Digest 9/20/2021

Finding happy journalists on TikTok, a union win, media companies (not) doing the right thing, and more.

YOU ARE NOW ON JOURNALISM TIKTOK

Last week, I wrote about Twitter being the premier platform for journalists (to the detriment of my mental health), but it’s not the only social media site where journalists congregate. Notably, I’ve been bumping into a number of other journalists on TikTok as the algorithm continues to narrow down exactly who I am with eerie specificity. Rather than a place to glibly share articles and dunk on other people’s opinions, however, Journalism TikTok is an entirely different beast. The vibe over there is, dare I say, happy?

“I think journalism Twitter is very obviously created by journalists for other journalists to consume, whereas Journalism TikTok is created by journalists for readers and aspiring writers to consume,” Iman Hariri-Kia, deputy editor at Her Campus and TikTok creator with over 9000 followers, tells Study Hall over email. “I think New York Media, in particular, has gotten into the bad habit of creating content for other members of New York Media.”

In fact, Hariri-Kia doesn’t use Twitter at all: “The overdrive of information and opinion on Twitter at any and all times gives me professional whiplash and personal anxiety.”

Instead, Hariri-Kia’s videos are aesthetically pleasing days-in-the-life, writing advice, and updates about her upcoming debut novel, A Hundred Other Girls, all geared towards viewers who are not (yet, maybe) in the writing industry. 

It’s not just Hariri-Kia — other creators like Refinery29 staff writer Elizabeth Gulino have leaned into the aesthetic of TikTok to give the journalism career an online makeover. The days in the life videos, in particular, are an unfamiliar portrayal of media for anyone who spends most of their time on Twitter. There, journalism is a constantly repeating cycle of layoffs and bad bosses and dicks appearing on Zoom calls. On TikTok, however, journalists are showing the lighter side of the profession: the productivity, the goofy PR packages, the neon office lights.

This isn’t to say, however, that Journalism TikTok is filmed entirely through rose-colored glasses.

“I think being transparent about things (internships, privileges, experience, etc.) is important for other aspiring writers and journalists to see,” Gulino says of her on TikTok. “I did not major in journalism in college and I was always looking online for info and advice about how to actually start a career in journalism, so I like to think that I’m helping contribute to that if I’m answering questions on the platform.”

Gulino uses Twitter for professional purposes — sharing articles and whatnot — and says her TikTok is “more informative about my position and less about the work I’m actually doing.” But given that both Gulino and Hariri-Kia agree TikTok is a more palatable place than Twitter, Gulino is working on trying to use TikTok as another outlet to share her work, even though the app is about as accessible as Instagram when it comes to sharing links to anything that takes you off the app (that is: not very). 

Until that changes, I don’t see TikTok ever replacing or seriously competing with Twitter as a place for journalists to congregate. Though if Twitter is any example, it would just immediately become unusable if we ever do. 

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IS CLUBHOUSE THE NEXT DIGITAL MEDIA FRONTIER?

Short answer: Maybe? The audio platform recently welcomed NPR senior editor Nina Gregory as their first “head of news and media publishers.” Naturally, visions of an official Clubhouse newsroom — AKA just a bunch of people shouting — danced in my head, but a company spokesperson said the app doesn’t have any official newsroom plans. 

“In [Gregory’s] role, she will work on helping press leverage the global reach of Clubhouse to help address a number of issues including news deserts, enhancing audio training opportunities at j-schools, and finding local on the ground sources,” they said in a statement. “She is also planning to work with the news clubs currently on Clubhouse on connecting with journalists, outlets and experts.”

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BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS

On Monday, September 13, the VICE union released a statement calling on management, who recently laid off 17 employees, to match the severance agreements given to the employees who were laid off in May 2020, which included paying out paid time off. This is something VICE managed to do during the financial uncertainty of spring 2020, but claims to be unable to do now, despite recently receiving $135 million in new funding, not to mention the additional unemployment benefits available to the laid-off workers last year expired this month. While a source tells me that employees signed their severance agreements on Wednesday, they say VICE refused to budge.

This has not been a great week for “media companies doing the right thing.” New Yorker archivist Erin Overbey tweeted years of data that showed how overwhelmingly white and male New Yorker print writers are and have always been. For instance, Overbey writes that in the past fifteen years, “less than 0.01% of print feature & critics pieces have ever been edited by a Black editor.” In fact, the highest percentage of Black writers for any vertical was just 8% of the Critic At Large reviews between 1990-2020. The stats break down similarly damning statistics for Asian American, Indian American, Latino writers and contributors, as well as women. I encourage you to read the whole thread before we get to Conde Nast’s statement:

“We’ve worked hard for years to increase the number of underrepresented voices at The New Yorker, and we’ve made significant progress — among our writers, in senior editorial positions, and across the entire enterprise,” a spokesperson for The New Yorker told New York Magazine in an email. “Nearly 40 percent of new hires at Condé Nast are from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. While we don’t believe these tweets present a full or fair view of The New Yorker and its ongoing efforts, there is always more work to do, and we look forward to doing it.”

I don’t know how this data could have been fuller or fairer, but both these media upsets have at least allowed for more meaningful celebration of the one piece of good news this week: The entire Solidarity Slate was elected in the Writers Guild of America, East election last week, meaning digital media’s voice will continue to be heard in the Guild, and the industry will be represented in future decisions. Onward!

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COMINGS AND GOINGS

— Karen Han is departing Slate (and New York!) to pursue film and TV writing in Los Angeles. 

— Hazel Cills is leaving Jezebel to be a Weekend Editor at NPR.

— Jill Krajewski is leaving her role at Vice as senior social editor. 

— Njera Perkins has joined Popsugar as evening assistant editor of the celebrity and entertainment team. 

—  Phillipe Thao is the latest media worker to depart for Netflix editorial. 

— Esra Erol is leaving Eater after five years to join Bon Appetit as senior social media manager. 

— Raquel Reichard joins Refinery29 as deputy director of Somos.

— New York Magazine’s Molly Young and New York Times’ Alexandra Jacobs are both heading to the Times’ book section as staff critics. [UPDATED: This originally stated that Alexandra Jacobs was a freelancer for the New York Times and we apologize for the error. Alexandra Jacobs is a longtime New York Times staff member, most recently as deputy editor of Styles.]

— Liza Tozzi and Nancy Dillon are both joining Rolling Stone, the former as digital director and later as senior reporter. 

— Izzy Grinspan joins Harper’s Bazaar as digital deputy editor. 

— Elizabeth Gonzalez James is the new interviews editor at The Rumpus. 

— Ross Scarano has joined the editorial team at SSENSE. 

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EVERYTHING ELSE

— The Columbia Journalism Review went long on Teen Vogue’s somewhat troubled dive into political coverage, which often came at the expense of employees’ mental health. The piece also includes this Anna Wintour nugget: “After Biden’s inauguration, Wintour sat down Teen Vogue staffers and asked them whether the magazine should continue covering politics.”

— The New York Times has launched a new team to help battle the distrust towards journalists that’s deepened over the past presidency or so. Or, in the words of the press release, the Times is “developing innovative ways of deepening our audience’s trust in our mission and in the credibility of our journalism.”

— Some of the most popular Dear Prudence letters — including that one about someone who kept their mask on during sex — are not just fake, but written by author Bennett Madison. Madison unmasked himself in a recent Gawker essay, along with providing some commentary on Daniel Lavery’s time as the advice columnist. 

— Casey Newton gave a thorough breakdown of his Substack, Platformer’s, first year. There are a number of interesting findings in there about the subscriber-supported model, mostly all positive. Looks like Axios was convinced.