Some of the journalistic eruptions of this week

Media statistic of the week 

An estimated 36,000 media workers have lost their jobs or been furloughed since COVID-19 struck, and dozens of publications have cut or eliminated their freelance budgets. To make matters worse, most self-employed journalists have little in the way of emergency funds to carry them through. At the Columbia Journalism Review, Alissa Quart writes about The journalism emergency, and how to pay for it.

This week in media history

On June 14, 1922, Warren G. Harding became the first president to have his voice transmitted by radio. He was addressing a crowd at the dedication of a memorial site for “Star Spangled Banner” composer Francis Scott Key. Three years later, Calvin Coolidge would become the first president to deliver a radio-specific address.

This past week in the media industry 

The seemingly impossible position

We start this week’s round-up with a must-read essay by P. Kim Bui of the Arizona Republic on what it feels like to be an editor, a leader of color in a newsroom. Amanda Zamora calls it a “Powerful essay from ?@kimbui?, on the seemingly impossible position of being an editor of color in a newsroom that doubts and minimizes you even as it leans on you to lead, to just get things done.” Adds Brandon Wall, “This is gutwrenching. Important reading for white editors. ‘We are tired. Bone tired. The kind of tired that is deeper than bones and marrow, but soul tired.’”

At the Columbia Journalism Review, Alexandria Neason writes about how editors and publishers from America’s Black press convened (over Zoom) recently to discuss how to cover a story — American racism and police brutality — that they and their readers already know so well. During the meeting, they debated whether, when and how to send their reporters to protests that have often been beset by police violence. 

Jayme Fraser points out, “The Black press has particular criticisms of mainstream coverage about the ongoing protests that we should address.” For example, Morgan Elise Johnson, a cofounder of The Triibe in Chicago, said, “We told them that if you want our footage, you need to allow us on air to contextualize it. Sometimes, the way TV news frames stories when they’re not there, we just don’t agree with it.”

Meanwhile, Wendi C. Thomas, a Black journalist who has covered police in Memphis, reveals in a piece for ProPublica that The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I’m One of Them. As she was originally reporting on Memphis PD’s long history of domestic surveillance, Thomas found out she was part of the story. One officer admitted to spying on her. 

Not all tweets are tweeted equally

A new report that was leaked to New York Times media columnist Ben Smith reveals how The Washington Post is grappling with its social media policy for reporters in the wake of criticisms over how it’s being applied and what it should be as the industry continues to evolve. 

 As Laura Hazard Owen of Nieman Lab explains, a committee comprised of Post National Desk staffers surveyed more than 50 Post reporters, who, among other things, highlighted a “two-tiered system” in which “white, male reporters often get away with potentially problematic messages, while female and minority colleagues are not given the benefit of the doubt.” Proving, as Jeffrey Cunningham says, “At @washingtonpost, not all tweets are tweeted equally.”

 “I’d love to know how this works within Australian newsrooms. In my experience, most social media policies are deeply flawed,” says Ginger Gorman.

 On that note, “Provoked by some of the journalistic eruptions of this week, I wrote about how social media policies are either absent, out of date, or not giving reporters what they need ...(or ignored. ) Maybe think of them instead as editorial policy.” Emily Bell links to her Columbia Journalism Review column, excerpted from the Tow Center’s weekly newsletter, As publishers rethink editorial norms, social media policies must follow. In it, Bell argues that “with the rise of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms that enable politicians to communicate directly with large audiences, the role of the newsroom necessarily has to change.”

The media-wide reckoning

Business Insider’s Rachel Premack was first to report that Condé Nast executive Matt Duckor is out at after homophobic and racist tweets and allegations of suppressing diversity by Bon Appétit staffers. It was Premack’s investigation, published earlier in the week, that revealed a ‘toxic’ culture of microaggressions and exclusion at Bon Appétit. “Humble trucking reporter @rrpre continues to get scoops from inside Condé Nast and i gotta say: beep beep,” tweets Jake Swearingen.

Meanwhile, this could prove to be eye-opening: Condé Nast employees are being encouraged to voluntarily report their income and background on this salary transparency spreadsheet.

But as Vanity Fair media correspondent Joe Pompeo highlights, “the media-wide reckoning over race and inequality amid the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement isn’t limited to age-old legacy institutions” like The Post, The New York Times and (Vanity Fair owner) Condé Nast. 

Case in point is the “glaring diversity problem” that BuzzFeed News’s new editor Mark Schoofs acknowledges he’s confronting. Pompeo notes that Schoofs didn’t help matters much with his initial round of internal appointments and promotions that went mostly to white men — including the leaders of its new “inequality desk.” Yes, the leaders of the inequality desk are white males.

Noteworthy

Back to the age-old legacy institutions for a moment: New York Times media reporter Marc Tracy writes about what Jim Windolf calls “a small rebellion” at The Wall Street Journal. A letter of protest from the newspaper’s union criticized a column by former editor in chief Gerard Baker on race and accused him of tweeting in a way that went against the paper’s social media policy.  

Tracy reports that the Journal has now reassigned Baker to the opinion staff, although they say the move was already in the works. Regardless, Lois Beckett says, “It’s noteworthy to see the staff of the Wall Street Journal organizing a formal response to a blatantly racist column in their own publication.”

This isn’t it

Of course, The New York Times itself was roundly criticized by journalists both inside and outside the organization after it published that Tom Cotton op-ed, a decision that ultimately led to the resignation of Opinion editor James Bennet. But when Vice’s Laura Wagner spoke with “America’s foremost expert on media ethics,” Poynter’s Kelly McBride, she found that McBride doesn’t seem to quite understand what anyone is fighting about — or as the headline puts it: “Journalism’s Top Ethics Expert Isn’t Concerned With Right and Wrong.”  

Reading McBride’s arguments, Megan Greenwell says that “it’s time for a reexamination of the role of a media ethicist in 2020, because this isn’t it. This @laurawags dissection is so smart and good.” Emma Sarappo notes, “Ethics should be a positive set of values, not a framework for avoiding criticism. This article reminds me of every circular + fruitless conversation I’ve had in a newsroom or in j-school hahahaaa haa ha.”

Anna Merlan thinks, “Becoming a media ethicist seems like an incredible grift, how do I get in there,” while Steve Rousseau has this suggestion: “organize your newsroom and put ‘media ethicist’ hacks out of a job.” At the very least, “It's a good time to reexamine everything in journalism, including the role and approach of a media ethicist,” says Katie Hawkins-Gaar.

Hits the nail on the head 

In a piece that explores how America is changing, and so is the media, Vox’s Ezra Klein argues that while the media has gone through painful periods of change before, this time is different. On Twitter, he shares, “There’s a bunch of social, economic, and demographic reasons behind the way things are changing right now, and I try to track them here. And the contest is more public than it’s been in the past. But we’ve never had a static idea space. This isn’t new.” 

Mark Little sees “Some global lessons here. Particularly this: ‘Media and cultural power runs 10 years ahead of demography, and political power 10 years behind.’” Mark Stenberg admits, “Not the biggest @ezraklein stan generally, but I think he hits the nail on the head with this one.” Nell Henderson says it’s “Worth reading in general, but particularly for journalists.”

The Facebook News launch

As Tech News reported last week, Facebook News has officially launched to all in US with addition of local news and video. “Well covered, @sarahintampa. ‘It’s impossible to properly cover Facebook News without noting how the company has had a long and troubled history with regard to how it handles news,’” Jason Kint highlights.

Next, Laura Hazard Owen shares, “I compared the top stories on Facebook's new News tab, which is curated by journalists, to the most popular stories on the rest of Facebook. Guess which list is which!” Her story at Nieman Lab reveals, the new Facebook News is filled with stories that are way too mainstream to do well on the rest of Facebook. “Remember that there often is a gulf between the news people say they want and the news they actually consume,” tweets Jon Steingart. “Balancing these interests is one of the challenges the press faces in carrying out its mission.”

Racist robot journalists

Well, here’s another story that proves “Glorified computer programs will never be able to do creative work,” as Samuel Scott puts it: Jim Waterson of At The Guardian reports that Microsoft’s decision to replace human journalists with robots has backfired after its artificial intelligence software illustrated a news story about racism with a photo of the wrong mixed-race member of the band Little Mix. 

On Twitter, Waterson highlights that “Staff at MSN have also been told to await the publication of this Guardian article and try to manually delete it from the website, because there is a high risk the Microsoft robot editor taking their jobs will decide it is of interest to MSN readers.” 

 Wait, what? “The humans supervising the racist robots have been told the racist robots may try and write stories about how they’re racist, and if they do, the humans are to intervene to stop it,” explains Alex Hern. Or as Angus Livingston says, “okay not only is this robot journalist racist BUT it will also try to republish stories against its bosses’ wishes, that’s quite a combo.”  

To sum up, “I need to lie down,” tweets Brendan O’Connor.

A few more

• In partnership with Google, the Local Media Association and Local Media Consortium are launching the “Support Local News” campaign to raise awareness of the difficulties facing local news providers across a diversity of communities, and encourage more advertising, subscriptions and donations to fund local newsrooms. Read more about the initiative here.
• At Vogue, Zoe Williams profiles Roula Khalaf, the first female editor of the Financial Times. “Her manner is so calm and considered, it takes a moment to realise what you’re dealing with: a level-headed radical,” writes Williams.
• Peter Slattery notes that “tons of ppl (including many notable journalists) follow @breaking911; it gets posted everywhere, looks vaguely official, but not much is known about it I dug into the account for @ozm— you should stop embedding it in your stories, say experts I talked to.” Read his piece at OneZero on why experts say The Viral ‘Breaking911’ Twitter Account Is Not a Trustworthy Source.
• Kerry Flynn of CNN profiles Her Campus Media, which had just established itself as a college media empire and has now pivoted to document the massive change in college life. Mike Murphy calls it a “great story from @kerrymflynn on what happens to a college media company when no one’s at college.”
• Edmund Lee and Ben Smith of The New York Times report that Axios is allowing its reporters to join protests. Not only are Axios leaders encouraging reporters’ rights to free speech, press and protest, in a companywide email, they added, “If you’re arrested or meet harm while exercising these rights, Axios will stand behind you and use the Family Fund to cover your bail or assist with medical bills.”
• The Weather Company, which operates the popular websites Weather.com and Weather Underground, has slashed dozens of jobs and shuttered its popular Weather Underground ‘Category 6’ blog. Jason Samenow has details at The Washington Post.

From the Muck Rack Team

Brush up on your social media knowledge and get #MRCertified with the newest Muck Rack Academy course: Fundamentals of Social Media. This free course is taught by Sree Sreenivasan, and upon completion, you’ll receive a certificate! 

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Question of the week

About Axios’s decision to allow its reporters to join protests (and to cover bail and assist with medical bills), Lainna Fader says, “Thanks for saying your employees can exercise their rights as citizens...?” But ethics guidelines at many news organizations prohibit journalists from marching in support of public causes because it might raise doubts about their ability to be neutral observers in covering the news. Do you think journalists should be able to “exercise their rights as citizens” by publicly taking a stand on public issues? Should those rights extend to what they share on social media?