Study Hall Digest 11/5/2018

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

Welcome to the Study Hall Digest, your one-stop-shop for all the sycophantic news you need about the world’s most powerful and stupid people, broken into small enough chunks that you can read it as you eat your $6 terrible croissant on the way to the Metro.

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BE STUPID: Axios Exuberantly Showcases the Grossness of Access Journalism

• We were treated last week to the sight of Axios’ star White House reporter Jonathan Swan buddying up to President Trump in an interview, gleefully suggesting the possibility of revoking birthright citizenship by executive order, failing to correct the president’s false assertion that the U.S. is the only country with birthright citizenship, and being demonstrably pleased with himself when the president complimented his reporting (“Good guess,” said Swan playfully, tapping his head).
• Where to begin with this ethical shitshow?? Sam Sacks of the District Sentinel correctly pointed out that Swan is doing much of the “heavy lifting” for Trump, beginning with his line: “Some legal scholars believe you can get rid of birthright citizenship without changing the constitution.” Swan’s continued interjections that encourage the thinking, his disregard for fact-checking, his joy at the president’s validation, and his subsequent giddy tweets are cringe-worthy.
• Then there’s the way Axios framed the story — as something squarely within the realm of probability! It’s…not! Axios co-founder Jim Vandehei took the misleading framing a step further, tweeting out “Trump to terminate birthright citizenship.” Only midway through the print story that appears on Axios’ site does this little aside make an appearance:

• BE SMART!!?!?! You intentionally framed this story in a way that largely ignores the above fact — only to slam on the breaks halfway through and be like, “Now, I know what you morons are thinking — because we planted those ideas in your head — but HOLD THE FUCK UP.”
• We shouldn’t disregard the possibility of Trump acting on his plan just because it’s unconstitutional, but boot-licking reporters like Swan who prize access over accountability help the administration’s credibility and tell readers/viewers how they should consider these proposals. “If Trump wanted to issue an executive order rescinding the citizenship of the children of immigrants, he would need a press that would treat it as morally neutral — if it helped them get the scoop,” wrote Libby Watson at Splinter.

Tech Journalism When Everything Is Tech

• Tech news site Recode will re-launch as a Vox vertical early next year — a partnership that will give Recode a bigger audience and give Vox expertise in tech coverage, according to a post from Recode co-founder Kara Swisher. (Don’t miss The Information founder Jessica Lessin vs Recode-Swisher Twitter spat.)
• Recode launched in 2014 as the evolution of the tech site AllthingsD.com, which was founded by Swisher and Walt Mossberg in 2007. Vox acquired Recode in 2015 but, until now, they had functioned as separate sites.
• Recode plans to hire more writers for the relaunch, and writers will pursue narratives rather than simply covering specific companies or topics, said Swisher. That’s because tech has gone from being a more niche topic to being inseparable from all other aspects of our lives, including politics and relationships. In order to understand the political landscape and how we relate to others, we need to understand how technology interfaces with these things. So the role of tech journalism has changed.
• Big mainstream publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have started investing heavily in tech coverage as a result, noted outgoing Recode editor Dan Frommer, who told Study Hall he attributes this shift at least in part to the role social media played in Trump’s election: “I don’t want to say its a causal relationship, but it’s certainly gotten a lot of people to see tech, particularly Facebook but also Twitter, as not only something that is an entertaining place to blow off some steam or to be entertained but also a profound factor in democracy.”
• “That’s been the biggest story in the United States over the last two and a half years, in the era of Trump — the massive effect of social media and the internet, and the fact we have a pocket computer we’re addicted to for hours a day, and the massive, profound impact those things can have on people and society,” Frommer said. “Now you’re starting to see [tech] moving out of the fringes of reporting.”
• Frommer said he’s leaving Recode to pursue other projects and will most likely be launching a new publication in the coming months — he’s tracking that progress at semirelated.com. He also authors a newsletter called Points Party, about travel and credit card points.

Checking in with the Media Gig Economy

• Temps and per diem workers at New York Public Radio, which owns WNYC, are in the process of negotiating better terms after being absorbed into the SAG union in August.
• Vacation days are being worked out at the bargaining table, according to a contract worker privy to the ongoing discussions. “Taking a week off that would be paid is not something I would even have considered,” the worker told Study Hall.
• Many workers at NYPR are per diem or temps, meaning they have temporary contracts for a few months at a time — rather than working on a gig-by-gig basis, like regular freelancers — and do not (yet) have the benefits of full-time staffers. So basically they’re in employment limbo, which is great for employers who want labor without having to provide the benefits of employment, but not great for workers.
• “If you’re working X many hours you should be getting some benefits, and the benefits that are currently being offered are just not enough for what the company is getting form us,” said the worker, who said full-time staffers have more opportunity for advancement.
  NYPR voluntarily recognizing the new union that includes temps and per diems is a good step towards coping with the changing industry — some temporary workers have been at NYPR for over a year, the worker told Study Hall, and a recent meeting with temps and per diems yielded a full conference room, showing the prevalence of this type of labor.
• BE MEAN: The company also seems to be working to rectify a work culture that excludes temporary and per diem workers. Only full-time staffers were recently offered flu shots in the office, the worker told Study Hall. Last year, temps and per diems were not invited to the holiday party — an oversight that was corrected once higher-ups were notified.

Checking in with Print: The Thing Everybody Loves That’s Going Extinct

• The New York Times reported that out of four million paid subscribers, three million are digital-only. Publisher A.G. Sulzberger has in the past stated that the Times will one day be a digital-only news publication.
• But people still love print! Local news site Bklyner last week distributed a print edition, featuring shortened versions of online stories, in response to reader feedback. Editor Liena Zagare told Study Hall the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and that, while older readers had initially requested a print paper, a wider breadth of readers have since reached out to enthuse about the experiment. In fact, the site seems to have garnered new readers as a result. Zagare believes this is because reading something in print is often a more comfortable experience than reading online, and that readers have become increasingly wary of consuming news on sites like Facebook. “You’re interacting with news in a neutral environment,” she told Study Hall. “There are no comments screaming at you. It’s a more private experience.”

• In Los Angeles, The LAnd — a free, independent alt-weekly launched by former LA Weekly staffers and contributors — is preparing to make its print debut in mid-December. The fledgling publication hosted a party over the weekend to raise money for printing costs.

SHORT LINKS:

— Stop hiring celebrities to interview other celebrities, they don’t need the money and we’re better at it!!

— Parent company Insider Inc. asked Business Insider staffers to sign a new contract including a non-disparagement clause, per the Daily Beast, meaning the staffers are prohibited from criticizing the company. I didn’t have to sign one after DNAinfo was shut down a year ago last Friday, which is why I can now say, without fear of legal action, “Fuck Joe Ricketts.”

— CNN is raking in viewers and cash by covering Trump 24/7. “Anytime you break away from the Trump story and cover other events, the audience goes away,” CNN President Jeff Zucker told Vanity Fair. He also defends the network’s practice of repeatedly hosting liars like Kellyanne Conway — surprise! It’s because BALANCE!

— BE HUMAN GROWTH: Creative Loafing Charlotte, an alt-weekly that has been serving Charlotte, North Carolina since its launch in 1987, has laid off its staff and is going digital-only. The change comes after owner Charles Womack sold it to his son Alex, who studies “mind, spirit and human growth” at a real place called Mindvalley University. Sounds like he’s qualified!

— BE EXTREMELY STUPID: Jacob Wohl — conspiracy theorist, hipster coffee shop visitor, and, according to fellow conspiracy theorist Jacob Burkman, a “child prodigy who has eclipsed Mozart” — got caught in a very stupid scheme to pin fake sexual misconduct allegations on special counsel Robert Mueller. Wohl’s “private intel agency” Surefire Intelligence, which used pictures of famous people like Israeli model Bar Refaeli to populate its LinkedIn page, emailed women offering to pay them to fabricate accusations — because when you’re bribing people to assist in smear campaigns it’s important to leave a paper trail!! Anyway, conspiracy theory distributor Gateway Pundit eagerly published a dossier from Surefire only to take it down once Wohl’s scheme was revealed, but otherwise the only outcome of this exercise has been giving Wohl the attention he desperately craves.