Study Hall Digest 9/10/2018

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

Freelancers Take a Stand Against The Outline’s Firing of Staff

Study Hall made news last week when, in response to The Outline’s axing of six staffers (including its remaining staff writers) after a $5 million round of funding, 115 members of the collective — including yours truly — voted in favor of an open letter criticizing the site’s treatment of its employees as disposable, with dozens further stating they would not write for the publication until significant changes are made.

Since the letter went live, other writers outside of Study Hall have joined the action in solidarity, with some pulling pieces that had been in the works. 77 members and counting of the Binders group of women and gender-non-conforming writers signed an accompanying letter stating they also would not write for the Outline. Several news sites covered the action, including The Observer.

Topolsky himself mischaracterized the action in his response to Adweek, equating it with “attacks” on the site’s work that brand the remaining staffers as “enemies.” The letter itself does not attack anyone, much less the site’s staff, but rather prods Topolsky and other media higher-ups — because the problem is far greater than The Outline — to instill practices that better value the labor their enterprises need to survive.

So, what next? Freelancers who signed the letter are now discussing possibilities within the Study Hall Listserv — most seem to be in agreement the way forward should center helping freelancers better navigate the industry, evaluating how well publications follow a set of standards. Study Hall will soon be hiring a community organizer to help navigate these steps.

StoryCorps Workers Still Fight for a Fair Contract

Workers at the radio organization StoryCorps first began organizing in late 2016, formally voted to unionize in August of last year, and then began bargaining the following November. Since then, however, little progress has been made, according to the union, which had its most recent meeting with management lawyers Friday.

For 11 months, members of the bargaining committee have been pushing for fair wages and healthcare for employees — but management has been dragging its feet on responding to contract requests, said one staffer on the committee.

“We’ve really felt that wages and healthcare are the two big ones they really have moved on very little if at all, and I think what they’re suggesting, honestly, it’s pretty laughable and it’s pretty frustrating,” Afi Yellow-Duke, a radio producer and production assistant at StoryCorps who joined the company in October of last year, told Study Hall.

The lowest paid members of the StoryCorps team makes $35,000, explained Yellow-Duke, which makes living in New York City difficult. Union members are fighting for better wages and benefits because they want to improve the company’s overall culture and retainment of talent.

“With the cost of living here, that’s unconscionable, and it’s not sustainable,” said Yellow-Duke. “StoryCorps has a high turnover and we want to make our workplace more sustainable. We love our jobs. We would like to be able to continue doing them, but we can’t do them if we’re not paid fairly.”

According to the union’s Twitter page, when bargaining committee members raised concerns over wages and healthcare at the most recent meeting, a management attorney responded, “You could vote for Bernie Sanders and he’ll give it to you. Everything would be free.” So in short, they’re very sympathetic and take the livelihoods of workers very seriously.

Gothamist is Getting a Podcast

WNYC has announced local news site Gothamist, which it acquired earlier this year, will be launching a podcast. So cool. Everyone — and I mean literally everyone — should have a podcast. I won’t be satisfied until there are more podcasts than there are humans on this earth, until our primary function as a species is podcast-production. But as for this one, what can we expect? Ask a Native New Yorker How to Bust a Union?

The LA Times to Get Esports Coverage…and an Arena!

There’s been something of a race to cover esports. Vox Media’s Polygon has piloted sister-sites dedicated to specific esports. ESPN started aggressively pursuing the coverage of esports about two years ago. But do either of those publications have an ESPORTS ARENA?? Enter billionaire LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong who, as CEO of diversified holding company NantWorks, has made an investment in Daybreak Game Company that seems to be integrating with the paper’s coverage. First of all, LAT will soon start covering esports in its Sports section. But NantWorks is also planning the construction of an LA Times Center next to the Times’ headquarters to serve as a gaming hub, which will host live events. Talk about new revenue streams.

White House Staffer Takes Freelance Gig

What brave resistance leader within the White House wrote the anonymous NYTimes op-ed? Follow the freelance money!

Twitter detective work about who the author may be aside, it seems… not in the best interest of a secret internal “resistance” to pen an op-ed about it, anonymous or not? And didn’t the mystery writer say their goal is to keep Trump calm and to moderate his tantrums? Was this supposed to…chill him out? Many have speculated the real objective of the piece was to score a lucrative book deal and be heralded a hero once the administration is over, and according to book agents, that’s a very real possibility.

Magazines, Covered

The Ringer’s Alyssa Bereznak published a great feature on the history and current state of print magazine covers in the age of the Internet. Lately, covers of traditional glossy titles like Vanity Fair and Glamour have gotten simpler — in part due to budget cuts, but also because covers now serve a different function than selling out on newsstands. They have to be advertisements for outside products: “merchandise, collector’s items, spinoff publications, books, recommended products, behind-the-scenes YouTube videos, television shows, and in-person events or conferences.” In other words, all the stuff that actually makes money. — Kyle Chayka

Longread of the Week: “Tucker Carlson is shouting when he tells me he isn’t shouting,” begins this incredible profile by Lyz Lenz in the Columbia Journalism Review. The piece attempts to trace the mysterious descent of someone who was by all accounts an excellent journalist into a shouty, racist (don’t yell at me) Fox pundit.

SHORT LINKS:

— Yet another Vogue editor departs, this time for Snapchat. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

— Inside the relaunch of Interview Magazine, where president Kelly Brant (daughter of former owner Peter Brant) swears her father is out for good. Got it. So he declared bankruptcy to avoid paying millions to contributors, bought the mag back, then bailed to give it a clean slate. Redeemed!

— New York Magazine, which is eyeing a sale, apparently held a union-busting meeting (staff hasn’t even attempted to unionize yet — the mag is just thinking ahead!)

— In POSITIVE media labor news, Rewire.News voluntarily recognized its workers’ union pretty quickly. Congrats!

— There are now more than six PR professionals for every journalist. Lol.

— “Antitrust crusaders” are coming for big tech companies like Google and Facebook.

— Law and Order: Hate Crimes is about to be a thing. A new Law and Order that, as one NBC executive observes, “feels extremely timely.”

HAPPY MONDAY, EVERYONE. GO FORTH AND SEND EMAILS.

— Meme by Daisy Alioto