The struggles of journalism, part 387,629,000
Media statistic of the week
What’s going on these days at the New York Times? Quite a lot.
The major headline—good news first: “The New York Times added 190,000 digital subscribers last quarter, driven partly by subscriptions to a bundle of products that includes The Athletic sports site, bringing the company’s total digital subscriber base to nine million.”
Another major headline: “Adjusted operating profit was $54 million, a drop of 11 percent from a year earlier, as the new subscription revenue was offset by higher operating costs and lower advertising revenue.”
“These numbers are worrying for many - subs up to 9.7m but profits down 11pc owing to advertising headwinds. The Athletic losing $7.8m. NYT has scale and resilience to build, but it’s easy to see why so many others are shedding /closing given the market,” tweets Emily Bell.
This past week in the media industry
Vice Media files for bankruptcy
On Monday, Vice Media Group filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“It represents a significant fall from grace from what was once one of the most highly-valued media startups in the internet era, reports Sara Fischer for Axios.
Fischer breaks down the history of Vice, including the fact that six years ago it was valued at $5.7 billion but has struggled in the past year to find bidders willing to pay.
“... as private equity bros put on their best smiles and seek their next victim?” tweets John Voelcker.
This comprehensive breakdown of the media company is a must-read this week.
Over at The Hollywood Reporter, Erik Hayden has more details: “While its largest creditors include Fortress Investment Group (with a $474.6 million claim), there’s several media companies that are listed as top unsecured creditors that aren’t insiders, as outlined in its filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York on Monday. The filing estimates there are more than 5,000 creditors,” he writes. “Among them, CNN Productions is listed as having a $3,798,333 claim, HBO is listed as having a claim of $1,763,157 while A&E Networks is listed as having a claim of $937,500, per the filing.”
For the New York Times, Lauren Hirsch and Benjamin Mullin break down the filing, including the fact that the bankruptcy will not interrupt daily operations for Vice’s businesses.
“The question isn’t why (because nobody was watching/reading) but why it took so long,” tweets Scott Galloway.
“The struggles of journalism, part 387,629,000. As I keep saying, you’ll miss us when we’re gone,” adds Catherine Mayer.
Journalism’s essential value
In a lengthy piece for the Columbia Journalism Review, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger tackles the topic of objectivity in modern journalism.
Sulzberger starts the piece recalling the breaking story in 2018 reported by Adam Goldman and Michael Schmidt when, “The previous spring, [Rod J.] Rosenstein himself had been so concerned about Trump’s erratic behavior that he had suggested secretly recording the president and even raised the possibility of invoking a constitutional mechanism contained in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment that had never been used, to declare Trump unfit and remove him from office.”
Sulzberger wrote:
“As I watched the reaction unfold, I found myself increasingly concerned not just by the growing pressure on independent journalism, but by the troubling demand implicit in the criticism. A leading news organization had discovered that a top law enforcement official had such profound concerns about the fitness of the president of the United States that he discussed whether unprecedented steps should be taken to remove him from office. And many people, even some journalists, wanted this information actively hidden from the public.”
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Many New York Times staffers eagerly shared the piece.
“Like many of my colleagues today, I recommend this @CJR essay by our publisher, AG Sulzberger, on the topic of journalistic independence. It stems from many discussions in and outside the @nytimes about our values & mission, for anyone curious or critical,” tweets Nick Confessore.
But others outside the organization were a bit more skeptical.
“Here's the central tension in this very long essay: Some stuff's off-limits (women's rights, racism, torture) but other stuff (affirmative action, abortion, [unstated, but clearly trans rights]) is fair game,” tweets Daniel Garisto
“AG Sulzberger employs some of the best editors in the world and yet his "journalism must be independent and objective" essay clocks in at 12,500 words, thereby ensuring almost no one is going to read it,” adds Felix Salmon.
“I find myself less interested in the question of How To Be An Objective Journalist and more desperate for an answer to How To Make Money Doing Journalism If You Are Not The New York Times,” says Blake Montgomery.
An update on new media venture The Messenger
The Messenger, Jimmy Finkelstein’s digital news start-up launched this week, reports Charlotte Tobitt for the Press Gazette.
One of their first major pieces? An interview with former president Donald Trump.
“The Messenger, financed with $50m in investor money, has said it will remain free-to-read and that it aims to generate more than $100m in revenue next year, largely through advertising and events. It also reportedly wants to reach more than 100 million monthly readers and plans to have around 550 journalists within a year, Finkelstein told the New York Times,” Tobitt writes.
A few days into the site’s existence, Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton took a look at the type of coverage the media venture has published so far in a piece titled, “No need to shoot The Messenger: Its muddled ideas are doing the job.”
Some of Benton’s takeaways:
“This is a really good breakdown of who is funding and operating The Messenger. Spoiler alert: Republican megadonors,” tweets Zuri Berry.
A few more
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