on a move that could lead us into a catastrophic war, the media has swept in to Google search who Soleimani is and speculate over our impending doom. But don’t break out the war drum just yet. Somehow, over 18 years of endless war has taught even the most absurd right-wing Trump apologist media pundit — yes, I speak of Tucker Carlson — to pull back and look at the Iran mess through a clear lens. “Nobody in Washington is in the mood for big picture questions right now,” Carlson said on his show on Friday. “The obvious ones like, is Iran really the greatest threat we face? Who’s actually benefiting from this?” I never thought I’d type these words, but Carlson finally said something I agree with. Maybe this is the apocalypse, after all? — Chris Erik Thomas

Little Women: A Good Movie About Being a Writer

I haven’t read Lousia May Alcott’s Little Women since 7th grade, but having viewed the new Greta Gerwig adaptation, it seems to be largely about…the publishing industry! Which is in part what has made it such a hit on Media Twitter. Everyone is saying Jo is aspirational because she wrote a whole novel by hand in an attic in a fairly short amount of time, but it seems to me she had an advantage because she DID NOT HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION.

For me, the moral of the movie is to retain your IP rights at all costs, especially when you think you have a hit on your hands. Jo’s publisher tries to buy the copyright to her novel for a flat $500, preying on her immediate need for money. Who among us hasn’t considered signing a predatory contract because we need an assignment? Jo heroically turns down the money and keeps the rights to her own work. This is followed by a bafflingly long scene showing the book being printed and bound, hitting the audience over the head with the notion that the true protagonist of the film…is the novel itself.

Anyway, aside from being a parable about publishing, Little Women is great for content because it also functions as a personality typing system. Does everyone think they’re a Jo, though? (Most writers do.) All I know is if you think you’re Beth, you’re a sociopath.

Entries and Exits

Boris Kachka, longtime books editor at New York Magazine, is taking on the same role at the Los Angeles Times. Kachka tells Publishers Weekly that he plans on growing the section and making the Times “part of the national books conversation in new ways.” Just the latest in the ongoing East Coast vs. West Coast feud, reignited by Marriage Story. (Of note: New York had undertaken a big expansion of its books coverage, but Kachka’s departure suggests it’s not such a priority. Perhaps a casualty of the Vox merger?)

GQ’s former site editor Chris Gayomali has become the magazine’s articles editor, focusing on print features. Pitch him bangers!

Longread of the Week(s): Sarah Blackwood at The New Yorker tackled the “Marmee problem” in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women: Namely, Marmee’s story is missing from the narrative, despite Marmee being one of the more interesting characters. “Little Women is about four sisters trying to make the leap from girlhood to womanhood. The plot is theirs. But the ending, Alcott was clear, is Marmee’s, because her girls, each in her own way, both love and despise what’s waiting for them at the end. The prospect of becoming a Marmee, Little Women tells us, is simultaneously an aspiration and a threat. Marmee is at once far more interesting than many readers may recognize and also a major narrative problem.”

Everything Else

— I’m old enough to remember when Lauren Duca had a meltdown on Twitter over my “journalist as influencer” piece in which I discussed her public image and argued she was better known for her persona than for her ongoing work. She waited a few months, then took the premise of that piece and churned out a few paragraphs on the “rise of the journalistic influencer” for Nieman Lab. Really weird behavior but ok! (Ed. WTF???)

— That latest Bret Stephens disaster that went full race-science in advancing a theory of “Jewish genius”? Don’t worry, y’all, it was fact-checked and edited, according to New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet. Just as a reminder, Bennet is the likely successor to Dean Baquet’s job as executive editor, so that sterling judgment could soon be guiding the entire paper.

— As Out falls apart amidst an inability to pay its contributors, its talent is going elsewhere. Following the trend of marquee writers breaking off to self-publish, John Paul Brammer has moved his popular advice column ¡Hola Papi! onto Substack.

— Schneps Media, a Queens-based publisher that has been on a tear of swiping up (and emptying out) local New York City newspapers like Brooklyn Paper and the Villager for the last few months, has acquired free subway newspaper Metro New York. Though a since-deleted tweet from Metro had indicated the paper will shutter altogether, it has now been reported that Metro will merge with AM New York, which Schneps bought from Newsday in October. The Metro staff has been laid off by the previous owner Metro US, and about 20 staffers are expected to be offered jobs at the new operation. Judging by the reviews of Schneps staffers, this doesn’t bode well for local news!

— Because print advertising has plummeted and digital advertising revenue is mostly hoarded by tech giants like Facebook, advertisers are going retro and gravitating to billboards. Advertisers in 2020 are expected to spend roughly $4 billion more on outdoor advertising than on newspapers, according to agency GroupM.

— Wizards and mere mortals beware of casting doubt on Marianne Williamson. The astral projection of a witch from the future may have fired her entire staff but she didn’t drop out. Instead, she’s taking a page from awful magazine startups who don’t pay their writers and relying on a “volunteer” staff to help her.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated Matt Pearce was the newly-elected secretary of the Writers Guild of America West. He is the secretary of Media Guild of the West.