What the hell is happening

0:00I think maybe you don't understand what you're buying. and maybe that's why there's a disconnect here on value sure lecture me volter guy hey took a big swing hey guys it's andrea dominick here with emily freelander at the culture journalist back for another subscriber only bonus episode this week we are returning to the media bloodbath redux talking about how much like the elevator and the shining the blood has continued to pour from layoffs and other sort of dire circumstances surrounding journalism and media right now. And, you know, we just need to kind of unload. So I know that it's been kind of like rolling bad news for some time now, not just in tech, but in media and advertising as well.

0:53But let's talk about like why the last two weeks were particularly bad um the first day funnily enough that i want to raise is 420 yeah we published our last offline recs with lindsey meharry and mary carrion that was this delightful 420 earth day celebration extremely offline recs yeah yeah extremely offline extremely Streamily, we want to go in the forest and hug a treat. So check that out. But kind of just right around the time that we published, all hell started to break loose. And we were like talking in the text thread we had about it. Yeah, I guess we've sort of unceremoniously dubbed 420 Hell Day.

1:41If it was ever a day to need to partake in some things to help you relax. Yeah, so that was a day of all the big BuzzFeed and Insider layoffs. BuzzFeed cut 15 % of their staff. They shuttered, this is to me the most disturbing part, they shuttered BuzzFeed News, which has literally won that organization Pulitzers. The layoffs impact everything from their business teams to content admin, their tech teams. And if that wasn't enough, that was also the same day that a certain Mr. Musk decided to remove all the blue checks from Twitter, starting the great calling of the blue checks and also being throttling substack links on the platform.

2:29I think what it was was we actually published this post that we're talking about with Mary and Lindsay. And we go on Twitter to post it. And it just populates the link and not an actual card, like with the photo and the headline. And I'm like, what the hell is going on here? And then I look on, I search Substack on Twitter and I see that other people, like anyone who's posting these links, the same thing is happening. and then also people weren't able to like retweet the tweets or comment on them and i think there were reports that if you search substack on twitter nothing came up or something um for some people and then yes this is also the day that he you know ha ha ha on 420 he's removing the blue checks which you know blue checks are complicated i think they've become synonymous obviously in elon's mind and a lot of the conservatives mind it's this like kind of elitist badge of superiority that journalists are into having right not not something that actually is like you know any kind of verification to like help you know affirm the authenticity and accuracy of your news sources no no no it's a status symbol which is ironic because like now of course with the whole payment system it's like literally just a status symbol it's like the opposite of what it was intended for that's a good point yeah i mean i think what people don't talk about as much but it's upsetting to me is that part of the pitch of the twitter blue is that you're paying to have greater reach or whatever and i'm not sure if actually under the hood this has actually changed with people who formerly had the blue check but it's essentially saying that like journalists making you know what is free content for this platform so that's like how a lot of us see it we're making content we post it on there we have to do it for our jobs we don't get paid for it and now we have to pay for the right to have our work be shown to more people so this is why it was so insulting yeah i mean it's like it's literally like social media payola you know and i mean maybe to an extent what this does is kind of like lay that to bear when like you said these machinations were already kind of at play with the algorithm and stuff like that before but a lot of people have grown to use twitter as their main news feed or source of news because you can kind of skim through and see articles and their headlines and what's being presented and now it's just like ha ha ha took that away from you now you gotta like it's like going after a community of like independent writers and creators on Substack.

5:12Yeah. They're also losing their jobs right now. Like he doesn't, I don't know if Elon is aware of this dimension or if he's hyper aware of it and it's just like burn it all down. I hate journalists, but it definitely felt like on that day when the Blue Shack thing and especially the Substack thing with the independent writers who often don't have that like sort of institutional support behind them that was just so cruel it really is it's just going after like the lowest hanging fruit it's like all right dude you're gonna go after independent and public media like npr even who's you know entire annual budget is like 1.3 percent of your net worth as a person like cool man slow clap sick burn bruh it's just like what are you doing so okay 420 was hell day then all right flash forward eight days 428 last triday emily what happened on that day vice announced massive layoffs which were heavily targeting vice news which is something we don't usually hear and shuttering its flagship tv show vice news tonight which again has like a ton of emmys it's a good show yeah it's just so weird also like that oh buzzfeed is closing its news division so vice what was its news division yeah and it's just like what what qualifies as like value anymore if not like these two properties who have gone on to win like the very highest awards you can get in your field it gives me vertigo and that's it for the free preview version of this episode.

6:55There's lots more ahead. We get into what popular narratives about the state of media are getting wrong, what the bear market means for those who will get to tell the story of 2010's digital media, and how that story will be told, and the curious case of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, a bipartisan bill that's making its way through Congress that big tech seems to be doing everything in its power to stop and probably really doesn't want you to know about. You can get full access to all of that and help stand up to said big tech by becoming a paid subscriber for just five bucks a month over at theculturejournalist.substack.com.

7:36Also, if you're a media worker or journalist who has lost work or been laid off, we will happily send you this episode for free. Just email us at theculturejournalist at substack.com or hit us up on socials at The Culture Journalist.