The BuzzFeed Layoffs as Democratic Emergency
Digital media has always been a turbulent business, but last week’s layoffs suggest a reason for panic.
Opinion Columnist
৩০ জানুয়ারী, ২০১৯
Panic mode.
I would have thought that with President Trump threatening to declare an emergency and use executive power to build his wall that people would be careful about using the word "emergency," but I just ran into this headline in The New York Times:
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I would remove a particular incidence of "-ic" from that headline.
At least he spelled “Democratic” with a capital 'D.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGgJPmOUmDU
Emergency everybody to get from street
"Consider: We are in the midst of a persistent global information war. We live our lives on technologies that sow distrust and fakery, that admit little room for nuance and complication, that slice us up into ignorant and bleating tribes. It is an era that should be ripe for journalists and for the business of journalism — a profession that, though it errs often, is the best way we know of inoculating ourselves against the suffocating deluge of rumor and mendacity."
Soap opera women or nothing. That's the rule since Jessica in the Well.
It wasn't an emergency for coal workers when Obama was telling them, "Learn to code".
And I guess since Farhad Manjoo thinks it is; isn't his picture then "Poverty Porn". Certainly, I would think the article itself is "Poverty Porn". How much porn should we expect to see today? I guess it is something to do when it is cold outside.
America Media, Inc., is still publishing.
Consider: We are in the midst of a persistent global information war. We live our lives on technologies that sow distrust and fakery, that admit little room for nuance and complication, that slice us up into ignorant and bleating tribes.
I, for one, congratulate BuzzFeed for having stayed out of the fray on that one and just delivering us the straight news.
OMG, it gets better:
It’s the cuts at BuzzFeed that sting most. You may regard the site as a purveyor of silly listicles and inane quizzes. I think of it as a relentlessly experimental innovator: It’s the site that gave us The Dress and published The Dossier, a company that pushed the rest of the industry to regard the digital world with seriousness and rigor.
Has there ever been a more damaging turd loaf of fake news than “The Dossier”?
This has the feel of a manufactured crisis.
everything BuzzFeed can do for them can also be done by the online hordes who’ll make content without pay.
It’s all Althouse’s fault for “blogging real good for free.” <<-- Joni Mitchell reference.
“We live our lives on technologies that sow distrust and fakery, that admit little room for nuance and complication, that slice us up into ignorant and bleating tribes.”
This is like the school shooter blaming the gun.
Liberal media outlet no. 452 goes under.
Yawn. We can have 100 liberal media outlets and 1000 liberal reporters or we can have 50% of that.
Does it make a difference?
everything BuzzFeed can do for them can also be done by the online hordes who’ll make content without pay.
What about your carefully-cultivated sources and layers of editors and fact checkers?
Yeah, when you remove all those you have to face the fact that Trump’s tweets are more entertaining and at least as factual.
At what point do all of these "journalists" figure out that they are the baddies? They need to report the 5 W's (who, what, when, where and why - I learned that in an 8th grade journalist class) and then maybe go on to pontificating.
But they won't because it is all about narrative and how they can further the "orange man bad" meme and trash everybody that disagrees with them politically.
I hope they all get fired and then find out that they can't even get a job at McDonalds becasue they aren't skilled enough to flip burgers.
Now, The Weekly Standard Going under or Kevin Williamson being fired -
Man, that was hilarious.
I admit I pay the $2 a week for the Times, it’s worth it for the laughs.
"Panic Wall"
Cry me a fuckin river.
Megan McArdle has stepped out from behind the WaPo paywall to write this reflaction on the collapse of journalism
More mental masturbation from Farhad Manjoo.
Color me surprised.
This "emergency" is on a par with Governor William J. LePetomayne telling his ass-kissing yes men cohort that "We have to protect our phony-baloney jobs!"
Losing the "journalists" of Buzzfeed and those other liberal propaganda mills is like losing a few warships to enemy action. Troubling, because it means the enemy is getting some licks in even if you still have plenty of ships still afloat.
Fake News layoffs deserve fake tears.
Little Farhad is a skilled practitioner of a grift that didn't exist when he was born, but here he is, bemoaning the end of a way of life. If the thought of your own imminent extinction depresses you, little Farhad, just that pretend you are a white person. Then your passing will be an occasion for celebration, right?
Thank you come again, Farhad Manjoo!
He definitely looks more like a monkey than an ape.
"We are in the midst of a persistent global information war. We live our lives on technologies that sow distrust and fakery, that admit little room for nuance and complication, that slice us up into ignorant and bleating tribes."
But enough about Buzzfeed...
Althouse doesn't have to worry about "the emergency", because she learned about law. Maybe the journalist could try going back to school and learning a real trade. Better yet, maybe they could try working a real trade, and then retire from said trade to enter journalism. I hear it is a bit more successful when done in that order.
The lack of good journalism is indeed a problem for democracy, and it has been for decades.
1. The New York Times used to deride Buzzfeed as garbage journalism.
2. But then it realized Buzzfeed et al were stealing eyeballs from the New York Times digital presence.
3. So, the New York Times tried to become as trashy as Buzzfeed. Which it did (only it wasn't nearly as good at it).
4. Only now the NYT discovers that Buzzfeed has been losing money since forever, with no end in sight??
Too much drama. Too little drama. Pause for dramatic effect. Just the right quantity and quality of drama. Exit stage left.
“All of us wanna know, just as much as I wanna know, who's responsible? ... But don't worry: your food, housing, insecurity will be guaranteed by your Department of Redundancy Department and the Natural Guard...So please, stay where you are...
Don't move, and don't panic! Don't take off your shoes! Jobs is on the way!
Thank God his last name isn’t Manjoos, Manjuice or worse Manchowder.
Toxicly masculine.
Isn't Farhad Manjoo the author of that op-ed on open borders that literally had the NYT commentariat in a panic, lest his nonsense usher in 10,000 years of Der TrumpenReich?
I suppose he deserves credit for a rare outbreak of reality-based thinking in the comments section. One of the most entertaining reactions I can recall in the NYT.
Is that how we are supposed to be regarding it... "The Dossier"
Fakest of the fake news.
I doubt Megan McCardle has ever written a local news story. In fact, most of the laid off journalists probably focused on national stories. Yet most of them and their slant and writings on national topics are indistinguishable from one another. So why do we need thousands or even hundreds reporting pretty much the same things in the same way. Does not Mccardle see that? She laments the loss of so much "journalistic capacity". I had a good laugh at that one. If the main networks shitcanned the current hosts of their Sunday Morning News shows, would anyone care how or who replaced them? IOW, would news consumers really miss Chuck Todd or George Stepanoulous or Chris Wallace? Of course they wouldn't.
NBC Universal is still into Buzzfeed to the tune of $400M (cumulative) in the last 4 years, when they laughably "valued" Buzzfeed at....hold onto your hats....$1.7Billion!!
I kid you not!
https://www.recode.net/2016/10/20/13352900/nbcuniversal-buzzfeed-investment
I would happily pay for a good newspaper covering national news, I just haven't found one, and I've been looking for close to 20 years.
Have they learned to code?
That might be useful.
Good news- the democratics are hiring smoozers, butt sniffers, and liars. Right?
When coal miners and manufacturing company workers lose their jobs it's just the free market at work, a natural symptom of globalism, and perfectly OK--anyone whining about not being able to work in their father's industry for their father's (relative) wage needs to grow up, rent a Uhaul to move out of their dying town, and learn to code.
When journalists lose their jobs it's a damn national emergency. When the Weekly Standard folds (after losing money for, what, decades?) it's a tragedy. When a reporter's salary won't allow the CONSUMPTION CHOICE of living in super-expensive NY or San Francisco I'm supposed to weep for the hardship those brave firefighters and democracy-savers.
Fuck. Off. If "we" all have to "just deal with it" when the market decides our jobs aren't profitable then so do you, assholes.
It was all fun and games when outsourcing & importing cheap labor was hurting OTHER people's industries...
I usually like Mcardle, but she fails to address why many people do not subscribe, and that is the issue of content. If you are paying for news but all you get is opinion, you'd naturally prefer toget that for free, or not at all.
The headline doesn't answer the most important question for me, the reader. Namely:
Just who is Farhad Manjoo and why should I care what his opinion is?
Just who is Farhad Manjoo
That's not a name! That's an anagram contest waiting to happen!!
Since telling journalists to "learn to code" is so offensive, let's tell them "learn to weld"
Pays better, probably more interesting
John Henry
Manjew > You may regard the site as a purveyor of silly listicles and inane quizzes.
Thank you, I will.
> slice us up into ignorant and bleating tribes
We reflect our representatives.
> We live our lives on technologies that sow distrust and fakery
Is he saying Twitter changed human nature?
Blogger AJ Lynch said...
I doubt Megan McCardle has ever written a local news story. In fact, most of the laid off journalists probably focused on national stories. Yet most of them and their slant and writings on national topics are indistinguishable from one another. So why do we need thousands or even hundreds reporting pretty much the same things in the same way. Does not Mccardle see that? She laments the loss of so much "journalistic capacity". I had a good laugh at that one. If the main networks shitcanned the current hosts of their Sunday Morning News shows, would anyone care how or who replaced them? IOW, would news consumers really miss Chuck Todd or George Stepanoulous or Chris Wallace? Of course they wouldn't.
I agree with AJ, I always viewed all of these talking heads as absolutely interchangeable.
I was therefore greatly surprised to see the outrageous salaries paid to the likes of Matt Lauer or Megyn Kelly.
In my opinion, you could go to your local dinner theater and hire an actor with more gravitas and charm than the current news-readers. That actor would probably be tickled pink to do the job for $100,000/year, compared to the $20,000,000/year that the networks pay to the currents twits.
Learn to mine coal.
Hey Pelosi, how about you spend the billions of our money that you "saved" from not funding "Trump's wall" on bailing out those poor things who can't write, can't report honestly, and can't learn to write codes? They have been your cheer leaders and unpaid propagandists for so long, they should be paid. Just steal a little bit more from us to reward your loyal running dogs.
Farhad Manjoo is the guy who wrote a high-profile NYT column last year where he described his experience with "unplugging" from social media for two months, but then someone noticed that he didn't actually "unplug." https://www.cjr.org/analysis/farhad-manjoo-nyt-unplug.php
To be fair to Manjoo, he has written some perceptive analysis columns about tech and the tech industry over the years (aka "he has said stuff I agree with now and then"), but he also has had his share of shaky moments.
Pillage Idiot, how about hiring a few readers, each reads the news for a month and paid $10,000? Need to spread the loots around, it is the socialist thing to do, you know?
The Chinese can turn out anti-American propaganda faster, cheaper and better than we can make it here. Its that simple.
If you sign up for a newsletter from a reform group in your city you can get all the local news and controversies covered quite well. Then you sign up for a church bulletin, check your local school website, sign up for your local college or university newsletter. You'll be well informed locally. It doesn't take time because you only need to check once a week on most of it. Then blogs for opinion. There's a problem about a fracture between local and national "news" and a problem about who is going to gather foreign stories. But the current press is doing such an awful biased lying credulous job with these larger stories that there's no reason to try to keep it alive to "gather news." They themselves have specifically said that since 2016 they don't see that as their jobs. That is the last true story they covered. Since then it's propaganda and we don't need to pay for or read it; it's predictable lies; it's provocations. Yes, we should answer them on samizdat blogs but no, the "official news journalism" will not cover our answers. See Kavanaugh, Covington, General Flynn, Scott Walker, Donald Trump. So why give MSM's money or care if they go under? It's like caring whether Typhoid Mary stays alive and free to go where she pleases spreading a disease to which she personally is immune.
Wisconsin elected Tony Evers governor; he said he would "get" Foxconn; Foxconn is now changing its plans to manufacture in Wisconsin; 13,000 good jobs lost. Why? Evers did this to Wisconsin but do you think the Journal Sentinel is going to cover the consequences of hating on manufacturers and creating a vicious anti-business climate? How are is the Journal Sentinel doing on covering Venezuela? The Yellow Vests? Milwaukee's unemployment rate in the black community? The Democrats hate business, strangely, business leaves Milwaukee. Foxconn leaves Racine. Then, no jobs. Funny how that works.
And Althouse calls this the Age Of That's Not Funny. THIS is funny!
Manjoo spoke of scary raw numbers. McCardle speaks of percentages.
"About 15 percent of the newsroom will be laid off at BuzzFeed; 7 percent at the media division of Verizon, which owns AOL, HuffPost and Yahoo."
For comparison from personal experience, Swiss Re laid off 40% of Lincoln Re's workforce (~500) on the very day their acquisition closed. Just saying.
Can't even line the birdcage... It would be interesting to see how their lives change after the layoffs. Kool Kids on the rocks! Suck it up.
We live our lives on technologies that sow distrust and fakery, that admit little room for nuance and complication, that slice us up into ignorant and bleating tribes.
So while citing "sowing distrust" and "slicing us up" as negatives we need to overcome Manjoo laments the demise of...an organization whose core mission is to slice us up.
Media dysfunction continues.
"you could go to your local dinner theater and hire an actor with more gravitas and charm than the current news-readers."
There are dozens of people on Youtube, that I know of, with more charm and poise than the TV talking heads, and moreover they produce their own material. And I'm just talking of subsets of hobbyists. And if they have quit their day jobs, they live on Youtube ads and, often, Patreon.
Our experts are all in rush to sell tulip bulbs.
While we are talking BuzzFeed, have they ever responded any further to the "Trump said, 'lie'" story, or is that still hanging out there on their site as a valid story?
I think BuzzFeed's desperation in airing both the Pee gate and "Trump told Cohen to Lie" stories explains why they are burning up during re-entry. They were hail mary desperation passes for clicks that got picked off in the end zone. I think the public square will be healthier once they are dead and gone. Am I a terrible person for hanging around to see the survivors bobbing around the sea? Why not have the DNC subsidize them since they are carrying water for them anyway 24/7?
Gk1: "I think BuzzFeed's desperation in airing both the Pee gate and "Trump told Cohen to Lie" stories explains why they are burning up during re-entry."
Careful now. You don't want to upset Conspiracy Inga, who bit hard on each one of those conspiracies and many, many others.
Ann misses the point so consistently that it's a feature, not a bug: here she shows that her beloved POTUS is so far in her head that she imagines he owns the very word emergency, which might be news to the people who make and answer 911 calls.
She also mistrues the very meaning of emergency, which is something that needs immediate attention. Instead, she thinks the president has some good ideas, even if they're lies.
Also, she insinuates a puerile view about journalism, insofar as she doesn't show that she has ever merited a job in a first rate newsroom. It's a profession that's a complete mystery to her, besides a tic for copy editing. For goodness sakes, the Daily Mail! It's very likely she doesn't know personally any journalists, or at least doesn't talk to them anymore.
@John Pickering -- Do you actually have a point-of-view on the topic blogged or are you shouting at clouds?
Pickering: "It's very likely she doesn't know personally any journalists, or at least doesn't talk to them anymore."
LOL
I dont know Dan Rather.
Ergo Dan Rather and CBS did not construct a hoax National Guard story complete with forged documents to throw an election to the dems.
I do not know John Pickering, but its clear he has Absolute Zero understanding of economics and Supply and Demand.
One of the media's problems is they hire way too many far left 1st generation immigrants who hate America.
John Pickering,
Have you learned to code?
Because you have not learned to be interesting.
You should try coding, bro.
Buzzfeed is owned by NBC which is owned by Comcast and Comcast does not like to lose money sp you should expect many more changes in its family of media companies.
You know, if you don’t learn to code, you can help take orders or direct customers to the kiosks and maybe help the guy who comes in to fix the kiosk.
Lots to do, Farhad Manjoo.
And then maybe talk about equity and politics and social justice to the kids working the line and the fryer and the drive thru.
Mr. Popular!
Hey, did any of you guys see Gravity? I reviewed Gravity with Sandra Bullock for Slate in 2013. Pretty big deal when it came out.
‘Hey Farhad, I’m gonna need you on the drive thru with Kaylee okay’
Jonah Goldberg: "merited a job in a first rate newsroom."
Is that anything like earning a position in a 4 star Whorehouse?
"It's a profession that-"
Technically, it is not a profession. And today's journalists ard scum. They are pretentious, smug, both ignorant and stupid, and out of touch with Middle America. At best, they are effective "democrat operatives with bylines".
And once you encounter the Murray-Gellman Effect, you realize that journalists get so much wrong about everything tbey cover, you might as well be reading ficton.
I hope tbere are even more cullings. Good riddance.
And don't stand on a street corner with a sign announcing you are a laid off journalist. My brakes have been glitchy.
(..first rate newsroom. LOL. What a disgrace)
Go on along Jonah. I'm sure you have a busy day of plaigerism planned, stealing from AceofSpades.
.
This is the first time I have ever seen the words "panic" and "emergency" used to refer to something unexpected but very, very good.
Hell, most of these whole organizations are useless if not actually destructive, so why should I moan that they get rid of the worst of the worst?
*********************************
A riff on the old joke about sending 500 lawyers to the bottom of the Atlantic:
Q: What do you call it when, "Two hundred workers, including dozens of journalists, were given the slip last week at BuzzFeed. About 800 people are losing their jobs in the media division of Verizon, the telephone company that owns Yahoo, HuffPost, TechCrunch and many other 'content brands.' And Gannett... is letting go of 400."?
A: A start.
Fen said...
Jonah Goldberg: "merited a job in a first rate newsroom."
Is that anything like earning a position in a 4 star Whorehouse?
**********************
No, a first-rate newsroom is like cleaning up after the johns in the cheapest whorehouse in town.
Harvard's faculty club, now THAT is your 4-star Whorehouse.
More like Nemesis.
insofar as she[Althouse] doesn't show that she has ever merited a job in a first rate newsroom.
Right, she’s not nearly doctrinaire enough.
John Pickering, that is some bizarre reasoning right there in that comment. It sounds like stuff an eight year might make up because he’s mad he has to clean his room. It’s completely childish. As if you cannot possibly see that there is another point of view to take seriously.
John, is it an “emergency” when the most popular pro-Trump meme site is demonitized by YouTube without explanation? No? Then neither is this. Maybe if he had mentioned the way that Twitter is choking traffic to conservatives and Google is tweaking searches to downgrade conservative points of view I would have taken the whole thing seriously, but it seems more like a lot of bellyaching, as my dad used to call it, about losing weapons in your anti-Trump arsenal.
"Why not have the DNC subsidize them since they are carrying water for them anyway 24/7?"
Think that you will need to look further afield for the money. I think a lot of people wondered going into the 2016 election why the RNC was so flush, and the DNC was nearly bankrupt. Turns out the answer was that the money was going to Crooked Hillary instead, who would then dole it out to the DNC, essentially in trade for operational control of the organization. Covering this up (because that probably made the DNC a legal alter ego for the Clinton campaign, thus resulting in massive campaign finance violations) is a probably a good part of why the Senate Dems have refused for some time to nominate their next FEC member. There are 6 slots on the FEC, but only 4 have been filled, and they are filled in pairs, one by each Senate caucus. A quorum is needed to accept cases, and this means that even 1 FEC member can block taking cases, which is the case with the case against the Clinton campaign, DNC, and 40 state parties that lays out, in extensive spreadsheets, almost $100 million in illegal coordination of campaign contributions among the defendants. Since last summer a case in the DC Circuit trying to force the FEC to act there has been hung up on standing. (Sorry about going a bit OT)
Putting aside politics, BuzzFeed alone puts out so much hot garbage in the guise of 'journalism' that it's no wonder these industry contractions didn't happen sooner.
I mean, how much did Slate pay Heather Schwedel for this nonsense? I hope not much.
There's only so many clicks to go around.
I am SOOOOOOOO not bummed by Buzzfeed's failing.
"That's not a name! That's an anagram contest waiting to happen!!"
Farmhand a Joo!
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