Top News:
Substack Blog:
Substack offers further clarity on its content moderation guidelines, detailing its stance on harassment, doxxing, hate, and more — In December, we published a statement about our philosophy on content moderation. In the time since, content moderation policies across all platforms have become only more consequential and debated.
Discussion:
@adders, @adders, @alexhibbert, @adders, @aaronhuertas, @guillermokrh, @ggreenwald, @kirkegaardemil, @guillermokrh, @adders, @ggreenwald, @jer_diamond, @mathewi, @adders and The Wazzock's Review
Discussion:
Adam Tinworth / @adders: Looks like @SubstackInc is having to refine/restate its content moderation policy again: https://blog.substack.com/... The reason seems pretty clear: Graham Linehan (aka Glinner) set up shop there after he was removed from most other platforms.
Adam Tinworth / @adders: The only surprise, really, is how long this storm has taken to break over Substack. I first posted about how his presence there would eventually become an issue for the company six months ago: https://onemanandhisblog.com/ ...
Alex Hibbert / @alexhibbert: I've held off committing time to Substack before seeing how its policies play out. Here it is: https://blog.substack.com/...? Why, @SubstackInc, is your policy to disallow content that attacks opt-in membership of religions? All the other characteristics on that list are immutable.
Adam Tinworth / @adders: This is (understandably) causing a lot of tension: https://grace.substack.com/...
Aaron Huertas / @aaronhuertas: Seems like a relatively broad definition of “hate” from Substack here, which they may not have actually intended. Of course, culture warrior types repeatedly reframe hateful speech as criticizing “ideas” or “ideologies.” https://blog.substack.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Guillermo Rojas Hernandez / @guillermokrh: @SubstackInc So, this seems like Substack is opening the door to defamation of private citizens being allowed on Substack. The question of whether Substack is a publisher becomes important for liability, because if Substack can't be sued for defamation, the newsletter author can be sued.
Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald: @KirkegaardEmil Maybe, but the proof is in the pudding, and the person targeted by the censors has been kicked off virtually every other platform yet remains on Substack, so we'll see.
Emil O W Kirkegaard / @kirkegaardemil: Looks decidedly non-robust to me, especially the hate clause. These are weasel clauses that always end up being used. So I am not really apt to change my negative predictions on long-term viability of this platform for #freethought. The only line to do draw is legal or not. https://twitter.com/...
Guillermo Rojas Hernandez / @guillermokrh: @SubstackInc For Substack readers & operators of a newsletter, here is a good article on the history of libel & defamation laws in the US. Towards the end, they talk about the important Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) case: https://mtsu.edu/...
Adam Tinworth / @adders: And some people have already exited Substack as a result: https://jude-doyle.ghost.io/ ... (Off to @Ghost in this case)
Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald: Good, clear, defiant statement from Substack about recent censorship demands: making clear what is and is not “harassment” & “hate speech,” defending the right to express unpopular opinions, and emphasizing they will not make decisions from public demands https://blog.substack.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@jer_diamond: This is a lot of words for @SubstackInc to say “We're still not telling you who our Pro writers are.” https://blog.substack.com/...
Mathew Ingram / @mathewi: Gotta give Substack some credit for leaving comments open on this post about its moderation policies: https://blog.substack.com/...
RELATED:
Eric Levitz / New York Magazine:
Substack is only a “scam” in the same way that modern media is, where star pundits profit and talented reporters go underemployed
Discussion:
@sacca, @slooterman, @radiofreetom, @espiers, bookforum.com, @amywestervelt, Paul Constant Is Reading …, @emilybell, @pbump, @ericlevitz, @zachwritesstuff, @ginamizell, @alexmcdaniel, @claireefallon, @kantrowitz, @augustjpollak, @mcmansionhell, @marisa_ingemi, @jason, @tnwhiskeywoman, @thrasherxy, @edroso, @kyleaglaser, @jilliancyork, @annehelen, @jilliancyork, @delia_cai, @lizzieohreally, @lizzieohreally, @davidfolkenflik, @stevemullis, @mollywood, @mollywood, @caseyjohnston, @mollywood, @caseyjohnston, @sacca, @mollywood, @sacca, @cameronwilson, @thrasherxy, @jowrotethis, @sethwemerson, @goldietaylor, @lindseyadler, @davegershgorn, @howelloneill, @milehighrobert, @hannahrkeyser, @patrick_hruby, @davidubben, @benpopper, @rachelmetz, @adavidhalejoint, @alec_lewis, @thelincoln, @bdhowald, @annaleen, @lizzieohreally, @karaswisher, @sacca, @karaswisher, @anne_elizabeth, @frankicookney, @ntavakolifar, @ninabernstein1, Memex 1.1, @hkesvani, @amywestervelt, @annacod, @amywestervelt, @amywestervelt, @amywestervelt, @annanowo, @amywestervelt, @danismcnally, @michellemanafy, @rachelconnoll14 and @sadydoyle
Discussion:
@sacca: Even if the Substack/newsletter economics are a wash, a lot of reporters will make the jump just so they don't have to deal with their shitty editors. (Employed journalists: Be sure to switch to your burner account before hearting this.)
Sara Luterman / @slooterman: Editors make my writing tighter, more compelling, more comprehensible to a general audience, and harder to argue against. I am baffled by all of these dudes who feel like they're “oppressed” by editors. https://twitter.com/...
Tom Nichols / @radiofreetom: If you're one of the many younger people all bitched out about how unfair the world is because no one's paying you to be a writer, @EricLevitz has some tough love that you need to read here: https://nymag.com/...
Elizabeth Spiers / @espiers: If anything, I'd say Substack exposes the people whose editors have been doing a lot of heavy lifting this whole time. https://twitter.com/...
Amy Westervelt / @amywestervelt: The individual superstar brand thing is the measure of success. So if you don't want to do that, if you stick to the work, it's possible, but you'll never make as much money. And you'll routinely have your work cribbed by the people who focus on brand-building.
Paul Constant / Paul Constant Is Reading in Seattle: Sorry, Substack — I've been double-posting my monthly newsletters, sending from both Substack and Revue simultaneously.
Emily Bell / @emilybell: In my limited experience reporters who think their editors are shitty are those most in need of editing. Even shitty editing tends to improve their copy https://twitter.com/...
Philip Bump / @pbump: Say you don't know anything about journalism without saying you don't know anything about journalism. https://twitter.com/...
Eric Levitz / @ericlevitz: Between 2008 and 2019, the number of newsroom jobs in the United States fell by 26,000, according to the Pew Research Center. Over that same period, roughly 50,000 journalism majors were graduating into the U.S. labor market every year. https://nymag.com/...
Zachary Siegel / @zachwritesstuff: My editors are mostly very thoughtful and work hard to make my work better. This notion that we loathe our editors is weird. https://twitter.com/...
Gina Mizell / @ginamizell: Actually, the WORST thing about writing my Substack newsletter was NOT having an editor. They make a writer's work better. Period. https://twitter.com/...
Alex McDaniel / @alexmcdaniel: editors aren't the problem. their bosses are. https://twitter.com/...
Claire Fallon / @claireefallon: yes, it's true, i started a substack because i hated* my shitty editors** *got laid off from **increasingly rare media job https://twitter.com/...
Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz: We're still talking about this? https://twitter.com/...
August J. Pollak / @augustjpollak: The collapse of every publication in this country over the last 30 years can be directly traced to the vain, impatient gluttony of venture capitalists, so naturally venture capitalists have concluded the problem with journalism isn't about money, there's just too many editors https://twitter.com/...
Kate Wagner / @mcmansionhell: uh I started a substack bc what I wanted to write wasn't profitable from a conventional sports journalism perspective. I wish to Christ that that publication had an editor too. https://twitter.com/...
Marisa Ingemi / @marisa_ingemi: as a freelancer my favorite part is working with so many great editors and learning from them. as journalists we would not grow or improve without the tireless work of editors. https://twitter.com/...
@jason: This is an incorrect take Substack allows you to own the emails & the Stripe relationship with your readers so u can leave the platform ANY TIME & take your entire business with you! Substack has ZERO recourse to keep you on the platform if you want to pay 99% less on @Ghost! https://twitter.com/...
Dr. Steven W. Thrasher / @thrasherxy: “Be your own boss!” they said about every industry, as they controlled all the means of production and asked you now to also forfeit the legal protections and social safety net of being an actual employee
Roy Edroso / @edroso: @thrasherxy Me, I'm Substacking because The Man can't deal with my realness. https://twitter.com/...
Kyle Glaser / @kyleaglaser: Like any profession, there are good editors and bad editors. That said, their importance cannot be understated. They improve your work, inspire story ideas, help you when you're stuck and make the final product shine. If anything, our industry needs more editors, not fewer. https://twitter.com/...
Jillian C. York / @jilliancyork: As a pretty in-demand (these days) writer, I couldn't possibly disagree more—I love my editors. If anything, it'd be to escape the drudgery of invoicing, but my writing would be the worse for it. https://twitter.com/...
Anne Helen Petersen / @annehelen: For every Greenwald or Taibbi there are ten freelancers who couldn't pay bills on $400 (high end!) for a reported piece, whose beats are considered too niche, etc etc
Jillian C. York / @jilliancyork: Can we stop being precious about what Substack, etc are going to create? They're going to create BLOGGERS, remember those? We were annoying. Some of us went mainstream, some of us went full circle to Substack, some of us still blog. Everything old is new again.
Lizzie O'Leary / @lizzieohreally: @sacca One of the biggest issues is honestly that two thirds of the ad dollars go to FB and Google. This is not about small ball quibbles over headlines. It's a much more existential question. The industry, save a few standouts, is in crisis.
Lizzie O'Leary / @lizzieohreally: @sacca No. That's really not how it works. Also not sure what you mean about “results.” Dumb stories? Not really, no. This is a very good overview of the economics here. https://www.brookings.edu/...
David Folkenflik / @davidfolkenflik: We all need editors. Also, don't believe the economics would be even a wash for vast majority of journalists. That said - anyone wants to make the jump, should! https://twitter.com/...
Steve Mullis / @stevemullis: @sacca @caseyjohnston @mollywood Who are you talking about? I feel your narrative is built off of some very specific examples but I don't know what those examples are. And if the examples are the high-profile folks who left for substack b/c of “shitty editors,” they aren't really emblematic of the industry.
Molly Wood / @mollywood: @sacca Respectfully, I'm gonna heart all the journalists in the comments defending our editors. We all know who made us better at our jobs. The executives? Burner time.
Molly Wood / @mollywood: @sacca Burner-approaching comment but erm I did leave a “best” paper for public media ... for ... reasons ...
Casey Johnston / @caseyjohnston: @mollywood @sacca the way media companies are run as businesses and the fact that they've been cannibalized and undermined by tech companies are the problems, not editors
Molly Wood / @mollywood: @sacca @caseyjohnston That doesn't always lead to the best decisions. We didn't start “engagement” as a metric, but here we are competing on that metric, and trying to figure out a better one. But “journalists who left for substack to have more opinions” isn't a reliable marker for overall health.
Casey Johnston / @caseyjohnston: @sacca @mollywood i mean if you are saying editors are one step closer to being on the hook for executing the publication's aims then i guess we agree!! but they sure don't set the agenda, and as a writer i would agree with others replying that “editor” isn't one to one with “shitty person”
@sacca: @mollywood I hear you. What's changed is how those jobs have merged. Even (especially?) at the “best” papers. Sure there are editors who counsel/nurture. But when the piece gets run through the grinder? Both sides-ism isn't a reporter's instinct. Bleeds/leads isn't how writers write.
Molly Wood / @mollywood: @sacca @caseyjohnston Still maybe an oversimplification. If you mean “executive editor” and you mean a specific paper, then maybe. But even so you're still going to find that we'll defend editors to the death. It's a deeply thankless job. And this business is tough and trying to survive.
@sacca: @caseyjohnston @mollywood I don't disagree except that the editor's job is more a part of, or maybe consequence of, the business/company than ever.
@cameronwilson: my favourite thing is venture capitalists pontificating about how journalism should work, fundamentally misunderstanding the industry, but also knowing that they're just going to keep spending millions of dollars to shape it that way regardless :)
Dr. Steven W. Thrasher / @thrasherxy: This is a major goal of Substack: “disrupt” the concept of a journalist as a “job” with “colleagues” and a “union” and a “pension” and “healthcare,” and to be replaced by the Avon/Uber/Cutco model of everyone going it alone, w/o the burden of “editors” or “health insurance” https://twitter.com/...
@jowrotethis: I love my editors. I know that's not the case everywhere but I just want to shout out the hardworking, wise, great editors out there. They exist! And are very necessary! https://twitter.com/...
Seth Emerson / @sethwemerson: I know very few if any writers who don't want an editor. We need the editing. We need the feedback. We need smart people to bounce story ideas off, to prevent us from pursuing and posting bad stories, and to make our good stories even better. https://twitter.com/...
Lindsey Adler / @lindseyadler: Editors are the line of defense between raw work and readers. They see a story forensically after you've completely lost track of what it says. My editor basically serves as the bumpers that keep me on track. Writers who hate editors are self-important buffoons. https://twitter.com/...
Dave Gershgorn / @davegershgorn: agree, all my editor ever wants is pictures of spiderman and its absolutely unacceptable https://twitter.com/...
Patrick Howell O'Neill / @howelloneill: journalism without strong editors is so, so much worse https://twitter.com/...
Robert Sanchez / @milehighrobert: The journalists I've known who think their copy doesn't need to be touched (or thought through better) are usually the worst journalists, BTW. https://twitter.com/...
Hannah Keyser / @hannahrkeyser: that's what they always say about working in journalism: that full-time employment is burden people are eagerly opting out of to go it alone. https://twitter.com/...
@patrick_hruby: Putting aside this foolishness about editors, almost no *reporters* are going to voluntarily leave the relative handful of remaining reporting jobs for newsletters. The economics don't work! https://twitter.com/...
David Ubben / @davidubben: I'm sure some writers feel this way. Show me a writer who thinks they would be better off without editors and I'll show you a writer who's deeply immature and overconfident. https://twitter.com/...
Ben Popper / @benpopper: I miss having an editor TBH. Not a shitty one, but the good ones push you to pursue better pieces, abandon stale ones, and craft something great. Plus, they make you seem like a great writer and rarely get a byline! https://twitter.com/...
Rachel Metz / @rachelmetz: wow, no. nope nope. i have worked with some bad editors, but i have mostly worked with great editors (and occasionally amazing editors) who make my reporting sharper, my storytelling smoother, and my mistakes fewer(er). it's a difficult job and i detest this type of criticism. https://twitter.com/...
@adavidhalejoint: My words are perfect and beautiful the instant they are formed. But I work with editors to protect readers who simply aren't ready for so many mind blowing truth bombs. https://twitter.com/...
Alec Lewis / @alec_lewis: Oh, heck no, Chris. A writer is nothing without their editor. They're the confidant. The mentor. The friend. The motivator. The true wordsmith. The support. The inspiration. https://twitter.com/...
Lincoln Michel / @thelincoln: This is complete nonsense. Almost every writer I know would die for their editors. Editors protect and help writers in countless ways. The problem with journalism isn't too many editors it's... no jobs! https://twitter.com/...
Brian Howald / @bdhowald: “The implication is that contrarians feign unorthodox belief to gain a following. In other words, they're hoodwinking their followers for money.” The biggest grift is pretending to be a contrarian: “My idea is (something my followers agree with, but presented as controversial).” https://twitter.com/...
@annaleen: So these muscular “independent writers” at Medium will be supported by non-union editorial staff. I see. So if you make your labor invisible, everything magically becomes rugged individualism. https://twitter.com/...
Lizzie O'Leary / @lizzieohreally: @sacca I would be absolutely nowhere without an editor. Well, I would be on twitter, sounding like a lunatic. So, editors. A good thing.
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher: @om @sacca Gotta go with Om here, Chris. More shitty writers than editors by FAR.
@sacca: @karaswisher @om No argument. It's the shape of the pyramid and always has been. But now they have options and the market will be more efficient. It'll also tell us how much/if copyediting matters to readers at scale. Fascinating times, but too many replies read like relics.
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher: @sacca @om Yes but the first libel case will ruin someone's day. It's just a mixed bag as is all journalism, except the latest gang thinks they hung the moon. They didn't and as someone who did this long before most of them did, I don't recall needing to abandon the good parts like editing.
Anne Lowrey / @anne_elizabeth: This is a brilliant read about how Substack is/is not great for writers, and a sharp look at journalism as a whole. https://nymag.com/...
Franki Cookney / @frankicookney: This is a good analysis imo. My newsletter is on Substack (although I don't charge for subscriptions yet) and I have been thinking a LOT about what it is vs what it could be vs what I actually WANT to produce and how tf to make any money from that. 😬 https://nymag.com/...
Nastaran Tavakoli-Far / @ntavakolifar: Strong piece by @EricLevitz on Substack which mirrors podcasts: a few already established stars rake in big money for opinions whilst everyone else barely makes anything but is told they can make it big. Proper reporting and society ultimately lose. https://nymag.com/...
Nina Bernstein / @ninabernstein1: “America does not have more competent journalists than it needs. But it does have far more of them than media firms are capable of profitably employing.” @EricLevitz https://nymag.com/...
John Naughton / Memex 1.1: Wednesday 24 March, 2021 — How do you do? — Quote of the Day … - Frank Lloyd Wright
@hkesvani: I think ‘scam’ isn't the correct word. Rather, it's the inevitable outcome of a 2010s media boom that paid in exposure, demanded new entrants to build personalised, identity heavy but corporate friendly personal brands, and shell out trauma stories for £120 if they were lucky
Amy Westervelt / @amywestervelt: and honestly? i would rather work for someone else! i would be thrilled to sit in a corner reading documents with a highlighter all day. I currently have a fucking STACK of reporting waiting to be turned into stories while I manage a company I never intended to start
Anna Codrea-Rado / @annacod: @amywestervelt This is so key! Freelance doesn't fix work-based problems. This is true everywhere but especially in the media. Also, hi 👋 from an editor who used to commission you and has since gone freelance because they got laid off 🥲
Amy Westervelt / @amywestervelt: The point is that a lot of people leave staff jobs to go it alone thinking they're gonna escape the system that way but it's not so easy. You have to actually intentionally behave and work differently, knowing there's no reward. That's how we build different (imho better) systems
Amy Westervelt / @amywestervelt: There's this weird idea in a lot of media writing that if you are independent, you are an opinion writer. Henh? I mean, yes, that describes a lot of people with newsletters, but I had to create my own small multimedia outlet to be able to do accountability journalism on climate
Amy Westervelt / @amywestervelt: And again that's hard to do and wildly disincentivized. So once again we are relying on the sacrifices and/or superstar talents of a few individuals to solve a systemic problem. Notice a fucking pattern here? Gahhhhh
Anna Nowogrodzki / @annanowo: @amywestervelt A-fucking-men to this whole thread. The most important things in journalism are WILDLY disincentivized. And that interacts with class/family money/race to keep journalism wildly unrepresentative of the country, which means as an industry we're really biased
Amy Westervelt / @amywestervelt: I keep noticing this in a lot of the recent media scandals — caliphate, reply all, now substack — there's a lack of awareness around how much all the options suck. You either go along with shitty media systems or you go it alone and grind it out, and in either scenario...
Danielle McNally / @danismcnally: This is very upsetting to me: “There are apparently a great many journalism consumers who aren't willing to pay $5 a month to support the work of dozens of journalists at a single publication but are eager to pay $8 a month to patronize a single blogger.” https://nymag.com/...
Michelle Manafy / @michellemanafy: “The resurgence of labor organizing in media has mitigated the industry's exploitative treatment of entry-level workers and the class bias inherent to it. And this is one of the many reasons why unionizing newsrooms is a vital project.” @EricLevitz https://nymag.com/... @NYMag
Rachel Connolly / @rachelconnoll14: I really liked this piece and I'm glad someone wrote it, but I do also sort of find it alarming that someone needed to write it bcos that scam piece was not at all convincing and people shouldn't have been taken in by it ! https://nymag.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Jude Ellison S. Doyle / @sadydoyle: It's disappointing, but not unsurprising, that “media news” coverage of the Substack issue specifically bypasses the fact that (1) the writers protesting Substack are mostly trans and queer and (2) their critiques center on structural transphobia. https://nymag.com/...
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Interviews with 14 current and former Medium employees portray a dysfunctional company; sources say Medium has 700K paid subs, suggesting $35M+ in revenue — I. — Last week, a partnerships manager at Medium working with the White House found that there was a strange problem with the platform …
Discussion:
@silvermanjacob, @caseynewton, @felixsalmon, Medialyte, @mattyglesias, @caseynewton, @caseynewton, @jakebackpack, Adweek, @janefriedman, @aleksnotalex, @ahmed, @barry, @jakebackpack, @jakebackpack, @rklein90, @cwarzel, @gadyepstein, American Press Institute, @jayrosen_nyu, @karaswisher, @hshaban, @caseynewton, @caseynewton, @felixsalmon, @craigmod, @mat, @clarajeffery, @anthony, Columbia Journalism Review, @moorehn, @teddyschleifer, @teddyschleifer, @reckless, @katzish, @jamesrbuk, @sarahw, @mattyglesias, @nberlat, @aliciakennedy, @chaykak, @gamoid, @alexeheath, @emilybell, The Business of Business, @annehelen, @kimzetter, @noahshachtman, @aaronhuertas, @katiedrumm, @caseynewton, @caseyjohnston, @caseynewton, @caseynewton, @ryanlawler, @bluechoochoo, @hunterw, @choire, @backlon, Insider and What's New in Publishing, more at Techmeme »
Discussion:
Jacob Silverman / @silvermanjacob: imagine punting on 700k subscribers because it doesn't represent google-worthy scale https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: Ultimately, staffers I spoke with wished Williams would take responsibility for his stop-start flirtations with journalism, and acknowledge where he himself had fallen short. https://twitter.com/...
Felix Salmon / @felixsalmon: @CaseyNewton Casey, are you saying here that Medium has at this point burned through all of the $132m and then some? https://twitter.com/...
Mark Stenberg / Medialyte: The Medium pivot is the message
Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias: There's a strong norm against journalists caring about journalism business models, but in this day and age you owe it to yourself to understand how your employer makes money (or hopes to) and how your work figures into that.
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: The thing is, Medium isn't a bad business. It has more than 700,000 paid subscriptions, I'm told, putting it on track for more than $35 million in revenue. That's pretty healthy for a media company. It's just not a great tech business. Especially if you co-founded Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: And here it is: my best effort to understand what happened after Medium invested millions in its latest embrace of original journalism, only to begin pulling back when Ev Williams didn't like what he saw. https://www.theverge.com/...
Jacob Bacharach / @jakebackpack: A $35M print/online media company could employ 350 people at $75K per year, spend 10% on occupancy and general admin, $4M on travel, advertising, etc., and *still* turn a $1.25M profit!
Pablo Andreu / Adweek: Medium's Anti-Ad Stance Continues to Fail
Jane Friedman / @janefriedman: Must-read piece on the “technology product” of Medium: “Medium's original journalism was meant to give shape & prestige to an essentially random collection of writing.” This is what investors spent $132m on, last funded in 2016 (!): https://www.theverge.com/... by @CaseyNewton
Aleksander Chan / @aleksnotalex: “scale” has poisoned all of our media owners into thinking $35m in revenue isn't “enough,” even though it would pay hundreds of people living wages and benefits. everything has to be an empire or it's nothing at all. what medium has done (again) is shameful https://twitter.com/...
Ahmed Al Omran / @ahmed: Medium's original journalism was not converting free readers to paid subscribers. Surprisingly, what seemed to convert readers most reliably were random stories on the digital content farm that had sprung up around its high-gloss publications https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Barry Petchesky / @barry: This just keeps making me madder. I think the main reason Defector has been successful so far is that our standards for success are “pay for itself and its employees, not make a billion dollars.” https://twitter.com/...
Jacob Bacharach / @jakebackpack: I've written about this before: the financialized mindset has essentially eliminated the idea of the successful mid-sized enterprise from the American business vernacular. When I was in B-school, for example, all our projects were basically, “Come up with a $1B idea.” https://twitter.com/...
Jacob Bacharach / @jakebackpack: I'd argue and say, what's wrong with an idea for a $50M regional enterprise with steady margins?
Rebecca Klein / @rklein90: When you dig deeper into so many of these media stories you find that the company actually is making money, just some dude wants more, more, more https://www.theverge.com/...
Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel: scale obsession has ruined so many things! https://twitter.com/...
Gady Epstein / @gadyepstein: So Ev's brilliant plan in 2020 was to copy the Forbes of 2010 https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
American Press Institute: Need to Know: March 25, 2021 — OFF THE TOP — You might have heard: Negativity …
Jay Rosen / @jayrosen_nyu: A tech company is not like an editorial company. They are different creatures. The way they create value will not align. Doesn't matter how many editorial people a tech company hires. Eventually it will get down to the business of paying for fewer of them. https://www.theverge.com/...
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher: This is just superb by @CaseyNewton on the sitch at this tiresome platform pretending to be a real media company for far too long. Just call it Demand Media 2 and be done with it: The mess at Medium - Platformer https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Hamza Shaban / @hshaban: It's as if business people fixated on gargantuan scale and Facebook-like profits should not be in charge of journalism outlets: https://twitter.com/...
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: @felixsalmon I believe so yes
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: @felixsalmon I guess I meant, you could theoretically build a healthy business from a base of $35M in recurring revenue
Felix Salmon / @felixsalmon: @CaseyNewton I mean, that's a shit ton of losses! Revenues alone don't make you “pretty healthy” unless you have some kind of path to profitability
Craig Mod / @craigmod: Am I being nuts or is 700k paying subscribers pretty impressive for a publisher with no singular prestige publication? (for comparison — nytimes has about 7.5M subs ... but also price paid per sub much higher than medium — ~$17/mo vs $5/mo for medium) https://www.theverge.com/...
Mat Honan / @mat: Great look into the (most-recent) Medium fiasco from Casey: https://twitter.com/...
Clara Jeffery / @clarajeffery: “Like Blogger and Twitter before it, Medium will bet on unpaid labor and algorithms.” https://www.theverge.com/...
Anthony DeRosa / @anthony: “Hits would be made either because we managed to get a prime spot on Google or because something made it big on Facebook,” https://www.theverge.com/...
Mathew Ingram / Columbia Journalism Review: Medium has pivoted so many times it has now come full circle
Heidi N. Moore / @moorehn: Good reporting and context on the Medium voluntary buyouts by @CaseyNewton https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer: If Ev Williams was going to fund Medium himself, might as well have incorporated Medium as a nonprofit. He could've secured himself a nice tax deduction!
Teddy Schleifer / @teddyschleifer: This situation is a bit different from the other cut-backs we've seen recently, but it's another example of billionaire funders showing that they are not the saviors for media companies that are losing money. https://twitter.com/...
Nilay Patel / @reckless: Big @CaseyNewton on what happened at Medium - copublished with @platformer because the future of the media is always just finding new and better ways to collaborate and reach audiences! https://www.theverge.com/...
Amanda Katz / @katzish: Also this reporting by @CaseyNewton is excellent and I have no idea how he did it so fast, do read https://www.google.com/...
James Ball / @jamesrbuk: Venture capitalism and journalism are fundamentally incompatible. It will be better for both when we accept that. https://twitter.com/...
Sarah Weinman / @sarahw: “At a certain point you're not nimble and iterating. You're just floundering and failing to follow through and execute.” https://www.theverge.com/...
Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias: To wit, so much about this Medium news sucks. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Noah Berlatsky / @nberlat: this is all depressing. https://www.theverge.com/...
Alicia Kennedy / @aliciakennedy: ...this is why a bunch of editors and writers now have to find something else to do https://twitter.com/...
Kyle Chayka / @chaykak: “what once had been publications are now likely better thought of as topic pages.” @CaseyNewton on Medium https://www.theverge.com/...
Matt Weinberger / @gamoid: It's cool that the only two outcomes are “one billion daily active users” or “it's garbage, trash it” https://twitter.com/...
Alex Heath / @alexeheath: Medium has over 700,000 paying subs, netting out to roughly $35 million in yearly revenue, reports @CaseyNewton. And CEO Ev Williams has been personally funding the company since its last VC round in 2016 https://twitter.com/...
Emily Bell / @emilybell: Feel enormously sorry for the people losing jobs at Medium, and particularly sorry that @ozm is effected - some of the best independent technology coverage out there. @WillOremus and team really deserve better https://www.theverge.com/...
Paul Smalera / The Business of Business: Unionization won't save the media business, nor its workers
Anne Helen Petersen / @annehelen: Just bleak, bleak shit from @CaseyNewton on the End of Medium: III https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Kim Zetter / @kimzetter: This is really sad. Medium amassed a collection of top-notch editors and writers, only to have the rug pulled out from under them. Here's a great piece from @CaseyNewton giving the backstory on the demise of Medium's editorial experiment https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Noah Shachtman / @noahshachtman: the juiciest thing you'll read all night: @CaseyNewton on the (latest) clusterfuck at medium https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Aaron Huertas / @aaronhuertas: good lord, just make it a unionized non-profit and go start a new business https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Katie Drummond / @katiedrumm: Ev Williams should be so ashamed of himself. https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: It's notoriously difficult to earn a profit from journalism. But the billionaire Williams started to give up barely a year in. Random user-generated posts turned into hits by Google were a more reliable source of revenue. And so it was time to downsize. Again. https://twitter.com/...
Casey Johnston / @caseyjohnston: What a lede by all time goat @CaseyNewton https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: @ryanlawler this is .......... an excellent question lol
Casey Newton / @caseynewton: The story starts in a strange place: with President Joe Biden's official Medium account being served porn recommendations. Highbrow mixed with lowbrow; unpredictable algorithms at work. Medium in a nutshell. https://twitter.com/...
Ryan Lawler / @ryanlawler: @CaseyNewton Is the implication that the new owner of the POTUS account was being served recommendations meant for the previous tenant?
Andréa López / @bluechoochoo: Anyway @CaseyNewton did an awesome job on that Medium article. A lot of people transitioned from journalist to pundit when they went the indie newsletter route. But he keeps getting us new interesting info.
@choire: It's easy to think of Medium as a failed series of journalism companies, and that's true, but it's also a failed series of technology companies. https://www.theverge.com/...
Dieter Bohn / @backlon: Here's @CaseyNewton on the mess at Medium. It starts with a story about how “'President Joe Biden is Being Served Erotica on https://medium.com/,' the staffer complained in an internal post” and only gets more eye-popping from there. https://www.theverge.com/...
RELATED:
Will Oremus / @willoremus:
[Thread] Will Oremus, who has covered platforms, online speech, and tech policy for OneZero, is accepting a buyout from Medium
Discussion:
Sarah Emerson / @sarahnemerson: As you may know, Medium offered buyouts to all of its editorial staff and my last day will be Friday, April 7. I'll be a free agent after that. https://twitter.com/...
Will Oremus / @willoremus: In @ozm, we built in 2 years a publication we could all be proud of. Did a lot of work we believed in, some that made a real difference, some that was just fun. OneZero went from a dumb name that confused everyone to a dumb name that stood for thoughtful, original tech journalism
Will Oremus / @willoremus: It's been a great ride at @ozm. Could not have asked for a sharper or funner group of journalists to work w/ than @yeahyeahyasmin @SarahNEmerson @SarahFKessler @rachelkalson @PeterSlattery3 @mvzelenks @meganmorrone @emilylmullin @drewcostley @dlberes @davegershgorn & @bcmerchant.
Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung: I'm so sorry, Will. Wishing you the best in the future and reach out if I can help in any way! Someone, please snatch Will up. He's an amazing journalist and worth your investment. https://twitter.com/...
Blake E. Reid / @blakereid: I don't understand anything about what Medium is supposed to be but any company that lets @WillOremus go is doing it wrong https://twitter.com/...
Scott Nover / @scottnover: Will is one of my absolute favorite writers on media and tech. Hiring him should be a no-brainer. https://twitter.com/...
Will Oremus / @willoremus: After April 7, I'll probably take a little time to be a house-husband—while starting to look around for the next employer crazy enough to think critical, careful journalism about tech and society is something worth paying for. My DMs are open.
@revkin: This please, yes. After his hiatus, @WillOremus will be a great catch. https://twitter.com/...
Sarah Emerson / @sarahnemerson: I joined @ozm in 2019 and published work I'll be proud of for the rest of my career. Together, we built a scrappy publication from the ground up and never stopped fighting to cover this industry critically and fairly. It took passion, stubbornness, empathy, and risk.
Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz: Will's work is so consistently good and someone whose writing I'll read wherever he goes. Hire him 👇🏻 https://twitter.com/...
Seth Fiegerman / @sfiegerman: One of my favorite tech writers to read. Hire him, people. https://twitter.com/...
Will Oremus / @willoremus: It's sad to know that work was no longer seen as a sound investment for the company, but that's how the journalism business often goes these days. I'm grateful for the time and resources we were afforded, all the same.
Jacob Silverman / @silvermanjacob: Will is great and so are the many journalists leaving Medium. Wishing folks there, at HuffPo, Mel, and elsewhere all the best during a tough couple weeks. https://twitter.com/...
Farhad Manjoo / @fmanjoo: please everyone in journalism: hire Will and everyone else who was doing great work at medium for a fairweather billionaire. @ozm and the others were fantastic publications, this industry sucks, these people are awesome https://twitter.com/...
Eric Holthaus / @ericholthaus: For the past decade, since back when we both worked at @slate, Will has been one of my favorite tech writers. Now's your chance to hire him. He's an irreplaceable fountain of truth in a fast-changing world. https://twitter.com/...
Abby Ohlheiser / @abbyohlheiser: There's a short list of tech reporters whose bylines I will regularly check to make sure I haven't missed anything and Will is one of them hire him https://twitter.com/...
Jesse Lehrich / @jesselehrich: ugh — Will is one of my absolute favorite tech reporters, always putting forward nuanced & insightful analysis on complex topics. https://twitter.com/...
Washington Post:
At Biden's first press conference, no reporters asked about the pandemic; he was asked at least 10 times about the surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border — President Biden began his first White House news conference by practically inviting reporters to ask him about the major story of the past year.
Discussion:
Susan Glasser / @sbg1: The failure to ask a single question about COVID is remarkable. By any standards, a fail.
Dan Froomkin / Press Watch: At Biden's first news conference, it wasn't the president who was out of touch
@sulliview: Hundreds of Americans died of Covid today — but not a single reporter at Biden's first presidential conference asked about the pandemic. Good look by @farhip and @ElaheIzadi https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Laurie Garrett / @laurie_garrett: I agree @sbg1 ! The @WhiteHouse press corps behavior & questions were lunacy. Hey Guys — there's a #COVID19 #pandemic going on! And you're asking about #MitchMcConnell & 2024 elections. Shame! https://twitter.com/...
Connie Schultz / @connieschultz: So many Americans noticed this. I've been hearing from them non-stop since this news conference ended. After a year of fear, suffering and loss, they feel invisible. https://twitter.com/...
Ashley Reese / Jezebel: There Are No Easy Answers On What to Do About Immigration, But Biden Could've Had More of Them
Dan Froomkin / @froomkin: “Other critiques of the questions was more overwrought,” writes @AaronBlake (no copyeditors at WaPo anymore?) potentially referring to mine. I disagree! https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... You tell me: https://presswatchers.org/...
Dalia Dassa Kaye / @dassakaye: This is truly embarrassing. https://twitter.com/...
Ben LaBolt / @benlabolt: This is the news coming out of the press conference https://twitter.com/...
Benjamin Freed / @brfreed: The bar for today's press conference was set so low. And the White House reporters still missed it anyway. https://twitter.com/...
Dana Houle / @danahoule: Why I had zero patience for all the journalists complaining Biden hadn't had a press conference. Theoretically press conferences are valuable. But in reality reporters almost always engage in (often nitwitted) frivolity. Biggest issue facing HUMANITY doesn't interest them https://twitter.com/...
Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD / @arrianna_planey: Pandemic's not over, y'all https://twitter.com/...
Bianna Golodryga / @biannagolodryga: Especially striking given that Biden's initial response to other policy questions made clear that his top priority now is COVID. https://twitter.com/...
Darryl Holliday / @d_holli: National media is tired of itself https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Elon Green / @elongreen: Just remember these clowns the next time they complain about a lack of press conferences https://twitter.com/...
Jay Rosen / @jayrosen_nyu: “After four years of the media desperately needing to reality-check the president (and often failing), now the president was the one talking about things that mattered and marveling at not one but two reporters asking about the 2024 election.” https://presswatchers.org/...
Eric Feigl-Ding / @drericding: Zero questions about the pandemic in the middle of a pandemic is quite mind-bending. Many agree this is ridiculous. #COVID19 is still surging worldwide and countries are clamoring for vaccines loans from America. We cannot ignore the global crisis even if our deaths dropping. https://twitter.com/...
Eric Lutz / Vanity Fair:
CNN's defense of Chris Cuomo getting priority COVID testing again indicates that CNN seems to have no ethical issue with the relationship between the Cuomos — Chris Cuomo never missed an opportunity to tell his “luv guv” big brother what a great job he was doing.
Discussion:
Brendan J. Lyons / Albany Times Union: Top health officials told to prioritize COVID testing for Cuomo's relatives
Washington Post: Andrew Cuomo's family members were given special access to covid testing, according to people familiar with the arrangement
Zoë Richards / Talking Points Memo: BROVID-19: Gov. Cuomo's Magic ‘Wand’ In Brother's Famous Fever Dream Was Actually ... A Prized COVID Test
Stephen Battaglio / Los Angeles Times: CNN responds to reports that family ties helped Chris Cuomo get access to COVID testing
Clay Travis / @claytravis: New York governor Andrew Cuomo gave his family members, including CNN's Chris Cuomo, early access to covid tests last year when almost no one could get them, potentially breaking the law. I'm sure CNN will cover this aggressively: https://www.outkick.com/...
Kyle Smith / New York Post: Chris Cuomo got favorable treatment from his brother, and vice versa — how can CNN not fire him?
Rich Lowry / @richlowry: The stories Chris Cuomo “obviously” can't cover keep getting better and better Cuomo's Family Is Said to Have Received Special Access to Virus Tests https://www.nytimes.com/...
Laurel Wamsley / NPR: Reports: Cuomo Administration Gave Special Coronavirus Testing Access To Family, VIPs
Glenn Greenwald / scheerpost.com: CNN's Defense of Chris Cuomo's Special COVID Privileges is Grotesque
Liz Wolfe / Reason: Cuomo Reportedly Secured Special Treatment for Family Members and VIPs During Early Days of Pandemic
Tom Porter / Insider: CNN defended Chris Cuomo for using Andrew Cuomo's power as New York governor to access COVID-19 tests when they were hard to find
J. Clara Chan / The Wrap:
The Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune had a $50M drop in revenue in 2020, according to the president of the newspapers' parent company — The Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune lost “north of $50 million” in revenue in 2020, company leadership told staffers at an all-hands meeting on Thursday.
Discussion:
Matt Karolian / @mkarolian: Transforming a legacy media company into a modern one is one of the hardest jobs there is https://www.thewrap.com/...
Sharon Waxman / @sharonwaxman: Major scoop by @jclarachan who has audio and graphic of $50 million loss at the LA Times in 2020. Disturbing for the future of a paper LA badly needs. https://www.thewrap.com/...
Miles Parks / NPR:
Misleading articles linking vaccines and death are among the most popular vaccine stories online as multiple outlets write about the same small number of deaths — The odds of dying after getting a COVID-19 vaccine are virtually nonexistent. — According to recent data from the Centers …
Discussion:
@nprpolitics, @alexanderrusso, @cward1e, NOVEL SCIENCE, Gizmodo, @drgarybennett, @alexanderrusso, Fast Company and Washington Post
Discussion:
@nprpolitics: A new NPR analysis finds that articles connecting coronavirus vaccines and death have gone viral at a dramatic rate, illustrating a trend in social media misinformation of bad actors turning to cherry-picked truths to drive misleading narratives. https://www.npr.org/...
Alexander / @alexanderrusso: Misleading stories about vaccine deaths going viral may help explain how concerns about teacher deaths and school safety became so dominant. Fixing social media is one solution. Another is limiting the number of misleading stories in the first place. https://www.npr.org/...
Claire Wardle / @cward1e: The harm done by some of this reporting needs to be understood. Understandable why people would click b/c all of us want to know we'll be safe. But the corrections never get the same engagement. *And* headlines on these types of stories get weaponized by bad actors. https://twitter.com/...
E. Rosalie / NOVEL SCIENCE: Threats, Fact-Checks, and Reads #3.25.21
Tom McKay / Gizmodo: Big Tech CEOs Waffle on Banning the 12 Major Anti-Vaxxers at Congressional Hearing
Gary Bennett / @drgarybennett: Facts are [too often] behind paywalls. Lies are free. I'm looking at us, science community. https://twitter.com/...
Alexander / @alexanderrusso: The sources of these stories are respectable media outlets like the South Florida Sun Sentinel, whose article on a post-vaccine death was republished in the Chicago Tribune was one of the most-shared that NPR found https://www.npr.org/...
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
The Kevin Roose column in NYT that was auctioned as an NFT has sold for around $560,000, with proceeds going to NYT's Neediest Cases Fund — How much is an NFT of an article in The Paper of Record worth? — SHARE All sharing options — The New York Times has entered the NFT game …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, @tedgioia, @davedufournba, @fmanjoo, @darrenrovell, @nytimes, @dgardner, New York Times, @revkin, @walsha, @annpettifor, The Hill, Mediaite, @highkin, @silviakillings, @karlbode and Insider
Discussion:
Ted Gioia / @tedgioia: There's no money in journalism—unless you turn your articles into NFTs. https://twitter.com/...
Dave DuFour / @davedufournba: And this is why we can't possibly raise taxes. https://twitter.com/...
Farhad Manjoo / @fmanjoo: damn why do substack when columns are selling for 500k?? how much could I get for selling a @kevinroose column? https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Darren Rovell / @darrenrovell: Seems about right. https://twitter.com/...
@nytimes: A column about NFTs written by our tech columnist, @KevinRoose, was turned into an NFT and put up for auction. Today it sold for 350 ETH, or about $560,000, with proceeds going to the Neediest Cases Fund. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Dan Gardner / @dgardner: I'm starting to think this whole NFT thing is Bolshevik agitprop. https://twitter.com/...
Allan Walsh / @walsha: This is not a fad and not going away. NFT's are here to stay. https://twitter.com/...
Ann Pettifor / @annpettifor: Tulips and the South Sea come to mind...The New York Times turned an article about NFTs into an NFT and sold it at auction for about $560,000 https://www.bloomberg.com/... via @luxury
Dominick Mastrangelo / The Hill: NYT column sells for more than $500,000 at NFT auction
Marisa Sarnoff / Mediaite: The New York Times Just Auctioned Off an NFT of a Story About NFTs For More Than $500K
Sean Highkin / @highkin: Who wants to buy my Top Shot story? https://twitter.com/...
Silvia Killingsworth / @silviakillings: I'm going to NFT my consciousness because I no longer want to bear ownership of it https://twitter.com/...
News Corp:
News Corp acquires Investor's Business Daily for $275M; the financial news and research business has ~100K subscribers and will be operated by Dow Jones — Digitally-Focused Financial News, Tools and Research Business To Be Operated By News Corp's Dow Jones Division
Discussion:
MediaPost, Variety, Los Angeles Times, @markdistef, @mathewi, @dylanbyers, @felixsalmon, @pkafka, Talking Biz News, The Hill, Radio & Television …, Reuters and Bloomberg
Discussion:
Todd Spangler / Variety: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to Buy Investor's Business Daily for $275 Million
Mark Di Stefano / @markdistef: News Corp is buying Investor's Business Daily, which runs https://investors.com/, for $275 million https://newscorp.com/...
Mathew Ingram / @mathewi: News Corp buys Investor's Business Daily for $250M. I wonder how much of that price is because the paper owns the domain name investors dot com https://newscorp.com/...
Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers: 🤝 Media M&A: News Corp. has agreed to acquire Investor's Business Daily from O'Neil Capital Management. “The high margin, profitable and rapidly growing digital first financial news and research business will be operated by Dow Jones.” https://newscorp.com/...
Felix Salmon / @felixsalmon: Wow, Investor's Business Daily is worth $275m! Roughly the same amount that Jeff Bezos paid for the Washington Post https://newscorp.com/...
Peter Kafka / @pkafka: Investor's Business Daily is worth $275 million, says News Corp, which just bought the 130-person company. Industry folks say Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour has kicked a lot of tires recently.
Thomas Moore / The Hill: News Corp. to buy Investor's Business Daily
Katie Robertson / New York Times:
The New Republic names Michael Tomasky as its top editor and is moving back to Washington, DC from New York — The New Republic named a new editor on Thursday and announced that it was moving back to Washington, its home city for most of its 107-year existence.
Discussion:
Mark Ames / @markamesexiled: Grim news. This Return to Normalcy has a lotta grim fuel to burn, hasn't even started. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis: The New Republic names a new top editor and will return to Washington: @mtomasky. Congratulations to all. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Yascha Mounk / @yascha_mounk: Congratulations to @mtomasky. May he turn @tnr into a fierce advocate of liberal leftism. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast: Omg congratulations @mtomasky https://www.nytimes.com/...
Mark Leon Goldberg / @marklgoldberg: Those of us who worked under supreme leader @mtomasky in the early aughts at the @TheProspect will no doubt see this as an ideological victory, 17 years in the making. Interesting! https://www.nytimes.com/...
Sam Stein / @samstein: big time, @mtomasky! https://twitter.com/...
Jesse Singal / @jessesingal: I find this encouraging https://twitter.com/...
Jesse Walker / @notjessewalker: At this point there's been more new New Republics than new French Republics. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Simon Rosenberg / @simonwdc: This is great. Wow. Awesome news @mtomasky! https://twitter.com/...
Noah Shachtman / @noahshachtman: Congrats to @mtomasky, who has been an absolutely incredible colleague, voice, and friend. https://www.thedailybeast.com/ ...
Dan Froomkin / @froomkin: NYT 4 weeks ago: “if TNR of the 90s was ‘the in-flight magazine of Air Force One’ during the Clinton years... Democracy could play a similar role in the Biden era.” https://www.nytimes.com/... NYT today: @mtomasky, editor of latter, becomes editor of former https://www.nytimes.com/...
Rebecca Leber / @rebleber: this quote in this... I worked at TNR in the “decade of incessant turmoil” and the staff did great work whatever the bad decisions by top management and the owner, so wish that wasn't erased https://www.nytimes.com/...
Steven Waldman / Inside Philanthropy:
Local outlets can make donations a persistent, ongoing revenue stream, alongside subscriptions and advertising, as Report for America host newsrooms have shown — Across philanthropy there's a growing recognition that local journalism has an important role to play in strengthening our communities …
Katherine Jacobsen / Committee to Protect Journalists:
Q&A with The Markup's Nabiha Syed on the upcoming SCOTUS decision on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which affects data journalists who scrape websites — At first glance, the connection between data journalism and a Georgia police officer accused of accessing a government database for an improper purpose might seem tenuous.
Discussion:
Calvin Reid / Publishers Weekly:
A look at BookClub, a subscription-based, virtual book club for author-led book discussions, which is launching in the spring — Scheduled to launch sometime in the spring, BookClub is a virtual book club platform driven by author-led book discussions and designed for mobile devices.
Discussion:
Alex Shephard / New Republic:
This week's coverage of the border lacks proper context, ignores the humans at the heart of it, and injects conflict into a relatively drama-free administration — On Sunday, ABC's This Week sent its weekly roundtable—excuse me, its Powerhouse Roundtable—on a field trip to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Discussion:
@asteadwesley, The latest factchecks …, Insider, @afroxander, @alex_shephard and KNSD-TV
Discussion:
Astead / @asteadwesley: the gap between immigration beat reporters and pundits currently focusing on immigration as a ~biden political crisis~ is massive
Miriam Valverde / The latest factchecks PolitiFact.com …: Fact-checking claim about Trump administration changes to the immigration system
Insider: Biden says the border surge is not 'because I'm a nice guy,' blaming Trump's policies and the dire conditions in countries they're fleeing
Ivn Fernndez / @afroxander: “The surge at the border is complicated and requires empathy and a focus on the profound human cost of America's draconian, imperialistic immigration and foreign policy. It is, in other words, a story the mainstream press is particularly bad at covering.” https://twitter.com/...
RELATED:
Tommy Christopher / Mediaite:
Politico Playbook criticized for an item that cast Trump's administration as having been more transparent than Biden's on migrant detention at the border
Discussion:
Cameron Joseph / @cam_joseph: Do... do the Playbook authors remember Trump barring reporters (and, hell, lawmakers) from child detention centers two years ago? https://twitter.com/...
Victor Pickard / @vwpickard: Great media analysis by @alex_shephard that draws attention to why a ratings-driven press system is bad for democracy. https://newrepublic.com/...
Liz Goodwin / @lizcgoodwin: Odd to hold up the Trump administration as a beacon of media transparency on immigration. If you covered child separation in '18 you likely have angry emails from Trump officials denying that policy existed. There's no video of separations for a reason. From playbook https://twitter.com/...
DW Gibson / @dw_gibson: This is so good from @alex_shephard. The MSM's appetite for conflict/ratings is so destructive. This dynamic is permanent. Dems need to recognize it for what it is & drive the “crisis” toward voter suppression, insurrection, gun violence—take your pick https://newrepublic.com/...
@newrepublic: There's little media focus on the human side of the surge at the border. Instead, it's being presented as a showdown between Republicans (tough on immigration) and Democrats (big softies). https://newrepublic.com/...
Joseph O'Neill / @josephoneillx: As this excellent piece shows, MSM will concoct crisis to promote partisan conflict. The question for Biden is: If partisan conflict is inevitable, why fight it on GOP turf? Why not go on the offensive, fight it on the question of GOP's insurrection and unfitness for power? https://twitter.com/...
Frank Sharry / @franksharry: Must read: “Cynically using a humanitarian crisis you have no intention of fixing to win elections is an interesting political story, and it's one that captures what the Republican Party is at the moment. But many in the mainstream press have no interest in covering that story.” https://twitter.com/...
Aaron Fritschner / @fritschner: Trump's family separations exploded on the national scene in June of 2018, precipitating events included implementation of zero tolerance in April, the ORR “lost children” story in May, and a denied attempt by Senator Merkley to visit the Brownsville detention facility on June 3. https://twitter.com/...
Greg Greene / @ggreeneva: I mean ... did the Playbook team somehow sleep through all this? https://twitter.com/...
@kendrawrites: They don't mind rewriting history in support of the power and privilege. They keep doing it with people who have done harmful things. https://twitter.com/...
Jennifer Bendery / @jbendery: this is so bad https://twitter.com/...
Dara Lind / @dlind: There was also the time when @mollyhf got yelled at for, IIRC, writing things down during a tour of a kids' facility?? Biden admin is being opaque, sure, but “Stephen Miller always wanted the press to cover the border as a crisis” didn't translate into actual access
Jack Mirkinson / @jackmirkinson: Stephen Miller going from “leading government fascist” to “trusted Politico source” in the span of about 8 weeks is a pretty great lesson in how the American establishment works
Brandon Wolf / @bjoewolf: Stephen Miller is a xenophobic bigot and a key architect of the hell that immigrants are living right now. Giving him column space to gaslight America is inexcusable. Do way better @playbookdc . https://twitter.com/...
Todd Schulte / @thetoddschulte: 2nd time in a week Playbook has pushed out paragraphs with huge, clear factual inaccuracies on which they hang there thesis. Here they quote the architect or zero tolerance family separation; it's 100% false. This isn't me saying I disagree with premise. Clear facts are wrong. https://twitter.com/...
Veronica Escobar / @vgescobar: Playbook quotes a white nationalist, director of chaos & cruelty for 4 yrs. The Washington Post quotes the illegitimately appointed Chad Wolf. The media's irresponsible lack of context on immigration & the border is bad enough. Now those who broke the system get legitimacy? https://twitter.com/...
Josh Dawsey / @jdawsey1: During one trip to the border in 2019, Trump administration officials screamed at me — and other outlets — for disseminating photos of migrants we saw cramped in one smelly, packed, outdoor center in McAllen, Tx. Remember that @PamelaBrownCNN? https://twitter.com/...
@juliancastro: Transparency at the border is something every administration should achieve. So it's ridiculous to let Stephen Miller cast himself as a paragon of this. He helped create the conditions we see today, and his claims here are just false. Embarrassing, @playbookdc. https://twitter.com/...
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National Investigative Reporter, NY — 
Business & Gaming Reporter, NV — 
Coastal Climate Reporter, SC — 
Environment & Energy Reporter, CT — 
Coordinating Editor, OR — 
Editor, Remote US — 
Business Reporter, WA — 
Editor-in-Chief, AZ — 
