Study Hall Digest 9/17/2018

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

The Men Have Fallen and They Can’t Get Up

Somebody help them!! Study Hall reported last week that the New York Review of Books was gearing up to published a personal essay by aLlEgGeD violent abuser Jian Ghomeshi and boy did they deliver, in an even lengthier, more transparently bad-faith and less fact-checked format then anyone could have foreseen! You may, like me, be wondering: What defensible reason could a prestigious literary magazine possibly have for devoting 7,000 words within its hallowed pages to the perspective of a radio broadcaster accused of serially beating women? Thankfully, Isaac Chotiner at Slate asked NYRB editor Ian Buruma, giving us some insight into the slapdash decision-making. Buruma seems wholly unfamiliar with the accusations against Ghomeshi, openly doesn’t care whether they’re true, and is just super interested in how it feels to experience some degree of social consequence for being a piece of shit.

As Jia Tolentino pointed out, it’s a pathetically transparent effort by the editor to grant salience to a perspective he agrees with — I wish the people publishing this shit would just say so, instead of pretending like they’re furthering intellectual discourse by putting out bad, masturbatory and factually incorrect writing that seek to engender sympathy for perpetrators while ignoring the pain of their victims.

At least some editors at New York Magazine, for example, clearly believe Woody Allen and are happy to let him run a PR campaign in their pages. Having a decades-old friend basically fawn over him while purportedly letting Soon-Yi speak for herself (while Allen is in the room) is a bad look for the magazine. But it’s transparent. There’s a lot to be said about the piece, the obvious conflict of interest, the way it leaves out key details of Farrow’s allegations, and how obliviously gross Allen is in the way he talks about his children and love interests. But I was particularly struck by the last few lines, in which the author/friend of Allen muses as to whether Soon-Yi’s words will change anyone’s perspective. I guess thanks for spelling out your agenda in a crude, “in conclusion”-style closing.

Digital-Gilded-Age Titan Buys Magazine to Look Fancy

Marc Benioff, the founder of the marketing software company Salesforce, worth some $6.7 billion, and his wife Lynne bought Time Magazine from Meredith Inc. for $190 million IN CASH. Every media company gets its billionaire: Powell-Jobs bought up most of The Atlantic, Jeff Bezos bought WaPo, Patrick Soon-Shiong bought LA Times, John Henry bought Boston Globe. Why did Benioff do it? Let’s look at this slightly dickish interview with NYT. Benioff isn’t going to be involved in the editorial, thinks the business is “very profitable,” and likes its value of “trust.” Also he’s getting a massage.

The only answer in my mind is the age-old process of turning extreme wealth into socially acceptable cultural capital, only this time it’s built on digital tech instead of 19th-century railroads. Guess what: If capitalism didn’t exist, we wouldn’t need billion-dollar marketing platforms in order to sell each other things, but we would still need journalism. — Kyle Chayka

Bankrupt Business as Usual at Interview Magazine

Months after quietly going to its grave amidst a declaration of bankruptcy, Interview Magazine rose again after being re-purchased by the family of ex?-owner Peter Brant, whose daughter insists he is no longer running the show. But the magazine owes $3.3 million to unpaid contributors, who are watching as Interview rolls out new content as if nothing happened. Freelancer Jennifer Swann took to Twitter to call out the sleazy move — she did work for Interview earlier this year, she told Study Hall, but never received payment or the courtesy of clear communication, and she has been appalled by the re-launch.

“It felt like a slap in the face,” said Swann. “I think they’re banking on all of us just kind of shrugging our shoulders and going ‘Well, that’s media.’ It shouldn’t be like that.”

Interview owes Swann $300 — a negligible amount, she said, but it’s one small chunk of the millions owed overall.

She had invoiced the magazine immediately after her piece’s publication in March but never received payment — when the magazine abruptly went under in May, Swann tried to reach her editor but couldn’t get through to anyone as emails were bouncing back.

“The fact that I had no way of getting in touch with anyone was kind of disturbing, because they didn’t know this was going to happen and all of the sudden the owners just pulled the plug,” she said. “I just couldn’t get through. All of a sudden it was a ghost town in their office.”

Swann has been largely in the dark ever since. She recently received transcripts and documents from the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings in the mail, but a call to the attorney handling the case seeking clarification has gone unanswered. Court papers dated Aug. 30 indicate a (relatively) paltry $500,000 has been carved out for those owed money and a hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 3.

Missoula Independent Killed by Union-Busting

When Lee Enterprises bought the Missoula Independent, an alt-weekly in Missoula, Montana, the staff immediately had concerns about editorial independence, since Lee also owned a competing daily, the Missoulian. When the new owner sought to move the Independent into the same offices as the Missoulian and was unable to answer staff’s questions about what such a move could mean for the identity and brand of the paper, they decided to unionize.

In the weeks leading up to the election, management strongly dissuaded the effort and badmouthed staff while avoiding outright union-busting tactics, former staff writer Derek Brouwer told Study Hall.

The general manager wrote a letter to advertisers calling the unionization “naive” and “short sighted.”

“That stung,” Brouwer said. “I think for the reporters at the paper it felt like it was undermining our trust in the community by him questioning our decision in such a personal way.”

The staff voted to unionize in April. Last week, Lee Enterprises abruptly shuttered the Independent.

The outpouring from the community has been overwhelming — a crowd of roughly 100 protested outside the offices after the closure, and over 900 have signed a petition imploring management to bring the alt-weekly back.

“I personally was surprised by how much [support] there has been, and that has been heartening and has made this week a lot easier for us on staff to deal with, because we don’t feel we’re grieving alone,” said Brouwer.

The shuttering is “not the last word,” said Brouwer, noting the energy among fired staffers and locals to fill the void left by the Independent. Maybe we’ll see something akin to The LAnd, the publication being independently produced by former LA Weekly staff, or Block Club Chicago, come out of Missoula, Montana, in the near future. I hope so.

“Gawker” Is “Back”

Gawker 2.0! Zombie Gawker! Bustle Gawker! Will it be the same (probably not!)? Will it be different? Will it be… more careful when it comes to publishing shit on litigious rich people? All that remains to be seen! What is known is that it will be published by Amanda Hale, who seems to have quietly departed her post as chief revenue officer at The Outline (amidst The Outline’s sudden cost-cutting and rumors of exaggerated business deals) and it’s expected to re-launch early next year. Bustle founder Bryan Goldberg says he will “not recreate Gawker exactly as it was” but will rather create something “new” and “vibrant.” This may be a tad philosophical for this newsletter but if it’s comprised entirely of new leadership and new staff and has a new editorial sensibility…is it even Gawker?

The Covers of Dead Magazines

Ex-New Republic mastermind Leon Wieseltier was supposed to launch a new intellectual journal with the backing of Laurene Powell Jobs in October of last year. Then Wieseltier was outed as a serial sexual harasser during his TNR years and Jobs canceled the entire project. Below, the Idea cover that never was. Despite some admittedly appealing graphic design, the table of contents is pretty much what you’d expect — a melange of historical, cultural, and political essays from a handful of the usual names. Oh, and the bylines are definitely majority male and white.

Longread of the Week: Alex Vadukul of the New York Times takes a look at how old-school dining mainstay Forlini’s has been besieged by the “Instagram horde.”

SHORT LINKS:

— A look at the rise of “busybody journalism” — “see for myself” reporting predicated entirely on the reporter’s individual feelings.

— Sometimes editors from the same publication offer wildly different rates, like we don’t remember what we had previously been paid for the same work.

— Yikes: 90 percent of Medium’s “partners,” writers who paywall their work on the platform, earn less than $100 per month.

— Tronc is hiring, apparently looking to “rebuild” the Daily News newsroom, if you’re interested. >:l

— Facebook won’t let the podcast Reveal run ads for their investigation into national parks officials. I guess this is what being unbiased means.

— Simon & Schuster says pre-order sales for Woodward’s book are “the largest for any title” in the company’s history, over 750,000. But it’s kinda sad that all our best-sellers these days are just books about Trump, no?

— Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair’s former EIC is writing for Esquire, owned by Hearst, Conde’s rival media conglomerate (though Meredith seems to be the main enemy now).

— Jezebel just got a new Editor-in-Chief while awaiting a sale. We’re cautiously hopeful, but heads are likely to roll.

— The Omaha World Herald has unionized! It’s good to see local papers undeterred by union-busting elsewhere.

— Editor-in-Chief of the Slate Group Jacob Weisberg is leaving the company and forming a podcast outfit with Malcolm Gladwell, whose (presumably very profitable) podcasts Slate was producing through its Panoply audio branch. The news comes at the same time that Slate is shutting down Panoply’s content production, “letting go of its entire editorial staff.” The podcast industry seems to be splitting along lines of tech platforms and individual editorial production companies, instead of combining the two.

Some Personal News: I Bought a Planner

Have you ever had things to do? Do you use the concept of time to make sense of your life? Do you experience time as a series of days which comprise weeks which comprise months? Then I’m about to blow your mind. Imagine a notebook filled with calendars. Now imagine writing shit down within the notebook calendar, then doing that shit. A lifehack I recommend is always putting a question mark next to every task, rendering it totally optional. (I’d recommend this one but now it’s sold out.)