Everyone in the news business should read this

Media statistic of the week

This past week in the media industry

It turns out we’re all feeling pretty bleak about the state of U.S. politics.?

A new Pew Research Center study of the state of the nation’s politics finds “Americans’ views of politics and elected officials are unrelentingly negative, with little hope of improvement on the horizon.”

A few key stats:

• Just 4% of U.S. adults say the political system is working extremely or very well.
• As the presidential campaign heats up, 63% of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the candidates who have emerged so far.?
• Nearly three-in-ten (28%) express unfavorable views of both political parties.

“How can we sustain our democracy with these kinds of numbers?” asked Lee Drutman on X.

Check out the full study here.

The latest on the strike

It’s a big day—today, Sept. 20, is the day Hollywood studios and screenwriters head back to the negotiating table after the strike began in July.

“Without a deal, there will be no fall TV season this year and no summer movie season in 2024,” reports Lucas Shaw for Bloomberg.

Shaw debunks some of the biggest myths surrounding the strike, including that streaming services are hoarding profits, they don’t pay residuals and that there’s no way to calculate the success of a single show in streaming. It’s a fascinating read.

The impacts of the strike are being felt worldwide—and especially in Britain where many of the summer’s biggest blockbusters were filmed. “Barbie,” “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” were filmed in part in Britain, according to Eshe Nelson for the New York Times.?

“Film crews, like camera workers and costume designers, are out of work after productions abruptly stopped. Bectu, the British union for workers in behind-the-scenes roles in creative industries, surveyed nearly 4,000 of its film and TV members and 80 percent said their jobs had been affected, with three-quarters not working,” Nelson writes.

In other strike news, Bill Maher will not return to his HBO show Real Time this week now that “the Writers Guild of America and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are working to set a time for a new round of contract negotiations,” reports Rick Porter for The Hollywood Reporter. He had previously planned to return without writers forgoing his usual monologue and other pre-written material.

“Wow! Even Bill Maher has bent the knee!” tweets Eric Deggans.

Drew Barrymore also reversed course “after an onslaught of criticism over her decision to return her show to the air while Hollywood is on strike,” reports Julia Jacobs for the New York Times.?

“Well, on third thought…” writes Jeff Jarvis on X.

Exactly what we need less of

The New York Times announced a new editorial platform called Time100 Voices that is “dedicated to elevating perspectives from global thought leaders,” reports Sara Fischer for Axios.

Fischer explains: “Opinion sections became more controversial during the Trump era, as newsrooms often found themselves at odds over positions taken by their editorial boards. Time100 Voices aims to skirt some of that tension by focusing less on niche political opinions and more on highlighting perspectives from world leaders on broader issues that impact humanity, such as health, artificial intelligence and climate change.”

Not everyone in the journalism community is excited about the new platform though.?

“Alas, the desperation playbook for ‘opinion journalism.’ More ‘voices’ means less reporting, more unpaid and unedited content, less fact-checking, more ‘provocative’ hot takes ==>> more clicks and more dumbing down of public discourse,” tweets Mark Horowitz.

“Exactly what we need less of: ‘Opinion content” from a news organization,’ tweets Bill Grueskin.

Everyone in the news business should read this

The 2024 election season is heating up.?

The Guardian checked in with Margaret Sullivan to get a pulse for what we can expect in terms of media coverage. Sullivan’s biggest takeaway?

“The American press is failing to meet its responsibility to adequately emphasize the stakes of the coming election,” she writes. “The big problem is that the mainstream media wants to be seen as non-partisan – a reasonable goal – and bends over backwards to accomplish this.”

So what’s the solution? Here’s a snippet of what Sullivan outlined:?

“Remember at all times what our core mission is: to communicate truthfully, keeping top of mind that we have a public service mission to inform the electorate and hold powerful people to account. If that’s our north star, as it should be, every editorial judgment will reflect that.”

It’s a must read for the week!

“Everyone in the news business should read this. Everyone outside of the news business should demand cable TV networks, newspapers and news outlets abide by it,” tweets Ben Collins.?

‘When Twitter died, so did independent journalism’

“Twitter was one of the most important tech utilities for reporters to break stories and deliver real-time news, until Elon Musk bought the company. He not only killed the social media platform, he destroyed one of our most vital news outlets,” writes Andrea Grimes for DAME Magazine.?

Grimes details what her experience has been like since Elon Musk took over Twitter (now X) and how it will impact journalism as we move forward.

“Good read here from @andreagrimes about how Elon killed Twitter as a news and journalism discovery platform. The fact that journalists gathered here is why politicians came; news built communities,” tweets Heidi Moore.

“The only solace I take is that, as I and others struggle to cobble together the connections and audiences that we once cultivated on Twitter and lose money in the process, Musk is losing, too. Every day, he becomes a bigger punchline. Someday, the outsize tab he’s run trying to keep hold of Twitter will come due. I hope that when it happens, the expats of Twitter will have settled in a new place where we can watch his downfall together,” Grimes concludes.

A few more

• Here’s a big update in the Dominion defamation suit: “Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Newsmax over the right-wing network’s airing of 2020 election lies is scheduled to go to trial in late September 2024, a Delaware judge decided,” reports CNN’s Marshall Cohen.
• CNN’s got a new CEO starting on Oct. 9. Mark Thompson, a former New York Times CEO, will take the helm, reports Alex Sherman for CNBC.?
• Deadline’s Matt Grobar reports that “Elemental”, Disney and Pixar’s animated feature “has scored the biggest movie premiere of the year to date on Disney+, earning 26.4 million views in its first five days on the service.”
• TikTok is slowly figuring out how to handle AI when it comes to its creators. The app announced it will launch a tool “that will allow creators to label their AI-generated content and will begin testing other ways to label AI-generated content automatically,” according to Sarah Perez for TechCrunch.?
• After 10 years at TechCrunch, former editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino chats with The Verge’s Nilay Patel about what’s next and reflects on his decade at the website. “If I were to, say, run media company XYZ, and I was trying to determine what my path would be forward, I think niche media is going to be the thing that survives this next burst of energy,” explains Panzarino. Listen in to the “exit interview.”
• Celebrities including Ariana Grande, Gabrielle Union, Padma Lakshmi and more have joined together to fight book bans. “Upwards of 175 actors, musicians, authors, comedians, reality stars, models, media personalities, academics, activists and more have signed the open letter spearheaded by Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton and published Tuesday via public advocacy organization and political action committee MoveOn Political Action,” writes Abbey White for The Hollywood Reporter.

From the Muck Rack team

PR coach Michael Smart hosted a Muck Rack webinar that zeroed in on the most effective types of pitches. More than 1,000 folks tuned in live to hear Michael Smart’s smart insights.

It’s important to know Michael has been a PR coach for 20 years now. He’s worked with leaders from Lowe’s, Zillow, UCLA and more. He sees hundreds—probably thousands—of pitches each year from across industries and organization sizes.

In case you missed it, we’re recapping the seven blueprints for effective pitches Michael covered in the webinar plus the 10 building blocks of successful pitches.?

(And, yes, brace for some fun construction metaphors!)