Study Hall Digest 4/9/2017

The media rn

Gizmodo Media Group is going through some stuff rn. The staff is more or less openly rebelling against its new corporate overlords, Univision. Katie Drummond left this week to become executive editor of The Outline, and Gizmodo’s editorial union promptly put out a statement saying the company doesn’t promote and retain women in upper management positions. Between this and a lot of its staff live-tweeting a bizarre active shooter training visit from Homeland Security, it seems like all the tensions of the merger are finally boiling over into action.

Speaking of people being angry at their platforms, YouTube got in hot water this week with some of its progressive content creators after companies began pulling ads from videos over fears they were inadvertently advertising on terrorist training videos. That follows a controversy a few weeks ago when LGBTQ YouTube people found out that their videos were being filtered out by a YouTube algorithm meant to hide controversial content. Get it together, YouTube!

There seem to be ever more newsletters intent on making money and producing original content (same). Lenny Letter was one of the pioneers here, and now First Look (the people behind The Intercept), are launching a newsletter with original reporting, photography, and essays (more on that below). It all seems to be about escaping the ad revenue eaters like Google and Facebook. The model is niche sponsorship, just like podcasts and new digital outlets like The Outline (whose advertisers are reportedly very pleased with the site’s interactive custom ad modules).

TV news is terrible. It’s depressing. It makes me sad. 🙁 Great NYT Mag feature though.

Thoughts

Whither the Ambitious SJW Feature Site? In addition to problems at Fusion (which, btw, their content looks a lot better on Kinja imho), MTV News, which relaunched a little over a year ago with a new focus on social justice and original reporting, is maybe not doing well. There are reports of people leaving and maybe a hiring freeze. And BuzzFeed Features, which seems to have struggled to find its niche and voice over the years, appears to have nixed freelance news features. Its top editor, Steve Kandell, left a while back, after his desk was sidelined. These publications are facing identity crises, but heritage names like NYT Mag and the New Yorker are publishing blockbuster pieces on the weekly.