All the newsroom’s men: How one-third of “The Watergate Three” got written out of journalism history
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Tuesday, June 7, 2022
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All the newsroom’s men: How one-third of “The Watergate Three” got written out of journalism historySome reporters can build a career around their own personal brands. But doing great work requires an infrastructure, including a lot of talented people who don’t get bylines. Barry Sussman — the Watergate journalist named neither “Woodward” nor “Bernstein” — was one. By Joshua Benton. |
 | The Freelance Isn’t Free Act passes to protect workers contracted by New York companies (even if they don’t live in the state)The passage of the law especially benefits freelance workers who live outside of New York but are contracted by companies in the state. By Hanaa' Tameez. |
What We’re Reading
Poynter / Angela Fu
U.S. media unions are seeking to protect members’ access to abortion through health care plans →
“Part of ensuring abortion care access is making sure that sick leave policies are flexible enough that employees can take a sick day at a moment's notice to get an abortion, [NewsGuild president Jon Schleuss] said. The NewsGuild is also seeking to protect the privacy of members who do seek an abortion. If an employer does find out that an employee received an abortion, the union wants to make sure those employees do not face discipline or discrimination.”
TechCrunch / Manish Singh
India is considering creating an appeals panel with power to reverse Facebook, Twitter and YouTube content moderation decisions →
“If enacted, it would be the first time globally that a nation creates an appeals panel of this kind. New Delhi, which is currently seeking public comments on the proposal with a 30-day deadline, said the new amendment ‘will not impact early stage or growth stage Indian companies or startups,’ in a relief for local giants such as Dailyhunt, ShareChat and Koo.”
Digiday / Kayleigh Barber
How CoinDesk is using crypto tokens for in-person event sponsorship deals →
“Attendees can earn tokens by attending panels, going to events at night, joining the publisher's Discord channel and even spending time with sponsors over the course of the four days. Those tokens are then able to be spent within the confines of the conference space in Austin, TX, on food, drinks, merchandise, experiences and NFTs.”
The Wall Street Journal / Patience Haggin
BuzzFeed stock dropped 41% after a ban preventing executives and investors from selling their shares was lifted →
“The plunge was the worst percentage drop in the digital-media company's short trading history, and the its market capitalization has now shrunk by more than three-quarters since its December trading debut. BuzzFeed went public through a merger with special-purpose-acquisition company 890 5th Avenue.”
Deadline / Ted Johnson
Fox News won't carry the January 6th hearing and will instead cover it on Fox Business →
“The hearing starts at 8 PM ET on Thursday, with broadcast networks planning to pre-empt their regular scheduled programming to cover the proceedings. Fox News' Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum instead will anchor the coverage on Fox Business.”
Axios / Astrid Galván and Marina E. Franco
Democratic lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to do more to protect Mexican journalists amid killings →
“[The letter] asks Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID administrator Samantha Power to provide a plan to work with the Mexican government on reducing the number of journalist who are killed and to take other actions.”
Bloomberg / Ashley Carman
Kara Swisher is leaving The New York Times to return to Vox Media →
“Swisher said she's become ‘very interested’ in owning intellectual property … That interest, along with wanting to try new formats and create new things, spurred her move.”
The Daily Beast / Corbin Bolies and Zachary Petrizzo
WaPo’s top editor orders reporters feuding on Twitter to play nice →
“We expect the staff to treat each other with respect and kindness both in the newsroom and online.”
9to5Mac / José Adorno
We have some new details about what editing your tweets will be like →
“…instead of editing the original tweet, the platform will create a new tweet using a different ID. More than that, Twitter will keep a record of the original tweet, as well as any previous edits the user has made…as of now, the ability to edit tweets seems like it will be exclusive to Twitter Blue subscribers.”
Chicago Sun-Times / David Roeder
The Chicago Sun-Times has named Jennifer Kho its top editor →
“The former managing editor of HuffPost and Guardian US will be the first woman and first person of color to lead the paper's newsroom in its 178-year history.”
The New York Times / Michael M. Grynbaum and John Koblin
The post-Jeff Zucker era at CNN: less hype, more nuance, and a broader target audience →
“Snarky on-screen captions — ‘Angry Trump Turns Briefing Into Propaganda Session,’ for instance — are discouraged. Political shows are trying to book more conservative voices, and producers have been urged to ignore Twitter backlash from the far right and the far left.”
The Washington Post / Margaret Sullivan
Beware partisan “pink slime” sites that pose as local news →
“…those who care about truth need to slow down — way down — before sharing content that appeals to their emotions or preconceived ideas. It's increasingly likely that it may be nothing but slime.”
Bloomberg / Ashley Carman
Clubhouse (remember Clubhouse?) is laying off staff and moving away from news content →
“Some employees chose to leave on their own as the company cuts back some of the programming areas it had focused on before, such as sports, news and international.” Among them: Nina Gregory, its head of news partnerships.
Next in Marketing / Mike Shields
Netflix needs advertisers. But advertisers really need Netflix. →
“Because as much as Netflix may suddenly need a second revenue stream — stat — traditional TV brands need Netflix to create a whole lot of ad inventory ASAP…You can't shove $70 billion of TV ads into a container that only holds a quarter of what the previous one did, no matter how much you raise prices.”
Reuters
Russia has summoned U.S. news orgs in Moscow to promise new “stringent measures” →
“‘If the work of the Russian media — operators and journalists — is not normalized in the United States, the most stringent measures will inevitably follow,’ [Russia foreign] ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday.”
The New York Times / Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac
Who is Mark Zuckerberg’s new No. 2? It’s a trick question. →
“While Mr. Zuckerberg named Javier Olivan, a longtime executive, to take over Ms. Sandberg's job when she departs, the importance of the chief operating officer role has diminished at Meta, which was formerly known as Facebook. Mr. Zuckerberg, 38, instead has four executives who have equally large responsibilities and who answer to and run major decisions by him.”
The Washington Post / Erik Wemple
The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard case hinged on the world’s worst #MeToo op-ed →
“It embraced a cliched op-ed design, that of deploying public figures to braid their personal experiences with policy prescriptions…Heard's celebrity conferred standing at the ACLU, which then leveraged her name into a Post op-ed. The byline was accurate only to the extent that the ACLU tried to craft a piece consistent with Heard's spoken views.”
The Guardian / Matthew Cantor
“How could I sit at my desk as Ukrainian children die?”: This small-town Minnesota newspaper owner plans to head to war →
“Lee Zion is preparing to head to Ukraine this summer. ‘I have gotten all my shots. I have started putting personal possessions into storage, giving other things away’…First, though, he has to find a new boss for the Lafayette Nicollet Ledger…Zion tried selling the paper without much luck, so he's trying another route: giving it away.”
The Guardian / Stephanie Hare
Sheryl Sandberg’s influence reaches all of us. But it’s a troubling legacy. →
“She's not the only reason that our data is tracked online, whether we use Meta's products or not…Still, as Shera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang write in ‘An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination,’ Sandberg ‘pioneered a whole new level of tracking’ and led the creation of ‘a new business of data mining at scale.'”
USA Today / Gina Barton and Ashley Luthern
Alexis Patterson has been missing since 2002. Odds are you don’t know her story. →
“By the time Elizabeth [Smart] had been gone two weeks, USA Today had published three stories about her disappearance. There were none focused on Alexis.”
The Washington Post / Taylor Lorenz
During the Depp-Heard trial, many content creators discovered there's money and clout to be made in covering breaking news →
“Nearly every large breaking news event in the past year has birthed a new crop of online influencers…The content creator Alyte Mazeika earned $5,000 in one week by pivoting the content on her YouTube channel to nonstop trial coverage and analysis, according to Business Insider.”
Bloomberg / Austin Carr
This startup wants to rescue you from browser tab hell →
A new browser, called Arc, wants to take on Google Chrome and Apple's Safari, and argues their dominance has stalled browser innovation.
Canadaland / Jesse Brown
A coalition of independent Canadian news publishers is demanding changes to the Online News Act →
“Bill C-18 is modeled after Australia's News Media Bargaining Code. It must not repeat the mistakes of that legislation. In Australia, an estimated 90 percent of negotiated revenues flowed to the three largest media companies.”
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