Study Hall Digest 3/4/2019

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

The Bret Stephens Rorschach Test

This past week, Splinter writer Samer Kalaf sent an email to New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens calling him “remarkably dumb.” Stephens wrote back in turn with some predictably condescending advice and a thinly veiled threat to use his prestige to squash Kalaf’s career. (“Imagine…that one day you are up for a big journalism award. Imagine, next, that someone you’ve insulted sits on the prize committee.” Well, you’ve painted such a vivid picture!) Kalaf wrote back eviscerating Stephens for his well-documented past racism, which includes musings on the “disease of the Arab mind.”

But more interesting than the exchange itself (aptly filed on Splinter under “Too Insidery”) was the wider response, which served as a stark microcosm of the division between old and new media standards — as well as an indication of the direction media is headed. Writer John Warner rightly called the story a “Rorschach test on attitudes towards status and credentialism.”

Some believed Stephens came out on top and that Kalaf’s behavior was “deeply embarrassing.” Others praised Kalaf as a hero for taking on Stephens, who has a great deal of power and a title at a prestigious old-guard media company where he’s paid a shitload of money to share his awful opinions. I think it’s worth noting that not everyone who sided with Stephens was necessarily defending him as a person, writer, or public intellectual — a BuzzFeed editor’s disapproval just came down to a disapproval of rude emails and an emphasis on courtesy.

Courtesy, in and of itself, isn’t a virtue in new media. And status and credentials are not inherently impressive. I said before that I think Jill Abramson’s big misstep was believing the prestige of her history at the Times would protect her from the consequences of lazy journalism — she didn’t understand the young people at Vice she was quick to dismiss wouldn’t hesitate to take her to task on Twitter. It seems that in media now, you have to be both factually correct and morally right. Bret Stephens has been, and is, wrong.

This is a significant departure from the gleefully irreverent new media of a decade ago — as this Washington Post story on the origins of Deadspin points out, the ethos seems to have moved from taking down anyone and everyone, cheap shots and all, to a more thoughtful deployment of snark. It’s not what you say, really, but who you say it to, and why. It’s actually a more ideological approach than the soulless collegiality we were told would let us climb the gilded ladders of old media. There’s only so much Bret Stephens can do — the media is going Kalaf’s way.

…On the subject of old media becoming new, here’s an interesting Q&A in Nieman Lab with the New York Times’ Opinion Video department, which is focusing almost exclusively on YouTube because of the tremendous audience engagement there, as opposed to the Times website. Many of the videos are satirical, not in keeping with the Times’ stodgy public image. Adam Ellick, the Times’ director and executive producer of Opinion Video, said that can be a difficult marriage. “One of the things we struggle with is: How do you signal to your audiences, both new and old audiences, that something is comedy or satire?” he told Nieman Lab. “Because when they see our brand, they’re probably not expecting that.” So, the Times is very consciously trying to adapt. Its print op-ed section seems to be attempting a version of the same — as the controversial hiring of Sarah Jeong, who had something of an edgy online presence, indicates.

Contently Really Cares About Freelancers, Really!

Contently, a platform that lets freelancers establish portfolios and connect to clients, just decided after nine years to impose a 4.75% cash-out fee on freelancers moving their money to PayPal. In a already fraught industry that makes it maddeningly difficult for workers to get what they are owed, freelancers on the platform say this is one more infuriating blow. Contently has yet to offer a satisfying explanation for the change but insists it’s all so it can provide better services for freelancers. So be grateful!!!

What Does the Public Think of Media?

We know trust in the press is down — we know most Americans say they’ve lost trust in the media, and a good chunk of those who have lost trust rattle off concerns about “bias” and “fake news.” And according to a new poll from Columbia Journalism Review in partnership with Reuters, it seems most Americans also have some VERY INTERESTING ideas about how journalism works. 60% of respondents, according to the poll, believe journalists are paid by their sources.

I did reach out to CJR to ask about their methodology, because that figure does seem alarmingly high, and I have yet to hear back — but it’s not unthinkable that non-journalists might have some warped ideas about how the press functions. A lot of journalists on Twitter were scandalized by the misconception, but others pointed out there isn’t a lot of education around how the press functions and also, the prevalence of sponsored content may confuse some readers. Anyway, I think maybe we could do a better job of explaining how we do our jobs, but at the end of the day I’m not sure how much of a difference it would make — it seems readers will come to different conclusions about whether a report is true or false based on their own beliefs, and there isn’t much that can be done about that.

I also couldn’t help but wonder if new media’s drift away from traditional ideals of objectivity have something to do with public perception. In any case, we’re way past that. Media companies of the future, like The Correspondent, eschew traditional ideals of objectivity. But more importantly, I think readers genuinely like subjectivity when it reinforces their worldview (hello, conservatives tuning into FOX NEWS).

The Cut has expanded into fiction! It will now put out a work of fiction on a monthly basis, beginning with a short story by Curtis Sittenfeld published Thursday. The news accompanies a larger expansion of books coverage across New York Magazine verticals, tackling broad trends within publishing. New York Magazine isn’t alone in this approach — the New York Times and The Atlantic have also expanded their books coverage, noted a CJR report a few months ago on the boom. That report noted a wide departure from one-off reviews and an approach that treats books coverage as another facet of culture reporting.

Longread of the Week: Molly Langmuir of Elle penned a pretty fascinating profile of legendary New Yorker investigative reporter Jane Mayer. The best part? Mayer recounts that, after her boyfriend dumped her for Laura Ingraham (!!!) and took her dog, she broke into his house to perform a rescue operation.

EVERYTHING ELSE

— Jonah Goldberg of the National Review and Steve Hayes, former editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard, are teaming up this year to launch a new conservative media company, whose audience Goldberg describes as “center-right” and which Axios describes as “reporting-driven” and “Trump-skeptical.” Just what the discourse needs.

— AT&T executive John Stankey, now in control of WarnerMedia, which owns CNN, doesn’t care about CNN’s TV viewership. He’s instead gunning for product development, including apps. This seems pretty intuitive — the long-term future isn’t in cable news.

— Vanity Fair did a deep dive on Facebook’s “shadow government,” which makes decisions about what you can and cannot post. At the center of the piece is the question of whether the term “men are scum” should be a permitted. I say yes, but no one asked me.

— The Correspondent, the U.S.-based version of a Dutch news site that touts “unbreaking news,” will launch Sept. 30. It eschews ads and VC money, instead relying completely on readers — its success is our success!

— Here’s a batshit crazy one: Meet the fake sex doctor who falsified his credentials, got fake studies into peer-reviewed journals and tricked a bunch of media outlets into reporting on his (sexually explicit) fake studies. In his defense, the fake doctor notes that “even the President of this country uses Twitter and creates falsehoods every day.” Can’t argue with that.

— Advocacy group Free Press put out a proposal to create a “Public Interest Media Endowment” funded by taxes on revenue from online ad revenue from the likes of Facebook and Google. It’s a nice idea, but America isn’t big on funding things that actually…benefit citizens.

— Five months after Ian Buruma’s departure after publishing an ill-advised self-indulgent essay by a sexual predator, the New York Review of Books has appointed two new top editors: Gabriel Winslow-Yost and Emily Greenhouse. Greenhouse said that addressing a 2017 study showing only 23% of NYRB pieces were by women would be a “great priority” for her. “I think it’s extremely important not only for the counts, but to represent the world more fully and more exactly,” she told the Times. There was a lot of talk about a women replacing Buruma, so it’s nice to see that fulfilled — it’s also worth noting that Greenhouse is heavily pregnant, a fact displayed in photos accompanying the announcement. Slightly more diversity!