When media companies misread the moment
What a year this week has been, right?
Keeping this one short because it’s Friday and our brains are fried. At least mine is. But that could just be because my two-year-old discovered he can launch himself out of his crib, so the past two nights he’s slept on the floor in our room, which means not much sleep on my end. At least I bribed the five-year-old to stay in her bed last night. Parenting, I’m learning, is just stringing along Pyrrhic victories.
Speaking of Pyrrhic victories…
As we watch society grapple with race, take note not just of the brands that are glomming onto the protests, but the media companies who put out messages of support only to ignore how they actually treat their black/Latinx/non-white people.
Refinery29, for example, put out a statement yesterday after former employees raised issues of the way the media outlet treated them in the past.
NBC posted a message of support, which rings kind of hollow after the company allegedly fired Gabriell Union from America’s Got Talent. Yesterday, a complaint:
Michael Love Michael, who resigned this week and was the last remaining black editor, outside the company’s social media editor, showed their email exchange between them and the company’s CEO:
BuzzFeed staffers also took to Twitter to highlight the delta between what the company says and what it does.
Read this thread:
And look for other media companies to jump in the fray with platitudes of equality, setting up panel discussions with black people to talk about race without addressing their own problems. For example, having an edit staff fully made up of white people.
You can bring on diversity and inclusion experts to address the symptoms, but when you create hostile work environments that prevent actual diversity and inclusion, you’re not affecting the cause. It’s easy to point the lens elsewhere before looking in the mirror.
Or to quote one of my favorite childhood movies, “Police Academy 3,”:
“In America, talk is cheap.” :
Related, Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, posted today:
I have resigned as a member of the reddit board, I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate, and I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and I’m starting with a pledge of $1M to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp.
Of course, publishers and advertisers aren’t the only ones having these discussions. Business Insider yesterday has a good piece on agency-land and the disconnect between reality and perception, but also offers up solutions.
Thank you for allowing me into your inbox today, and every day. If you have any tips, or thoughts about the newsletter, drop me a line. See you on Monday. Hopefully.
Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On”
Some interesting links:
Why The Killing of George Floyd Sparked an American Uprising (Time)
Slack partners with Amazon to take on Microsoft Teams (The Verge)
Layoffs hit 8% of The Athletic staff (Axios)
Instagram says you need permission to embed someone’s public photos (ArsTechnica)
Old and new media continue to be dogged by ‘both sides’ philosophy (CNBC)
MediaMath explores a possible sale (Digiday)