It's Tuesday: Layoffs, Unions & Billionaires oh my!
But first, another boys in shorts sighting...Issue #121
T.S Elliot’s famous poem, “The Wasteland” begins like this:
“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land…”
I get it. Here in flyover country, April is something of a tease. A warm wind will come in from the west. Dirty grey snowbanks melt into puddles and the ground softens, crocuses and tulips push up through the muck. Then, because it’s April, and it’s flyover country, it freezes and we get 10 inches of snow. School is canceled, there’s pile up on the inbound Edens, and Northwest Indiana is buried under three feet of lake effect snow.
While that sounds terrible, I beg to differ with the poet.
April is just a tease. Out here on the prairie by the lake, the cruelest month is not April, but January. February lands a close second. You see, in the run up to January we have September apples and colorful leaves. October gives us Halloween celebrations followed by the cool snap of November, football, Turkey Trot races and Thanksgiving. We’re excited for Winter when the calendar rolls over to December. The first snow is always pretty and then there’s all the holidays attached to the month. Our neighborhood brightens up the long dark nights with holiday lights. If you ignore the heavy, suffocating coat you have to wear, it’s mostly festive.
But January? Get back to work! Take down the holiday lights! We may have passed Winter Solstice, but the nights are long, the days cold, the sky is grey and unrelenting. Looking east towards the lake in the early morning, you can see the clouds stacking up. They look like tall jagged mountain. Grey and threatening.
And through it all? Boys wearing shorts. The first sighting, when you’re out bundled up in your bulky coat, hat, scarf and gloves is jarring. Out here where we’re just getting over two straight weeks of sub-zero cold, it’s difficult to understand who they are and why they wear shorts 24/7/365. I mean, most of us will eventually wear shorts and t-shirts, but in the flatlands you ideally you want the temperature to get up above freezing.
Well, what do you think? Is January the cruelest month and are you ready for it to be over? I know I am.
one__A few more thoughts on Substack and Nazi Banquet Halls
So, do I like Neo-Nazis, racists, white supremacists and anti-LGBTQ writers because I still am writing from Substack? No, of course not. Am I looking for other options? Yes. Yes I am.
I came across two interesting pieces on Substack from writers Ken White and Max Read who have explanations make some sense. Take a look. What do you think?
One reason I’m still here is the “network effect”. For several years I wrote a periodic blog on WordPress and it mostly felt like I was writing to myself and a few friends and colleagues. Eventually I stopped writing because it was taking up time and not delivering anything in response.
I was almost ready to drop this newsletter when I was at Revue because I seemed to have hit a similar wall. The switch to Substack doubled my audience in one year and doubled again by year two. It also opened up several opportunities for me that would not have occurred where it not for the visibility I’ve gained on Substack. Since the start of the year, the audience and positive interactions have grown even more.
None of this means that I will remain here or that I approve of the founders tech-bro “edgy” take on freedom of speech. I find their stance unsupportable. No, you can’t have a nice “discussion” with people whose world view revolves around the elimination of others.
two__One day strikes at media companies
If you had told me when I started working in the magazine world that one day, 400 Condé Nast employees would stage a one-day walk out to protest the layoff of a significant piece of their workforce, I would have told you that you were dreaming.
But it’s true. The unionizing of media workforces in this decade is a direct response to the continued consolidation of the media world in all of its aspects: Newsprint, wired television, radio, OTT, print and digital magazines, web, apps. There are fewer opportunities for journalists and the support staff that make their reporting available to the public. We have fewer people holding the reins of power that make those companies the conduits to information.
At some point, something will have to break. Some accommodation will need to be made. You have to have hope that it will actually aid those who need it and not hand over even more power to fewer people.
three__So, is Sports Illustrated gone or not?
One thing that the NY Post is very good at, is covering the doings of the magazine industry. According to a recent article, the question of the illustrious magazine’s future lies in a standoff between the holder of the Sports Illustrated brand, and the current CEO of the brands’ license holder, The Arena Group.
Manoj Bhargava, the current CEO of Arena Group is reported to have wanted a new licensing deal with the Authentic Brands Group, the owner of Sports Illustrated. To force a new deal, he apparently withheld a quarterly payment to ABG and in response, ABG pulled the license. According to the article, both sides are still talking.
Along those lines, sports and media reporters Kevin Draper and Benjamin Muller published a thoughtful piece in the New York Times last week discussing the impact the magazine’s covers once had on the sports world. The writers interviewed several of the magazine’s former photographers about the famous cover shots they got. It’s well worth the read.
four__Time Magazine lays off thirty employees
According to a CNN report, the layoffs represented some 30% of their union represented employees with most of them coming from the Time for Kids publication.
What I really would like to know is why companies think that telling departing staffers that the layoffs will make the company more “sustainable” or “drive their business forward.” Is that supposed to make them feel better? Because their sacrifice will keep their deskmates employed?
Unsurprisingly, the union responded pointing out that:
“Audiences can read the difference between a media company that invests in journalists and one that invests in executive compensation and outside consultants. We all—readers and workers alike—deserve better.”
So, maybe that Taylor Swift cover didn’t save the magazine?
five__Anne Hathaway walks out of a Vanity Fair shoot…
It’s remarkable how many Hollywood rom-coms and network comedies from the 1980’s and 1990’s featured aspiring journalists working at magazines. As a person who in real life worked either directly for or adjacent to magazines, I’ve always laughed at how unrealistic those shows and movies were.
So it was fun to find an article in Variety last week reporting that Anne Hathaway, the star of a rom-com about a legendary magazine, walked out of a Vanity Fair photo shoot - the very magazine that the rom-com she was in purported to be.
No, this wasn’t some spoiled Hollywood star having a snit about the photographer or the clothes she was supposed to wear for the shoot. To her credit, Ms. Hathaway walked out because she learned that some 400 Condé Nast employees were holding a 24 hour work stoppage (see Item #2), and as a member of the SAG-AFTRA union, she didn’t want to remain on the wrong side of a picket line.
Your moment of magazine zen…
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Our AI Sign-Off Editor is back on the job! Here’s how they want us to spend our week:
“In closing, let's synergize our way into a stellar week, colleagues! May this morning bring coffee brewing at Mach speed and calendars blessed with concise huddles. Let's optimize our commutes to avoid traffic bottlenecks and prioritize face-to-face interactions that spark innovative connections with our fellow go-getters. And remember, even the most focused workflow deserves a pit stop at the snack oasis – so replenish your mental bandwidth with a bounty of delectable treats. Here's to a week brimming with productivity, punctuated by moments of connection and fueled by delicious reinforcements. Onward and upward, team! ☕️ “
