A brutal week for journalism
The Muck Rack Weekly newsletter includes some of the most talked about stories in the journalism and public relations communities over the past week, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of Muck Rack.
Media statistic of the week
As Thomas Buckley reports at Bloomberg News, “the age of streaming has been a boon for some unintended winners,” namely, pirates. Illegal subscription services are stealing films and TV shows and hosting them on their own platforms, raking in around $2 billion annually from ads and subscriptions.
“With no video production costs, illicit streaming sites such as https://www.linkedin.com/redir/general-malware-page?url=myflixer%2eto and projectfreetv.space have achieved profit margins approaching 90%,” Buckley writes, and it’s impacting the US economy. The US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center estimates piracy is costing about $30 billion in lost revenue a year and 250,000 jobs.
This past week in the media industry?
The LA Times layoffs
“Get in y'all we're figuring out what's going on with these @latimes layoffs.”
Hanaa' Tameez links to her Nieman Lab piece, Questions about diversity and seniority swirl after LA Times layoffs, which digs into how “last-in-first-out” layoff policies have made diverse, new hires more vulnerable to layoffs.??
Tameez reports on how “disagreements between the LA Times and its Guild over seniority protections ended in more than 60 journalists of color being laid off.”
Suhauna Hussain, a reporter covering labor and workplace issues for the Los Angeles Times, shared her thoughts in this thread, and said, “i'm clearly angry but still hopeful we can save many talented colleagues jobs. but if these layoffs are allowed to go through as is, i truly believe the newspaper wont have a fighting chance & no one wins. hope Terry Tang, Dr Soon-Shiong can recognize this.”
Meanwhile, Ben Mullin, Ryan Mac and Katie Robertson of The New York Times have more reporting on what contributed to editor Kevin Merida’s resignation, Los Angeles Times Owner Clashed With Top Editor Over Unpublished Article.
For sale
In an exclusive for The Wall Street Journal, Alexandra Bruell and Jessica Toonkel reported that Vice’s Refinery29 and BuzzFeed’s Tasty Are Up for Sale as Digital Media Contracts.
Dale Hurd highlights from their story that “BuzzFeed stock has lost more than 97% of its value since the company went public in 202.”?
“A decade ago, Vice could charge Unilever $20 million yearly to sponsor a soon-to-be-launched website. Now, Refinery29 brings in just $30 million a year. Crazy how far these digital media companies have fallen,” says Mitchell Jackson.
And then there’s the scoop from Mark Stenberg of Adweek on another sign of the times, G/O Media Hangs ‘For Sale’ Sign Across Its Portfolio.?
Stenberg reports that the company is particularly focused on selling The Onion, and Jason Diamond thinks “They've cooked all of these websites so I don't think there's any coming back for Deadspin or Gizmodo because of how they've been mishandled. BUT I am holding out that some rich person who has a good sense of humor is like ‘I need to save the Onion.’”
This is a crisis
Alex Weprin of The Hollywood Reporter is here to throw cold water on the notion that some rich person can be the savior of media, observing that The Media Is Melting Down, and Neither Billionaires Nor Journalists Can Seem to Stop It.
“The media sector is facing a crisis unlike anything seen since the 2008 financial mess,” Weprin notes, “with layoffs and cost-cutting at every turn.”
领英推荐
As Cameron Joseph says, “This was a brutal week for journalism, esp. for my friends at the LA Times. But it was especially bleak in their Washington bureau. I was likely the last NY Daily News DC bureau chief. Here's why it's so damaging to lose all the regional reporters in DC.”?
In Columbia Journalism Review, Joseph writes about The Death of the Washington Bureau and the broader implications.
“We used to have DC bureaus, and @cam_joseph argues persuasively that they made Congress work. If this isn't a crisis -- not one brewing, but one that is dire today -- I don't know what is,” Ben Brody says.
Adds Benjy Sarlin, “This, via @cam_joseph is a vicious cycle: As politics becomes more nationalized, state and local reporting on Washington is rapidly going extinct, which further nationalizes politics.”
“Just a terrific and sobering piece on how the collapse of the MSM means less coverage of actual concrete issues facing each member of Congress and more coverage of a few partisan loudmouths, poisoning the entire national body politic,” tweets Nicholas Riccardi.
An existential issue
So, “how bad is the media business these days and the plight of #journalists to make living? well, read this impassioned plea,” Graeme Thickins suggests.
Sam Cole, Emanuel Maiberg, Jason Koebler and Samantha Cole of 404 Media have outlined why the outlet needs readers’ email addresses.?
404 Media co-founder Joseph Cox shares, “You may notice we're asking for your email to read much of 404 Media. This is an existential issue explained in this 3000 word article. - AI stealing our work - social media collapse - media industry tailspin. Please read it.”
Andy Orin says he “Subscribed to 404 after reading this. The AI spam rewrites of original reporting ironically prove its worth?? Something like that.”
Cox also argues, “The idea of chasing scale for eyeballs is dead now. The big sites that did this all falling apart, dying, or a long dead. It's about direct connections to readers that can't be pulled from underneath us by some tech CEO.”
A successful reinvention
Let’s wrap up this rough week in the media with at least one bright spot amid the gloom. At The Washington Post, Timothy Bella takes a look at How ‘Dateline’ podcasts won back the true-crime throne for NBC.?
“The true-crime genre helped set the pace for podcasting’s growth over the past decade…Yet ‘Dateline’ is beating them all, despite relying on narrative tropes from 1990s network television and correspondents of similar vintage,” writes Bella.
As Nick DiMarco puts it, “Legacy media reinvents itself in the digital age with great success.”
More notable media stories
From the Muck Rack Team
Freelance writers have always been an underpinning of the journalism industry. In today’s era of media layoffs and shrinking staff, more and more journalists are making the switch. Head over to the blog to see who made the list of the most viewed freelance journalists on Muck Rack based on profile views.?