Study Hall Digest 3/26/2018

Is Facebook gonna die or kill us all? I’m sure the company will be fine, if a little damaged, after the Cambridge Analytica news. More important is that the public’s opinion of Facebook and big tech in general is changing. Which makes sense because in addition to Facebook making people lonelier and sadder, it’s also terrible for news (both in that it’s better at pushing fake stuff than real, and that it hasn’t figured out a way to compensate the people who produce the real stuff). The Zuck gave a rare sit-down interview to the Times, which is about as boring to read as the man himself is to look at. The interview is probably attempt to present Facebook as a responsible and grown-up company. The idea being that if Facebook (and every other tech company) can show maturity and restraint on their own, they won’t have to be forced into it by regulators. But that’s looking more and more likely. Good.

Facebook might be dying (probably not), but if you want to squeeze some more views out of its algorithm, here’s a good primer on how CNN’s Great Big Story targets people. “If we’re running a video about Star Wars characters challenging social stereotypes, we don’t just target fantasy fans or sci-fi geeks. We will target female fans of Doctor Who between the ages of 25 and 40 with the knowledge that we’re pulling the emotional strings associated with the latest Doctor, who happens to be female.”

The Intercept, founded on the idea that it would be much different and better than every other news organization, is doing the same bad thing as every other news organization: paying boring white men too much money to do nothing!

J-School Is a SCAM! Instead you should just write for free while working other jobs! No don’t do that, that’s stupid! Well maybe j-school isn’t totally a scam! Maybe headlines implying there is One Definitely Right Way to Live Your Life, are stupid! But then again, J-school Is Good for Some People, and Not for Others, and It Probably Doesn’t Make Sense to Get Yourself $150,000 in Debt to Go, but Sometimes It Might, but There Are Often More Affordable Options, is not a good a headline.

How many interns could Harper’s pay with the money they gave to Katie Roiphe?

The Awl and its former employees (along with Gawker and its former employees) have now been almost completely absorbed by the old media companies they used to make fun of. ;{

Apparently balancing your magazine’s masthead so that it’s not too biased to one side means hiring one good person (Ibram X. Kendi) and one sack of shit.

I still don’t know what’s happening at Medium (does anyone??????), but apparently they’re now giving out bonuses for stories that perform well ($100 lol).

Tronc might be sold. Usually media companies being sold is bad, but I can’t imagine a management team worse than Tronc, so I guess we’ll see.

We’ve all been here, I’m sure: