Skepticism is good. Retirement benefits are good. Corporate portraiture is bad (sorry CJR). And it's always hard to assess the outlook for private companies that don't disclose their audited income statements and balance sheets. But I wish that any critique of Defector's model more concretely acknowledged the very bad and obvious problems with taking the opposite approach -- that is, the bottom-line-driven model that forced Defector's founders to quit en masse at Deadspin and stripped readers of their favorite website overnight. Tellingly, I haven't heard complaints from Defector's actual current or former employees (perhaps I've missed those). I can't say the same for fast-growth, big-debt models at places like Vice, Buzzfeed and Vox. A co-op is messy. But it's ultimately a choice, one in which journalists bet that their jobs will be stable and allow them to keep doing satisfying journalism. That is the same bet that managers (including those from lower-income backgrounds) have to calculate: Take more money now, or go somewhere with less private equity influence?
As I tried to say, if this works for a particular group of employees, good for them, although I do think there are issues. And it does seem significant that the very employees celebrated a couple of years ago are the ones who decided to leave recently.
Beyond that, I certainly agree that models supported entirely by advertising are unattractive (a point I’ve made repeatedly, including in past columns on the failures of Vice and BuzzFeed specifically) and that private equity owners have proven inhospitable to the objective of sustainable journalism.
For sure. Your past writing on this stuff has been clear-eyed and sharp. I just think it’s important to frame some of these new journalist-owned outlets as a direct response to a much worse alternative.
Excellent column. Thanks.
The Nation accepts ads and has a specific webpage with its ad policy. I noted this when I called out the nearly-imploded Texas Observer for not accepting ads. (It still doesn't.) https://beloblogging.blogspot.com/2023/03/rip-texas-observer-not-right-now-but.html
Yes, such policies are not unusual:
https://www.propublica.org/advertising/
Skepticism is good. Retirement benefits are good. Corporate portraiture is bad (sorry CJR). And it's always hard to assess the outlook for private companies that don't disclose their audited income statements and balance sheets. But I wish that any critique of Defector's model more concretely acknowledged the very bad and obvious problems with taking the opposite approach -- that is, the bottom-line-driven model that forced Defector's founders to quit en masse at Deadspin and stripped readers of their favorite website overnight. Tellingly, I haven't heard complaints from Defector's actual current or former employees (perhaps I've missed those). I can't say the same for fast-growth, big-debt models at places like Vice, Buzzfeed and Vox. A co-op is messy. But it's ultimately a choice, one in which journalists bet that their jobs will be stable and allow them to keep doing satisfying journalism. That is the same bet that managers (including those from lower-income backgrounds) have to calculate: Take more money now, or go somewhere with less private equity influence?
Thanks for this.
As I tried to say, if this works for a particular group of employees, good for them, although I do think there are issues. And it does seem significant that the very employees celebrated a couple of years ago are the ones who decided to leave recently.
Beyond that, I certainly agree that models supported entirely by advertising are unattractive (a point I’ve made repeatedly, including in past columns on the failures of Vice and BuzzFeed specifically) and that private equity owners have proven inhospitable to the objective of sustainable journalism.
For sure. Your past writing on this stuff has been clear-eyed and sharp. I just think it’s important to frame some of these new journalist-owned outlets as a direct response to a much worse alternative.