Because you might have been off the Internet yesterday

Media statistic of the week 

NBCUniversal owner Comcast, which is the largest cable operator in the U.S., passed a milestone that highlights the broad shift happening across the media industry: It now has more streaming subscribers than cable-TV subscribers.  

As Edmund Lee reports at The New York Times, about 22 million people have signed up for the company’s Peacock service since it started in April, while its company’s foundational cable TV business now has 19 million subscribers, a decline of 273,000 from the previous quarter. While the free, advertising-supported streaming platform isn’t likely to be a moneymaker, Lee notes that “Peacock is seen as a way to keep customers glued to broadband, Comcast’s most important business.”

This week in media history

It was the most famous wrong call in election history: On Nov. 3, 1948, the Chicago Tribune mistakenly declared New York Governor Thomas Dewey the winner of his presidential race with incumbent Harry S. Truman in a front-page headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman.” As the Tribune’s Tim Jones writes, it was “[a]rguably the most famous headline in the newspaper’s 150-year history,” and “every publisher’s nightmare on every election night.”

This past week in the media industry 

Great political reporters in every state

All politics is local, and with the election this week in the U.S., you’ll want to turn to this handy 2020 list of outstanding politics reporters to follow in every state, compiled by Natalie Jennings and The Fix team at The Washington Post. “Support local news and follow these great political reporters in every state ahead of next week's election,” urges Christal Hayes.

How the media slippery slope works

Glenn Greenwald sent out My Resignation From The Intercept via Substack last week, writing, “The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.” Zaid Jilani deemed his letter “an interesting read.” 

Greenwald then also sent out Emails With Intercept Editors Showing Censorship of My Joe Biden Article, explaining, “There’s no reason for anyone to have to decide who to believe. Feel free to see for yourselves what really happened.” Barry Petchesky’s take: “Imagine posting this and thinking it makes you look like the reasonable one.” 

Then The Intercept itself, the site Greenwald helped start, responded, as The Guardian reports: “In a sharply worded statement, the Intercept’s editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed, said that the charge that the Intercept was censoring its staff was ‘preposterous’ and that Greenwald’s main problem had been a desire to have his work published unedited.”

“Oh so *this* is what everyone is subtweeting about today,” said Doug McVay. Maxwell Tani called it a “scathing Intercept response to Greenwald,” while Dennis Howlett tweeted, “How the media slippery slope works when you don’t keep to founding core principles.”

At Axios, Sara Fischer wrote that the Intercept founder’s move spotlights solo journalism’s lure and limits. “Independent journalism platforms offer virtually no editorial oversight,” she notes. “Greenwald may see that as a feature, but for many others it is a bug.”

Vice’s slow march

“Vice News has never been better on the internet, but here's a ?? look at its finances,” tweets Ben Smith, who links to the story by William Cohan for Air Mail, Vice Gets Squeezed. Or as Mike Barnicle puts it, “ @WilliamCohan? with a portrait of Vice’s slow march to irrelevance.”

Cohan notes, “These days, Shane Smith keeps a lower profile but can at times be spotted driving around Beverly Hills in a huge, white-on-white Rolls-Royce Phantom convertible,” which is, as Alex Scott Thompson notes, “Very punk rock.” All in all, it’s a “Really interesting piece on Vice Media and its place in the media environment of the 2020s. Crazy that it was being valued as a multi billion dollar company. Feels like long ago,” tweets Aaron Bastani.

Not pretty

Some good news/bad news for BuzzFeed News, which Expects to Break Even This Year, Thanks to Heavy Cost Cuts, as Lukas Alpert reports at The Wall Street Journal. 

Steven Russolillo shares the highlights on this “SCOOP: The good news: @buzzfeed is on track to break even this year for first time since 2014. The bad: How it got there wasn't pretty. Around $30 million in furloughs, pay reductions, layoffs and other changes have offset a steep revenue drop.”

Simply jaw-dropping

Here’s William Cohan again, this time writing for Vanity Fair and wondering, Is the Wall Street Journal editorial board too cozy with the Bradley Foundation? As Jane Mayer says, “Aha! 

@WilliamCohan reveals a great back story to the Wall Street Journal’s Dark Money defense: they’ve taken $1 million of it.”

“Compare top journalism honors like Pulitzers, Goldsmith, conducted openly & max out at $30k, to this $250k ‘prize’ given to opinion writers that ?@WSJ? has allowed some op-Ed writers to receive, & not divulge. Simply jaw-dropping,” tweets Mei Fong.

This entire thing is worth a read

Nieman Reports has published excerpts from a talk Errin Haines, Editor-at-Large of The 19*th, gave with Nieman Fellows on September 30. During that discussion over Zoom, she spoke about Newsroom Diversity, Breonna Taylor's Killing, and More.

“I will never get tired of reading @emarvelous’ story of how I recruited her to @19thnews,” says The 19*th’s CEO and co-founder Emily Ramshaw, who quotes Haines: “While I initially thought it was a great idea, I was like, ‘Get back to me when you have some money.’” Astrid Galván adds, “Obviously this entire thing is worth a read, but this really stuck out for me: ‘The key is being intentional.’”

‘The serpent in the walled garden’

In last week's Medialyte (a Substack newsletter, for the record), Mark Stenberg shares that he “looked at the serpent in the walled garden: how advertising has found its way onto Substack newsletters, a theoretically ad-free platform.” Read that to learn all about the curious emergence of the Substack advertisement. 

In a nutshell, “Some good analysis of why several Substack newsletter writers are embracing advertising right now. Some brands will pay a premium to advertise on newsletters because they have highly engaged audiences and are brand safe,” tweets Simon Owens. And Rafit Ali says, “This is the most important analysis about business of media/publishing today, the debate of advertising vs subscriptions, settled, by @MarkStenberg3. Spoiler alert: It is: whatever works for you is your best answer.”

Connecting the dots

Bloomberg Media tunes up ABBA to break down barriers between its ads and subscriber businesses — but it’s not exactly what you’re thinking. As Max Willens explains at Digiday, Bloomberg Media’s ad operations team has begun using an A/B testing tool called ABBA to support the ad team’s work of optimizing its products and campaigns. “ABBA is the most important product we’ve made in my time at ?@BBGMedia,” Julia Beizer shares?. “It’s driven a culture of test and learn — and more revenue than anything else we’ve built. Great job, team! Connecting the dots between subs + ads!”

‘The Playlist’

If ABBA had you thinking “music,” then here’s a story for you. From Freya Drohan of The Daily Front Row, Harper’s Bazaar Gets In On The Music Game, With Dev Hynes Becoming First-Ever ‘Music Director.’ Harper’s Bazaar’s ongoing collaboration with Apple Music will see the launch of Harper’s Bazaar: The Playlist, which debuts alongside the November issue. The music director role will be assigned to a different musician every month, with each person given the task of defining a playlist which speaks to the theme and mood of the issue.

On Twitter’s general counsel

Is Twitter Going Full Resistance? Here’s the Woman Driving the Change, writes Nancy Scola, who profiled the company’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, for Politico Magazine. As Cristiano Lima says, “It's @jack that's getting hauled into Congress, but it's @vijaya that's prepping him & guiding Twitter's decisions on political ads, hate speech & more.” 

Elena Schneider calls it a “Must read from @nancyscola on Twitter's general counsel. ‘When it comes to going to war, Jack is the president who gives the order. Vijaya is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.’” And if you missed this piece, Scola shared, “Retweeting because you might have been off the Internet yesterday, and, hey, good for you.”

Just like Scorsese intended

“This is super interesting,” says Janko Roettgers, who links to his reporting for Protocol, Netflix is testing an audio-only mode to compete with podcasts and audiobooks. You know, “Listening to The Irishman as a podcast while mopping the floors - just like Scorsese intended,” tweets Alexander Demling. 

“There's evidence that this works for a certain kind of show -- ESPN, CNN and MSNBC were able to build ‘podcast’ businesses before they ever invested in original podcasts by simply cutting down the audio of their linear show,” notes Max Willens. In other words, “Everrrrrything is merginggggg,” says Esther Kezia Thorpe. 

A few more

• AP News reports that Nicaragua’s unicameral legislature approved legislation last week mandating prison sentences for those who use online platforms to spread false information or information that could raise alarm among people — and the law allows the government to define what information fits that description. The bill had raised alarm among opposition and human rights groups, who described it as a threat to free speech.
• “Buen día, fam!” tweets Suzy Exposito. “The @latimes is launching a new weekly newsletter geared towards our Hispanic/Latinx readership, a.k.a. The Latinx Files.” Angel Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Times has the details on the Latinx Files newsletter, which aims to diversify LA news coverage. On Twitter, he adds, “You want to know another cool part of this is the amount of Latino talent working on this. @fidmart85 is writing @A_MartinaIbanez is the designer and Jackie Rivera was the illustrator.”
• Spotify has a Joe Rogan dilemma. Specifically, the company is getting slammed for allowing Joe Rogan, one of its most popular podcasters, to host far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his show. Axios’ Sara Fischer has the details. 

Reid Nakamura of The Wrap reports that Jon Stewart is returning to television with a new current affairs series at Apple.

From the Muck Rack Team

Amid a renewed public conversation about systemic racism and socioeconomic inequities, it's more important than ever for public relations professionals to be honest and accountable about their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategies—including internal training and literacy, advising external clients and stakeholders and pitching stories to diverse audiences. Muck Rack’s new survey, The State of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in PR, offers some eye-opening statistics on the role PR plays in communicating DEI—internally and externally— and how those strategies intersect with political motivations in this election year. 

Head over to the Muck Rack Blog for some key takeaways and to download the survey results: New Muck Rack survey: Most PR pros said they are ‘confident’ advising on DEI, but lack budget and training to do so.

Also on the Muck Rack Blog, it’s time for another installment of This month in bad PR pitches.