“Prior assumptions about our business no longer apply”: Cuts pile up at Vice, Quartz, The Economist, BuzzFeed, and Condé Nast

Friday, May 15, 2020

“Prior assumptions about our business no longer apply”: Cuts pile up at Vice, Quartz, The Economist, BuzzFeed, and Condé Nast And that was just this week. By Laura Hazard Owen and Sarah Scire.

Unvetted scientific research about COVID-19 is becoming a partisan weapon Plus: Conspiracy theories on TikTok, and “over one-quarter of the most viewed YouTube videos on COVID-19 contained misleading information.” By Laura Hazard Owen.

What We’re ReadingAxios / Dan Primack, Kia Kokalitcheva, and Sara FischerFacebook will buy Giphy, the popular platform for sharable animated images, for $400 million →Giphy has hundreds of millions of daily users and earns revenue through branded content.Stratechery / Ben Thompson“Media organizations have to be honest with themselves about why they are struggling” →“I don’t want this to be true, but it is getting harder and harder to argue that it is a mere coincidence that large media companies are criticizing big tech out of one side of their mouth and asking for money — or else! — out of the other.”New York Times / Marc TracyReporters are being targeted at anti-lockdown protests →“The Committee to Protect Journalists issued guidelines to reporters who cover anti-lockdown protests. ‘Remain alert to the risk of people spitting / coughing close to or on you, either accidentally or deliberately,’ it says.”Chicago Tribune / Robert ChannickTribune Publishing and union agree to three-week furloughs for Chicago Tribune newsroom employees →“Tribune Publishing and the Chicago Tribune Guild agreed Wednesday to a three-week furlough for all unionized newsroom employees making $40,000 or more as a cost-saving measure during the COVID-19 pandemic.”Press Gazette / Charlotte TobittThe Financial Times will cut its freelance budget and pay for staff making more than £50k →These fresh cuts are despite gaining 50,000 new digital subscribers over the past two months. Vanity Fair / Joe PompeoRereporting and poaching top talent has made a struggling BuzzFeed feel targeted by The New York Times →“The Times has lured journalists like Charlie Warzel, Davey Alba, Sheera Frenkel, Sapna Maheshwari, Jane Bradley, Roxanne Emadi, and Reggie Ugwu. In all, there are more than 20 ex-BuzzFeeders who belong to the Times’ #BuzzFriends channel on Slack.” Digiday / Max WillensIn two months, The Washington Post’s coronavirus newsletter is twice as popular as any of its 60 other newsletters →The Post would not say how many subscribers the newsletter has but claimed it has a 40 percent open rate. “We’re always focused on habit-forming features, and we’re continuing to double down on that.” Washington Post / Greg SargentPolitical journalists risk rewarding bad-faith actors by using phrases like “raises new questions” or “lends ammunition” in coverage →“These journalistic conventions are so all-pervasive that we barely notice them. But they’re extremely pernicious, and they need to stop. They both reflect and grotesquely amplify a tendency that badly misleads readers. That happened widely in 2016, to President Trump’s great benefit. It’s now happening again.”

Nieman Lab / Fuego / Encyclo

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