Digest 10/12/2021

How to lose a job offer by being pro-union, from freelancing to a book deal with Sesali Bowen, and more.

THE UNION IN THE ROOM

I was offered a staff writer job at Rolling Stone’s website in January 2019. In February, it was abruptly rescinded. I was standing in the middle of the common area in Refinery29 when I got the phone call from HR at Penske Media Corporation, Rolling Stone’s parent company. This would be devastating in any case, but I had already given notice at Refinery29. I realized it was very possible I was about to become entirely unemployed, without even the cushion of severance. 

The hiring team at Rolling Stone was equally blindsided; they had just gotten my desk ready. A week before my start date, I was even erroneously sent hiring paperwork. The reason HR gave me on the call was that they reevaluated their budget and no longer had the money for the position — except shortly after, they hired someone else instead.

I was able to keep my job at Refinery29, but this mystery plagued me. I scheduled my first ever therapy session after it happened, because I couldn’t stop obsessing over what it was about me that made this go wrong, and if it was something that was going to make things go wrong again whenever I tried to get another job in the future. 

Grasping at straws, I thought maybe it was because I had unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate the salary. Digging back deeper, I wondered if it could have had something to do with me writing up the allegations of sexual misconduct against co-founder Jann Wenner in 2017. The reportedly real reason — which I finally was told this past month — never even crossed my mind. 

A person aware of my hiring process told both me and Off The Record that my offer was rescinded because management discovered I was active in Refinery29’s union. As Off The Record uncovered, around the time my offer was pulled, employees at PMC were asked to sign a statement acknowledging the newly-updated employee handbook with an addendum titled “UNION STATEMENT” that included the language: “We hope that if the question of union representation does ever arise here at PMC or any of PMC’s individual brands, that you choose ‘no.’”

If PMC did indeed rescind my offer because of my union activity, that is a violation of Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act. But as much as I feel personally slighted by this, I can only think of how this aggressive anti-union attitude has potentially prevented current and former employees at PMC properties from effectively advocating for themselves. Without the power of a union, changes involving compensation, diversity, and workplace culture are only granted at the behest of management — who would have no incentive to make these changes outside of their own benevolence. Anti-union tactics only help those at the top, isolating the employees below on which the entire company is built. And if you want to know just how much it benefits those at the top, take a look at how hard they’re stopping people from changing it.

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QUICK Q&A: SESALI BOWEN

Sesali Bowen is a freelance writer whose first book, Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes From A Trap Feminist, was published last week. Ahead, she answers some quick questions about going freelance and landing her first book deal.

First, can you share some background on your media history, and what made you decide to go freelance?

I was an entertainment journalist, covering movies, TV, and music for women’s outlets like Refinery29 and NYLON. I was always interested in covering Black women and always jumped at the opportunity to profile people like Megan Thee Stallion and Janelle Monáe. I was also one of the architects of R29 Unbothered, their sub brand for Black women. I decided not to pursue another full time job after I was laid off in 2019 because it became clear that I could make more money and work on more projects by venturing out on my own. I knew that my résumé was strong enough and that I’d built enough connections to book writing work for myself. Plus, I’d started booking speaking engagements and had a social media platform that could also provide another source of income.

Tell us a little about your book — how did you land the deal? 

Before I was freelance, my former boss, Gabrielle Korn, introduced me to my literary agent who asked me what ideas I had for a book. Trap feminism was something I’d scratched the surface of as a blogger for Feministing and in grad school, and with a surge of new femme hip hop talent and conversations about Black women, I knew it was the perfect time to write about it. I worked on the proposal for about two to three months while I was still employed full time. I finished it about a week or two after I was laid off. My agent shipped it around and I had a deal a month later.

And last, what would you say is your biggest freelancing tip that you don’t see enough? 

My biggest tip for freelancers is to TELL PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE AVAILABLE FOR HIRE! There are definitely some opportunities that come my way unexpectedly, but telling people that I was available and interested in things like copywriting has ensured that I’ve stayed booked and busy!

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COMINGS AND GOINGS

— Sarah Burke has taken over as editor-in-chief of Them.

— Amber Jamieson is now the social news editor at BuzzFeed News, the team covering internet culture. 

— Jake Hall is continuing on at MEL Magazine as a staff writer. 

— Greg Barber is leaving The Washington Post after 18 years to become the VP of product at Vox Media. 

— Jack Gillum is headed to Bloomberg News as a cybersecurity correspondent. 

— Karen Nicole Attiah is now contributing to Our Body Politic.

— Nicole Chung is leaving Catapult after five years. 

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EVERYTHING ELSE

— Oh, you thought the Ozy saga was over? After appearing to shut down operations after the initial New York Times bombshell that Ozy Media made a habit of stretching the truth about their metrics to the point that COO Samir Rao once impersonated a YouTube exec on a call with Goldman Sachs, founder Carlos Watson appeared on the Today Show and said: just kidding. While Watson is attempting to claw Ozy back from disgrace, at least one investor is already hitting back with a lawsuit. 

— Some good news: The Appeal has returned as a worker-led publication after a messy shutdown over the summer.

— Mic is relaunching after pioneering the trend of publications pivoting to video and laying off all their workers in the 2010s. Now, an Issa Rae profile leads the Bustle Digital Group revamp with Shanté Cosme as the new editor-in-chief. This new iteration will focus less on millennials and instead on the “young, diverse, extremely online, very savvy,” Joshua Topolsky, a chief content officer at BDG, tells the New York Times. 

— In a new lawsuit, former WTMX The Mix host Melissa McGurren accuses her former cohost Eric Ferguson of being “a serial abuser of women” whose behavior was protected by the company. Another former WTMX employee, Cynthia DeNicolo, has sued station owner Hubbard Radio Chicago as well as Ferguson, alleging Ferguson coerced her into sexual acts.

— The Atlantic is following in the New York Times’s footsteps and launching a newsletter vertical only available to paying subscribers. In this case, according to Recode, the publication is reaching out to current newsletter writers, at least one of whom is on Substack, in hopes of bringing them and their following over to The Atlantic’s paywall instead. 

— Sally Rooney reportedly declined to allow her latest book, Beautiful World, Where Are You to be translated into Hebrew. Rooney’s agent confirmed to Haaretz that the author supports a cultural boycott of Israel.