NIEMAN REPORTS

WHY NEWSROOM UNIONS ARE SURGING

Journalists at legacy and digital newsrooms respond to an industry in crisis with a new wave of organizing by steven greenhouse Contributors The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University Steven Greenhouse (page 32) was www.niemanreports.org a New York Times reporter for 31 years, covering labor and workplace matters from 1995 to 2014. He also served as the Times’s business correspondent in Chicago, as its European economics correspondent in Paris, and as a diplomatic correspondent in Washington. He is the author of “Beaten Down, publisher Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Ann Marie Lipinski Future of American Labor,” to be editor published this August by Knopf. James Geary senior editor Gabe Bullard (page 6) has Jan Gardner worked in public radio for nearly editorial specialist a decade, starting at NPR member Eryn M. Carlson station WFPL in Louisville, Kentucky. Currently, he is a senior staff assistant editor at WAMU in Washington, Shantel Blakely D.C. and was previously the design director of digital content for Pentagram the show “1A,” which is produced editorial offices by WAMU and distributed by NPR. One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, A 2015 Nieman Fellow, Gabe has MA 02138-2111, 617-496-6308, also worked as deputy director [email protected] for digital news at National Geographic. Copyright 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Periodicals postage paid at Mary Louise Schumacher Boston, Massachusetts and (page 16), the 2017 Arts & additional entries Culture Nieman Fellow, is an independent journalist and critic. subscriptions/business She is currently at work on a 617-496-6299, [email protected] documentary film about art critics Subscription $25 a year, in the midst of technological and $40 for two years; cultural transformation. Until add $10 per year for foreign airmail. February 2019, she was the art Single copies $7.50. and architecture critic at the Back copies are available from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Nieman office. where she covered culture for the Please address all subscription Midwestern newspaper for more correspondence to: than 18 years. One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2111 Issac J. Bailey (page 24), a 2014 and change of address information to: Nieman Fellow, is a journalist, P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 author, and race relations seminar ISSN Number 0028-9817 creator and facilitator. He is the Postmaster: Send address changes to author of “My Brother Moochie: Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, Regaining Dignity in the Face of Manchester, NH 03108 Crime, Poverty, and Racism in the American South,” published Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) in 2018, and has contributed to is published in March, June, Politico, CNN.com, Time, and The September, and December by Washington Post. He is a former the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, columnist and senior writer for One Francis Avenue, The Sun News in Myrtle Beach,

Cambridge, MA 02138-2111 South Carolina. OPPOSITE TOP: L.A. TIMES GUILD PRESS BOTTOM: ANDREW HARNIK/THE ASSOCIATED

Members of the Los Angeles Times Guild who, in 2018, voted overwhelmingly to unionize for the first time in the paper’s 137-year history

Contents Spring 2019 / Vol. 73 / No. 2

Features Departments Smart Speaker Use is Growing. 6 cover Live@Lippmann 2 Will News Grow With It? Podcasting pioneers Julie Shapiro and Jake Smart speakers are challenging the Why Newsrooms 32 Shapiro discuss the state of the business, foundations of radio, and news outlets are Are Unionizing Now the importance of audience engagement, racing to find a place on the platform Journalists are saying yes to unions to and brand building By Gabe Bullard lift salary floors, win or improve basic benefits, and provide some cushion to Niemans@Work 4 Visual Arts Journalism: Newsroom 16 the industry’s volatility Documenting the peace process in Pressure and Generational Change By Steven Greenhouse Colombia, live-blogging the stock market, A survey of more than 300 journalists finds changing course leads to a new book visual arts writers and critics addressing How Implicit Bias 24 issues of race, gender, identity—and Works in Journalism Books 40 relevance Avoiding the pitfalls of hidden biases can “Automating the News: How By Mary Louise Schumacher lead to better story selection and more Algorithms Are Rewriting the Media” inclusive reporting By Nicholas Diakopoulos By Issac J. Bailey Nieman Notes 42

Former President Sounding 44 Barack Obama Yoshiaki Nohara walks past his official portrait by artist Kehinde Wiley. Washington Post art critic Philip Kennicott’s review of the Obama portraits garnered more than a million views—proof that arts writing can capture large audiences live@ of the value chain of podcast technol- lippmann ogy—in data analytics, ad tech, and so forth—which means that there are more resources if you’re trying to follow your “The bubble is getting own path, but the filter for breaking into a network or into an organization is higher. bigger, but not bursting” Now, you’re asked, “Why should we sup- port this? Do you have audience? Do you Podcasting pioneers Julie Shapiro have some standing? Do you have some and Jake Shapiro on the state of the traction elsewhere?” business, the importance of audience On the absence of an ad platform Jake: I think it is a double-edged sword. engagement, and brand building Part of what’s protected podcasting from some of the ills of digital media is that it hasn’t had a hyper-efficient advertising network and the lowering of prices and think we hit a tipping point” is On the state of business the gaming of systems that can come with how the findings of a survey examin- Julie Shapiro: Fifty-one percent of peo- that. It’s simultaneously inhibited the total ing podcasting habits was described. ple know what the term “podcast” means, economy of podcasting, but also protected I Nearly one in three people listen to which is more than when Edison Research it from some of the worst attributes. a podcast every month. Last year it counted last year. When you look at these There is no Google of podcast adver- was about one in four. trends, you look at the money coming in, tising. There’s no Facebook of podcast ad- Edison Research’s 2019 Infinite Dial re- you look at the excitement, and you look vertising. In order to advertise, you have to port underscored that podcasting has gone at the creative energy in the space, the in- talk to the publisher. mainstream and that big money has followed. dication to me is, no, we’re not in a bubble If you turn on a prominent podcast plat- Podcasting startup Luminary announced $100 that’s going to burst. The bubble is getting form two years from now and you’re hear- million in funding and plans to offer subscrip- bigger, but not bursting. ing like nine terrible pre-roll commercial tions in its effort to be the Netflix of podcasting. It’s harder and harder for individuals spots and you have to pay to skip them, Over the past year Spotify has increased the to puncture through the noise and have then we’ve arrived at the worst version of number of podcasts it offers and, in March, the a show that has enough listeners that you that scenario. music streaming service acquired podcast com- can support yourself, whether you’re lis- pany Gimlet Media. tener-supported through Patreon or you’re On podcasting vs. public radio To make sense of these developments and big enough to start getting ads. Jake: Podcasts done right are radically to discuss podcasts by journalists, 2019 Nie- There are technologies and companies different than broadcast radio. For a long man Fellow Francesca Panetta, who led The like RadioPublic that are trying to make it time, podcasts were broadcasts that would Guardian’s podcasting team early on, brought possible for every podcaster to earn mon- just be time-shifted over. You’re starting together Jake Shapiro and Julie Shapiro (no re- ey. But what is mostly happening is lots of to see the form and format flow the other lation to each other) for a conversation. Jake money is going to big companies that have way. They’re very different media. Not just Shapiro is co-founder and CEO of RadioPublic, huge staffs, huge budgets, and investment free from the tyranny of the clock, but also a mobile listening platform and marketplace for money. There’s the world of public ra- how you expect an audience to be tuning podcasts that was spun out of PRX. It is an app dio—talent and mission-driven communi- in, what the role of a host is, and the idea and a curated offering of podcasts. ties that started podcasts at stations—and that you’re tuning into a channel which is Julie Shapiro is executive producer of Ra- there’s the more commercial side that is largely just something you can go in and diotopia podcast network from media compa- working with more business-y models and out of versus selecting something that’s ny PRX. She also is executive producer of “Ear venture capitalists. going to be in your AirPods. Hustle,” a podcast that tells stories from with- in San Quentin State Prison in California. A Jake Shapiro: It is increasingly hard to be On pitching a podcast fan of the list genre of podcasting, she named simultaneously excellent at podcasting and Julie: I’m always fighting for a more cre- two favorites: WNYC’s “10 Things That Scare a good entrepreneur and a good marketer. ative use of the form, to break beyond the Me,” which features both well-known and or- It’s also true that a lot of the mechanics of things that are very familiar to people, and dinary people (“this collective tapestry of our podcasting, because we’re only four and to think about what you can do through national mentality right now,” she called it), a half years into the modern industry, are sound that you can’t do on paper, or on a and “An Inventory of Philando Castile’s Car” still pretty primitive. blog post. I want more shows that help you (an “enormous portrait of this man through Certain things that have existed in dig- discover things you didn’t know you were the things in his car”), an episode of Minne- ital media around advertising marketplac- looking for. sota Public Radio’s “74 Seconds” about the es and dynamic ad serving don’t yet exist Always start small. Start carefully, with killing of Castile by a police officer. in podcasting in an obvious way, and you great attention to detail, and a true artistic Panetta started with the business side of have to patch together a bunch of differ- and narrative vision for what you’re do- podcasting: “Is it a bubble waiting to burst?” ent things. All of that’s changing. You’re ing. All the pitch ideas that I get, I think,

Edited excerpts: seeing real-time investment in every step “What’s the core idea in the pitch? Is it ELLEN TUTTLE

2 nieman reports SPRING 2019 Globe could have its own podcasting team. With “The Daily” podcast, The New York Times is an exception, not a pattern. Host Michael Barbaro has the elusive X factor that makes him super compelling in that role. It’s a latent trait. It’s not nec- essarily obvious who’s going to have it. It might be a junior reporter, the staff intern, or somebody you didn’t expect. Internal talent scouting is the most critical piece. Then you assemble the rest of it through training and investing in that capacity. What I love about some of the strategies for newsrooms and newspapers is that podcasting aligns with building trust and a relationship with your subscribers. The New York Times built a hit show so it makes money on advertising, but they’re hoping that it drives subscribers to the pa- per. It’s also created insight into the pro- cess of journalism and brought the bylines to life. They intentionally build that into Jake Shapiro and Julie Shapiro (right) talk podcasts with Francesca Panetta, NF ’19 the production so you’re getting a feel for how hard the work is. That’s building the Times brand. something I’ve never heard before? Did I what you want to do. physically respond to this email?” What catches my eye is a plan for the On the future Once you think you know your audi- engagement side. Like, “These are the ways Jake: There’s anxiety over what would ence, who else might you attract? Push we’re going to stand out. This is what we happen if there’s a winner-take-all model yourself to go beyond the primary audience can do differently than others. These are in podcasting, like if there is a Netflix of you’ve identified. ways we can use the medium to reach out podcasting. What is going to make your show orig- to the audience to come back to us.” Or maybe even worse, if there is what inal to your shop or where you are? You we have in video, which is, “Oh, a great can’t do it well unless you’ve got time, peo- On podcasts by media outlets new show’s out. Now, I have to figure out, ple, expertise, some room to play, to pilot, Jake: Local papers that are doing enter- am I supposed to be subscribing to this to have a lot of iterations, work on things, prising journalism have a great opportunity service or that service? I’ve got four dif- get feedback, and have a strong vision for to develop a podcast. It has to be some- ferent ones, like it’s Netflix versus Hulu what you’re going for from the start. thing you designed in from the beginning, versus HBO versus...” I think a lot of people pitch an idea and and say, “We’re onto something, and we We don’t want to have another situation think, “Here’s an idea,” but that’s where want to start gathering audio.” If you don’t where some private platform is dictating the vision stops. There’s no sense of what it do that, and you’re trying to go back and the business model, owning the audience looks like in the world, and what’s the voice chase it, it’s much harder. relationship, calling the shots; we’re now of it in the world outside of the podcast, in Get a slightly better recording device becoming a supplier, and they will change social spaces? than you already have, and put it a little the rules on us. How can you engage with an audience closer to somebody who’s speaking, instead One great thing about podcasting is that beyond just the content that you’re mak- of getting muffled sound from the back of it’s not yet owned by the major platforms. ing? You have to both zoom out and also the room. There are a bunch of practices Like email, it’s actually one of the few re- be very intentional and zoom into exactly like that that make a lot of sense, given that maining tools that a publisher has to have a particular reporters are already recording direct relationship with the audience. these interviews. Record them with the We’re doing a partnership with Bose thought that they might be used later. Get and their sunglasses with built-in speak- the permissions, if need be, and also get the ers. What we did with them is a very simple person to say who they are on tape. idea called HearMarks, where you can leave “There is no Google Podcasting as a way of cultivating an au- a bookmark in a podcast episode you’re lis- of podcast advertising. dience, sharing the brand of the newsroom, tening to by tapping on your glasses or on There’s no Facebook and getting journalists into the picture is your headphones. of podcast advertising. a real asset, and draws on advantages that You could imagine reading an article newsrooms have. and then walking out the door and being In order to advertise, You will probably need to pull in free- like, “Continue listening,” and it starts you have to talk to lance and outside resources to start with, reading it to you. I think that kind of future the publisher but ultimately a place like The Boston will be coming. 

nieman reports SPRING 2019 3 niemans @work

From Threatened Censorship to Box Offi ce Hit Many Colombians rallied behind a documentary by Margarita Martinez, NF ’09, about the long diffi cult path to peace

was ready for the premiere of my fi lm. I For fi ve years, I’d been working on a behind-the-scenes documentary about the torturous and ultimately successful negotiations between the Colombian A young female FARC rebel fighter rests on a trek in the northwest Andes of Colombia government and the FARC guerrillas. “The Negotiation”—“La Negociación” in an enemy of the peace agreement, which he world on November 27, 2018. Spanish—was scheduled to be presented was without a doubt since he led a coali- At the end of the day, Cine Colombia in 24 movie theaters in 13 cities through- tion urging citizens to vote NO in a refer- restored ticket sales. “The Negotiation” out Colombia in the fall of 2018 by the endum on the agreement.) was a box offi ce hit during the scheduled prestigious Cine Colombia chain. Shortly thereafter, the president of four-day run. Uribe’s protest drove ticket Then former President Álvaro Cine Colombia told Colombia’s most pop- sales as many people went to see the fi lm Uribe tweeted. Two days before the ular radio station that he hadn’t yet de- to protest censorship. premiere, the political leader—now a cided whether to show “The Negotiation.” The five-decade war killed 200,000 senator—charged that the documentary Online ticket sales were halted. people and displaced eight million. It is lacked “objectivity” and asked the movie The backlash was frenzied. In our na- a story I have covered through my career, chain to not show it. tion of 45 million people, there were thou- fi rst as an Associated Press reporter, then Uribe had seen only the trailer, not the sands of tweets, caricatures, magazine and as a fi lmmaker. The question that lingers 90-minute documentary. He asserted that newspaper columns, and Facebook post- is the last one in the documentary: “Will “The Negotiation” accused him of being ings. The censorship of “The Negotiation” peace prevail or will Colombia start yet an enemy of peace. (The trailer said he is was the fi fth most tweeted subject in the another cycle of violence?” 

“Like a went into journalism be- mission from the White House I cause it’s like a box of choco- to reduce the fl ow of Afghan her- Box of lates. If you know what you’re oin dollars to the Taliban. going to get, that takes all the fun I had a straightforward Chocolates” out of it. plan—research and write a book For Elaine I got myself to Afghanistan in about the new kings of hero- 2010 with frequent fl ier miles, a in. Nobody had even printed Shannon, NF few hundred dollars cash from their names, but I’d done enough ’75, knowing my day job, and permission, the reporting to come up with a only one ever granted, to embed short list. These South Asian when to with the contingent of Drug and gazillionaires were a bunch of change course Enforcement Administration dusty 4th century tribesmen paid off with (DEA) agents in the war zone. riding horses, donkeys, and The DEA had quietly surged from Film rights have been acquired camels and wielding satellite a new book six to about 100 personnel on a for “Hunting LeRoux” phones. They were nowhere BOTTOM: PRESS HARPERCOLLINS TOP: RODRIGO ABD/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ASSOCIATED WONG/THE OPPOSITE: ANDY

4 nieman reports SPRING 2019 One day, for example, we created a new fea- Live-Blogging the Stock Market ture, “Crystal Ball,” in which experts reveal Deb Price, NF ’11, is leading a team their hot stock picks. Meanwhile, I have loosened up my headlines, playing off my at the South China Morning Post to art, like when I used a photo of a cowboy offer news average readers can use riding a bucking bull and made our head- line, “Hold on tight, traders. It’s a jumpy morning.” And as we move through the hy are chinese breweries trading coverage of the local property market sets day, we spin off the most important items W up today? The question came in an its sights on becoming the go-to source of or themes into daily stories or features, like email from a reader of the South China news for an international audience. our recent home run on investing in 5G. China Morning Post’s new live stocks blog. Since launching March 20, the blog has Some outlets like Bloomberg and The blog has transformed how we cov- kept readers up on everything from chang- Reuters cover markets extremely closely er mainland China and Hong Kong stock es in analysts’ rating of stocks to what ca- through terminals aimed at professional markets. It is lightning quick, and intensely sino operators are doing to best position traders and others in financial and media focused on market moves as they happen themselves to rake in the biggest pile of circles. But what we are doing is unusual, as well as analysis and tips from experts. chips in splashy Macau. We draw on the providing live coverage of mainland and The blog’s intended audience is mom-and- expertise of our entire business desk, in- Hong Kong markets for average readers pop traders—from Kuala Lumpur to the cluding two reporters based in Shanghai. who want to understand more as they make United States—who are hungry to learn Each day is an opportunity to experiment. investment decisions.  about these important markets. And we take questions from readers. I, the editor of the stock blog and lead- er of its team, put my email address on a morning letter to readers. The “beer” read- er’s question was a good one. We jumped on it, and a short while later, the markets reporter of the day had pulled together an answer—a new cut to the value-added tax was likely to boost profits—and given it a forward spin: Tsingtao Brewery and a few other beer makers were likely to see their shares continue to rally. It was news readers could use. And, for now, while the South China Morning Post has no paywall, it is free. Our 116-year-old publication has been undergoing a digital revolution since it was bought by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group in 2016. The blog is part of that revolution, as what had been a Hong Kong newspaper known for its crackerjack Investors monitor share prices at a brokerage house in Beijing

as sexy and murderous as the with a beginning, middle, and and Al Shabab. I got into the DEA puter,” my friend said. Colombian and Mexican drug kickass endgame. In Afghanistan, Special Operations Division and That’s all I needed to hear. I lords I’d profiled for Time and one or two investigations were found investigators specializing started following the tortuous Newsweek and my 1988 book, coming along slowly. Meanwhile, in trafficking in Africa, the Middle trail of Paul Calder LeRoux. It “Desperados,” but their money I decided to look elsewhere for a East, and Asia. I turned holidays took me five and a half more fed the quagmire. Agents called chocolate-covered cherry. in Istanbul and Paris—stops years, but “Hunting LeRoux,” them “unarrestables” due to I swerved onto the offramp. on the old but still vital French published in February, is exactly their influence with the Afghan Cocaine, heroin, and Mexican Connection—into work trips. what I was after—a chance to ex- power elite and usefulness to co- meth were flooding across Africa One day in 2013, an agent I’d plore a marvelously complicated alition forces. on the way to Europe and the met in my travels told me about criminal mind and the equally The American people de- Middle East. Millions of dirty a new kind of organized crime complex brains of a small band served to know all this, but no dollars were flowing into the leader: brilliant, powerful, with of superb criminal investigators. publisher was eager for a narra- coffers of organized crime and no morals and no conscience. Changing plans, staying loose, tive with so little forward mo- Islamist militants like Hezbollah, “He’s like the guy in the James and following my gut won me ev- tion. I yearned to write a story Al Qaeda in Africa, Boko Haram, Bond movies, always at his com- ery damn chocolate in the box. 

nieman reports SPRING 2019 5 Smart speakers are challenging the foundations of radio, and news outlets are racing to find a place on the platform by gabe bullard illustration by dan page

SMART SPEAKER USE IS GROWING. WILL NEWS GROW WITH IT? nieman reports SPRING 2019 7 many people tried listening to the news this way, but, then again, the original commercial radio news broadcast in 1920 didn’t draw a massive audience either. “It was our first time trying this out and it was successful because we developed a workflow and best practices for election night so that we are ready for the volume of listeners we will ON get in the presidential elections in 2020,” Charney says. (Disclosure: While report- ing this story, I was on the staff of the show “1A,” which is distributed by NPR and pro- duced by member station WAMU. I am now a senior editor at the station.) At least 21 percent of Americans own a voice-activated smart speaker—Amazon’s Echo is the most popular, while Google, MIDTERM Apple, and other tech companies make such devices, too. And sales are climbing: In 2017, only seven percent of Americans owned smart speakers. Meanwhile, radio ownership and social media use are drop- ping. The speakers and the artificial intel- ligence that powers them can replace or augment the functions of a radio or phone. By voice, users can ask their smart speaker assistants to play music, find recipes, set tim- ELECTION ers, or answer basic questions. Users can also ask for news. And this simple request has the potential to chal- lenge the foundations of radio, turning last year, NPR carried out its usual live broadcasts into conversations, changing the coverage, coordinating stories from its re- stories people hear, and creating individual- porters and from member stations across ized streams of information. the country. Most of the audience followed Smart assistants have long been a feature along via these stations’ broadcast signals. on mobile phones, but with smart speakers NIGHT But those not listening to the radio proliferating in homes and the technology could get updates too, by asking Amazon’s now coming preinstalled in cars, voice is voice assistant Alexa for an update on elec- pushing to the final corners of consumers’ tion news from the NPR One app. The re- connected lives, creating new habits and sponse to this request was a short report leading users to rethink how they interact with the latest news. with their devices. And news outlets are “Obviously, there are people that are go- racing to find a place on the platform. “If ing to be just glued to election returns,” says [voice] does become an ever-more-dom- Tamar Charney, managing director of per- inant interface, then it will probably have sonalization and curation at NPR. “But we quite profound effects on the way that in- also know there’s a lot of other people who formation and content is consumed,” says have a lot of other things going on in their Mukul Devichand, executive editor of voice life. They’re dealing with their kids, they’re and AI for the BBC. getting ready for the next day, but they may For many publishers, there’s not much still want to be able to be plugged in.” question if voice will grow. The question is The goal of the Alexa offering was to whether news will grow with it. test two hypotheses: Would listeners find The low listenership to the NPR One an option like this useful? And could NPR election night experiment relative to the give it to them? NPR broadcast can in part be attribut- The answer to the second question was ed to the lack of people currently asking yes: A staff worked until about 3 in the morn- their smart speakers for news. The Reuters ing to make updates available twice an hour. Institute for the Study of Journalism found But as to the first question, whether lis- that just 18 percent of American smart teners would find it useful—it’s not clear speaker owners ask for news every day— how many found it at all. NPR won’t say how this typically involves saying, “What’s in

8 nieman reports SPRING 2019 the news?” or a similar phrase and getting attributes the numbers to an on-air cam- back short newscast-style reports from a paign encouraging KCUR broadcast lis- publisher or publishers of the user’s choice. teners to ask their smart assistants to play Podcasts didn’t fare much better: Only 22 the station. percent of American smart speaker owners KCUR has not invested heavily in creat- use the devices to listen to podcasts, accord- ing content exclusively for smart speakers, ing to the Reuters Institute report. but the rise in streaming has given the live But podcasts and newscasts aren’t de- broadcast a new relevance, and speaker lis- signed to be played via voice command. tening at home is playing a role in program- Radio news bulletins are broadcast at spe- ming decisions. The station recently moved cific times, usually with weather, traffic, the interview program “Fresh Air” to an and other soon-to-be-outdated updates. In early evening time slot. O’Higgins says the podcasting apps, shows compete for eyes potential for people to listen to the show’s before ears—attractive art and episode ti- longform conversations on smart speakers tles have been found to boost listening for as they cook dinner wasn’t the primary rea- NPR’s shows, according to Charney, and son for the move, but it was discussed. On “asking people to choose without those top of this, some stations have found that cues seems like a nonstarter.” listeners who turn on the livestream with Asking a speaker for news is straight- ASKING SMART their speakers stay tuned in for longer. forward, but it can be frustrating in its own SPEAKERS FOR “The actual speaker has become a radio way. Echo owners, for instance, can stack replacement product. It is taking the place up several updates from different publish- NEWS HAS in people’s homes, the physical location ers and hear them back-to-back. This can where radios had been—next to the bed, lead to hearing the same story told by dif- THE POTENTIAL TO on the kitchen counter, in the living room,” ferent outlets in different ways, possibly at CHALLENGE Charney says. “People are now turning to it, different volumes. There might be sponsor- I think, to do some of the things they had ship messages at the end of each publish- THE FOUNDATIONS used the old device, i.e. radio, to do.” er’s briefing. Depending on when the user “Play this radio station” is one of the asks, the stories may not have been updated OF RADIO more primitive—albeit intuitive—com- recently. And local offerings are scant. A mands for a smart speaker. As people get user who asks for a news update early in the familiar with their devices, and as publish- morning could hear three outdated stories ers start designing news updates that take followed by yesterday’s weather report. advantage of smart speakers’ unique capa- However, it is possible to get broadcast- bilities, streaming could wind up being a quality news from a smart speaker: Users transitional behavior. “I think we’re at early just need to ask their device to play a radio days of the general public even thinking of station. This is something smart speaker asking for news from a voice assistant,” owners have taken to. Charney says. The Reuters Institute report notes that If the stream gives way to on-demand more than twice as many people in the U.S. news on smart speakers, then public radio— listen to radio on their smart speakers than or any radio stations offering smart speaker ask for news every day. And public radio streaming—will have a lot of company on stations have noticed an increase in traffic the platform. The list of available flash brief- to the online streams of their live broad- ings for the Amazon Echo already includes casts. NPR reported that—in the first not only radio outlets but TV networks, quarter of 2018, across the entire system print publications, and websites. There are of member stations—smart speakers made even updates delivered entirely by synthetic up about 16 percent of streaming, though voices. “Our organization is very focused on some stations have seen even more. For us delivering the news where our audience KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri, smart is, and there is no question that audio is a speakers accounted for 38 percent of online growing segment of where audiences expect streaming for a week this January. Mobile to find news,” says Kelly Ann Scott, the vice phone and desktop computer streaming president of content for the Alabama Media were each under 30 percent. Group, which manages several publications KCUR digital director Briana O’Higgins in Alabama and is owned by the national says these are mostly new listeners to the media chain Advance Local. stream, not people who switched from Alabama Media Group is working on streaming on their phone to streaming on briefings and updates for voice platforms. their speaker. (Data is not yet available The challenge is figuring out what, exact- to indicate whether smart speakers are re- ly, users expect to hear, and how it should placing listening to analog radio.) O’Higgins sound. “When you put your own user hat

nieman reports SPRING 2019 9 Members of the media surround the new Apple HomePod smart speaker during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California in 2017 on and really think about what do you want most popular smart speaker in the U.S.— from these voices that are coming through are working separately on news experienc- the speakers in your lives, you can learn a es designed specifically for voice; they’re lot,” Scott says. open-ended and designed to travel with The Alabama Media Group’s web- users whenever they find themselves near site AL.com has a flash briefing, “Down in a voice device, which is to say, everywhere. Alabama,” hosted by local journalist Ike Each one is a feed of audio stories curated Morgan. As he runs through the top stories largely by algorithms that learn a user’s pref- of the day, his casual delivery and Alabaman erences over time. accent make him sound more like an in- NPR has been doing this, absent voice NPR AND GOOGLE formed neighbor than a stentorian news- commands, since 2011, when it intro- ARE WORKING caster. “It has an incredible sense of place,” duced its Infinite Player, later rebranded as Scott says of the update, which is also avail- NPR One. The app starts with a newscast SEPARATELY ON able as a podcast. “That kind of authentic- consisting of a few short stories. The pieces ity makes it authoritative, too, when he’s tend to get longer the more a person listens, NEWS EXPERIENCES talking about the news. It’s not talking at with news from local public radio stations DESIGNED people. He really treats it like he’s having a interspersed where available. Since the be- conversation with his listener.” ginning, NPR One has been compared to SPECIFICALLY Similarly, on midterm election night, the music service Pandora, which learns Charney’s team prepared reports for Alexa listeners’ preferences and plays them music FOR VOICE with the aim of making them sound distinct they’re more likely to enjoy. from a traditional newscast. They didn’t The service Google is developing and want asking for news to be the same as testing, called News on Google Assistant, turning on a radio. “It’s subtle sometimes, is similar. It uses the Google News algo- but there’s a difference between going on rithms to curate a stream of stories from the air and giving a report on something a variety of news organizations, in and out and responding to a question,” she says. of radio. As with NPR One, the feed starts “Newscasts are a little more presentation, with short pieces and expands to longer and what we were aiming for is a more genu- stories as listening continues. Its aim is to ine answer to a question.” Charney says the serve content based not only on user pref- goal is to have updates sound more like the erences, but also on which stories are the “engaging, compelling, human-to-human most important in their area, and which answer” that an actual person would give, ones listeners have already encountered rather than a machine playing back some- on other platforms. thing recorded for millions of people to hear These feeds cater to voice by removing at the same time. the need for a listener to ask for a specific

NPR and Google—maker of the second station or source each time they want an IMAGES JOSH EDELSON/AFP/GETTY

10 nieman reports SPRING 2019 update (though NPR One still needs to be requested by name). There’s also no need NOW HEAR THIS: to search through a smartphone applica- tion to change settings for news playback, AUGMENTED REALITY either. The experience is analogous to turn- ing on a radio or opening a news app—with an endless feed of information. Both News COMES TO AUDIO on Assistant and NPR One end up sounding something like a radio newsmagazine. But The next step in wearable audio is content unlike a radio show, “it’s contextually rel- customized for a listener’s location. What evant and it’s dynamic,” says Steve Henn, a former radio journalist who is now the con- could this mean for news organizations? tent lead for audio news at Google. by gabe bullard These products are currently built to re- spond to a generic request like “what’s in the news” or “play NPR One.” But that’s not Ever since the invention of the Content for the glasses isn’t yet the only way Charney and Henn imagine us- transistor radio, audio has been widespread. Bose has purchased ers asking their speaker for news. a portable, personal medium. Detour, an audio walking tour In an example Henn uses, a listener in As early as the 1970s, Panasonic startup, and is spending $50 California could ask about the bankruptcy of was making audio wearable, million in collaborations with local utility company PG&E and hear a piece with an AM radio designed developers such as Yelp and from a local news outlet. “In the future you to be worn as a bracelet. The TripAdvisor. could ask a topical news question and get Walkman, the iPod, and now the For news organizations, a story,” Henn says. The technology could smartphone have all made audio customizing content for a user’s also someday allow a user to interrupt a devices not just something we location could create a new story to get more information—“Alexa, who put in our ears, but something genre of local reporting: stories is this speaking?” “Hey Google, tell me more we wear on our bodies. that speak to exactly where a about PG&E.” One next step in wearable person is at a given moment. This would require at least two changes: audio—called “hearables” in News on development projects, Platforms would need to allow news outlets’ some circles—is content cus- restaurant reviews, or commu- voice apps (called “skills” on Alexa) to re- tomized for a listener’s location. nity bulletins could be delivered spond to questions like this (or users would Using a combination of a at the most relevant time for need to ask these questions of a specific smartphone’s GPS and motion users. Imagine getting pinged news outlet); and news organizations would detectors, as well as audio cues with a notification that repairs need to make sure that voice assistants can picked up through the micro- on the road you’re walking find their content and play it as an answer to phone, experimental music down have been delayed due to specific questions. applications promise to create budget cuts. Or consider asking Already, Google has published instruc- customized soundtracks for a portable smart assistant about tions for marking up text to point its search listeners. And, just as iPods a statue you’re looking at and engine to the most relevant, newsy informa- were used for playing songs hearing the story behind it. tion in stories, which can then be read aloud before podcasts took off, news However, the technology by Assistant’s synthetic voice. For audio and information is following is not yet in wide release. And to be discoverable by a search engine and music’s lead. creating location-specific played back in response to questions, sound Bose sells a pair of sun- content presents a massive files would need to be indexed and tagged. glasses capable of offering the problem of scale: Can one Speech-to-text technology could also tran- wearer audio augmented real- organization possibly have scribe entire stories for search engines. And ity (AR). The glasses contain news for every block it covers? this could lead to an even more significant sensors that can detect where Location-specific audio has an change to audio content than voice alone. the wearer is looking and play air of inevitability as wireless With data on search terms from thou- information back about what earbuds become less and less sands of users flowing in, audio producers they see. At the 2018 South intrusive and users get accus- could cater their work to the questions us- by Southwest conference, the tomed to interacting with their ers ask or the topics they most commonly company’s demonstration let devices through voice. As for search for when they’re expecting an audio reviewers look at restaurants whether the technology will reply. This is common practice for text-based and hear about the menu and succeed? The last heavily hyped outlets, but new territory for radio produc- how long of a wait it might be AR wearable product, Google ers. Search metrics are more immediate and for a table. Bose touted this as Glass, was designed for visuals precise than any other audience data audio the future of AR—an interface and didn’t catch on as a con- producers currently have: Radio ratings take that doesn’t superimpose any sumer product. The next few weeks to compile, and while website stats visuals, but instead gives infor- years will be a test for audio AR might indicate which topics are popular, mation strictly through sound. technology. 

nieman reports SPRING 2019 11 they don’t correspond directly to what an Henn says the algorithm driving News audience is willing to listen to. Some radio on Assistant, which surfaces stories of local newsrooms have developed popular series importance and isn’t based on internet vi- based on answering questions listeners send rality, is designed in part to fight filter bub- in; making audio discoverable through search bles rather than let them build if users skip could amplify these efforts. But there are haz- past certain stories. “Our goal is to provide ards to basing editorial strategy entirely on a diverse range of news, views, and opinions data. What if no one searches for news on from as wide a variety of authoritative sourc- City Hall, for instance? es so that users can develop their own crit- “Data can be abused,” says Brendan ical thinking on a story or subject,” he says. Sweeney, director of new content and in- And NPR One has “an algorithm that of- novation at KUOW public radio in Seattle. fers other points of view to people who con- “And it’s simultaneously true that the myth sume a lot of partisan podcasts,” Charney of a journalist’s or an editor’s gut being the says. “Human curation is a big part of what all-supreme thing, that’s also problemat- we do both to better inform and manage ic.” The challenge, Sweeney says, is not to what the algorithm is doing, but also at times assume listeners avoid entire topics, but to ensure that certain stories aren’t subject to to instead look at the data more closely to any personalization.” see if something else might be turning them Amazon declined to comment on whether away. “If an important story isn’t finding the VOICE COULD it was planning any kind of algorithmic news audience it deserves, we need to adapt how product, but said the decision of what makes we tell that story. Experiment with leads, LEAD TO A BURST it into a flash briefing remains up to the user: framing, tone, etc.,” Sweeney says. “We don’t consider Alexa a news outlet, we The most successful ways of telling sto- OF CREATIVITY consider Alexa a conduit for the news— ries in an algorithmically-curated, voice- AROUND meaning we have hundreds of news sources based news feed will be determined by user customers can choose from and we leave that data. And many producers are experiment- TRADITIONAL up to them on what they’d like to hear.” ing now to see what works. NPR One pro- Even if algorithms and journalists keep vides stations with information on when in BEATS users’ best interests in mind, listeners a story listeners decide to skip to the next could still end up getting slanted coverage option. Google’s news product could offer through their smart speakers. Voice plat- similar information, and it’s being devel- forms are no more immune to trickery than oped and tested in partnership with a work- any other platforms, and in some ways, ing group of publishers convened by Google. they can be more vulnerable. The technol- Knowing questions users ask and gran- ogy to create “deepfake” videos that show ular details of users’ listening habits could people doing and saying things they never drive audio producers to make stories that did or said is developing. But the ability to almost perfectly fit listeners’ habits and re-edit, impersonate, or synthetically re- preferences. Conventions of storytelling produce a person’s voice is already here. and production that are common practice In 2016, Adobe showed off a potential new could change. Experiments could lead to feature in its Audition audio editing appli- new standards. However, until the data that cation that would allow editors to create could lead to these changes is widely avail- new words and phrases from a sample of able, the standard radio-style report will a person’s voice. The demonstration in- likely dominate. For its as-yet-unreleased volved creating new phrases from existing stream, Google advises producers to keep conversations. (It hasn’t yet been commer- their stories either under two minutes or cially released.) between two and 15 minutes, and to make Completely synthetic voices play a large pieces sound-rich by including multiple and growing role in voice technology, too. voices and natural sound, techniques found Smart assistants speak in them, and some in abundance on news radio. news organizations are using text-to-voice Voice could lead to a burst of creativity technology for their news briefings. Quartz, around traditional beats, or it could lead to for instance, uses two computer voices to stories that don’t connect with audiences deliver a few minutes of news every day. vanishing. With algorithmic feeds, though, The text is drawn from the Quartz smart- it’s not just editors who decide which sto- phone app, which is written as a series of ries users hear. Reporters may experiment conversational text messages. Voice simu- with their framing and writing for City Hall lation has improved to the point that John stories, but what’s to ensure that they’ll Keefe, Quartz’s technical architect for bots end up in streams that are out of a news and machine learning, says some users have outlet’s control? told him they prefer the machine narration

12 nieman reports SPRING 2019 for short updates. “The voices are getting the source of a fact. He compares it to “the better and better,” he says. “It’s very clear to journalist adage: If your mom tells you she me that they’re just going to get to the point loves you, check it out.” If Alexa tells you of human clarity. And probably better.” At it’s true, check it out. the moment, Henn says his data shows ma- Building trust between a voice and a chine voices are less engaging than humans. listener is a challenge publishers and plat- And machines can’t replace the humans forms are working to solve. And there’s who are quoted in stories, and whose voices also a question of trust between the two. As convey information not just with words, but voice develops, publishers are again finding through tone and timbre. themselves relying on big tech companies To maintain trust, identifiers for the to distribute their content, along with the source of each story in a voice news feed content of their competitors. will be key. Currently, this happens at the The ease of using a voice device is part- beginning of flash briefings. It’s possible for ly due to it simplicity: Only one answer a malicious actor to try and put a fake NPR comes back in response to a question and skill in these devices’ app store, but Amazon there’s no need to look at a screen (though certifies new submissions to its flash brief- smart speakers with screens and voice-ac- ing skill. And the company says it regularly tivated televisions are available). However, audits available skills on its platform and this limits how voice platforms can pres- reviews reports of “offensive or otherwise ent news, and how much of it they can inappropriate content.” On algorithmic present. A user may ask for an update on feeds, like the one Google is planning, the a big story, but rarely does only one news identification of a source becomes an issue outlet cover a story. Voice assistants will of sound design and programming. Google’s have to figure out how to respond if a user specifications for creating news for Assistant asks “what happened in the Russia investi- include an introduction that identifies both gation” and every national news outlet has the publisher and the person speaking. a story. “On big stories it’s inevitable that To keep the sources on their platforms we are going to have multiple partners cov- accurate, Henn says Google continues to re- ering the same event. In that circumstance search the origins and spread of fake news. we will be guided by what’s best for the The company is also working on using the users,” Henn says. “Often what is best for same technology that creates deepfakes to the user is giving them a choice. We are recognize them, and they’ve invited devel- working on this but today for topical news opers to submit tools to do the same. IF ALEXA queries we give users multiple stories on There’s also a possibility that false in- TELLS YOU the requested topic and also offer to send formation could spread not through news them to their phone.” designed for speakers, but simply from IT’S TRUE, Increasingly, the story that’s surfaced falsehoods posted online. One feature of could be a local story. Google’s work- smart speakers is their ability to do quick CHECK IT OUT ing group of publishers testing News on web searches and return information—for Assistant includes a handful of local outlets. instance, “how tall is the Empire State “Already roughly half of our content comes Building?” This gets complicated when from local sources,” Henn says. “When users ask about news that’s still develop- there are local stories that are nationally ing. The Reuters Institute found that ask- significant, hearing from a local reporter can ing for the death toll in the 2017 Grenfell add a tremendous amount of context and Tower fire in the U.K. led to different expertise to a story.” NPR One data shows answers from Amazon’s and Google’s that listeners who hear a local newscast are devices, because they were drawn from dif- more likely to return to the app. ferent sources. These answers eventually This could be promising for local jour- changed to be the same, correct number, nalists who are increasingly fighting for though Alexa was not forthcoming about space on global platforms. But an algorithm its source, according to the report. deciding when to play a story, or distribut- Whether smart assistants can be fooled ing stories without paying for them, raises by false information is a test of how familiar fears of tech companies choosing they search for data—if they draw from winners and losers in journalism. Wikipedia, it could be edited or faked, “There’s a long history and I think the while if they draw from other web sources, skittishness is natural,” Henn says. “Until their algorithms will have to be capable of we lay out a clear monetization strategy properly sourcing information. Keefe says publishers are going to be worried.” Henn trusting a speaker depends on how savvy a declined to say what this monetization strat- listener is, and their willingness to ask it for egy looks like, in part because it’s still being

nieman reports SPRING 2019 13 developed. And that development is hap- pening in a partnership between Google and publishers, through the News on Assistant MORE working group. “Ultimately this product will succeed if it works for our partners,” he says. For monetization, Henn notes that voice POWER creates the opportunity for interactive ads, and Google offers a way for listeners to tell their speakers to donate to nonprofit news- TO rooms after they hear a story. While flash briefings for Alexa often feature a sponsor- ship message at the beginning or end of an LOW-POWER update, Henn says “we can’t have a call for support after every one-minute-long story, so we’re working on ways to smartly deliver FM these messages to Assistant users.” One term that’s used in these conver- “Hudson Mohawk Magazine” demonstrates sations is “offramp.” It’s a way for users to leave the main feed of stories and build a how hyperlocal news shows can make their deeper relationship with publishers whose limited broadcast range their strength rather work they find most valuable. This could than a limitation by gabe bullard mean hearing a feed of just one outlet’s stories, opting into an email newsletter, or simply following them on social media. From there, publishers can try to convert While podcasts and smart for Independent Media serves these followers into subscribers, donors, or speakers generate buzz, ra- its 10-mile broadcast radius possibly advertising targets. “The piece we dio—AM/FM, over-the-air, with a hyperlocal news show: control is this single piece of audio. What old-fashioned radio—reaches “Hudson Mohawk Magazine,” all publishers want to have more influence more Americans than any an hour-long program assem- on is what happens during, before, and af- other medium. And techno- bled by a team of about 25 ter the listener hears that single piece of logical and regulatory change volunteers. The large volunteer audio,” says Tim Olson, the chief digital is still pushing the medium in staff and the limited range of officer of KQED in San Francisco (another new directions, one of which the signal means producers Google working group member, which has is low-power FM. can put out stories with an in- also received money as part of the Google Low-power FM (LPFM)—a tense local focus that wouldn’t News Initiative). type of non-commercial broad- fit in media with a wider audi- For skittish publishers, the rewards be- casting that reaches a very ence. One day in mid-February, yond revenue remain valuable. Forming a small area—was first granted for example, a volunteer was relationship with people on their speakers legal status in the U.S. less editing a piece about the public in the kitchen may make it easier to form than 20 years ago, though un- comments from a city council a relationship with them on their head- licensed “pirate” stations ex- meeting after one member phones and in their cars as well. Working isted well before then. Because of the council was revealed with tech companies now means shaping the signal usually can only be to have used racist language a growing platform; it’s a rare opportunity picked up within a few miles in a voicemail. The story for publishers to exert some control over a of its point of origin, many of was being covered in the local technology they don’t own. these LPFM stations broadcast press, but the piece on the Radio producers moving toward voice to concentrated communities, “Hudson Mohawk Magazine” have room to experiment in these early such as farmworkers or neigh- would be “people of color in stages. Their primary audiences remain borhoods of immigrants, and this community talking very tuned in to the old devices: More than 90 they’ll play announcements or knowledgeably and strategi- percent of American adults listen to radio music that might not otherwise cally about the entrenched each week. Public radio ratings have never be easily found or distributed. problems of racism here,” says been higher. This might not last. And pro- “Some of its limitations are Steve Pierce, executive director motions for smart speaker skills are showing some of its strengths,” says of Media Alliance, which owns up between stories in radio news as smart Pete Tridish with the Center and operates the Sanctuary. speakers become another type of furniture for International Media Action, “There’s no other thing like in more and more American homes. It’s not a nonprofit that aids in setting that,” he says. “Nobody is doing guaranteed the people in those homes will up low-power FM stations. a 10- or 15-minute-long piece ask for news. But for now, publishers and In Troy, a city of about of people speaking in their own tech companies are preparing, so if anyone 50,000, 150 miles north of voice about the problems of does ask, they’ll have an answer.  New York City, the Sanctuary the day. The newspaper does

14 nieman reports SPRING 2019 The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, New York, which produces the LPFM hyperlocal news show “Hudson Mohawk Magazine”

a fine job of covering issues, of people on Facebook who think it’s a big question when internet and posts segments but it’s not in the voice of the share points of view on what’s the resources for legacy media online for anyone to find. people who are living it. And happening in the city, many of are tight and there’s less and This model could soon the commercial media are not which I don’t agree with at all. less local papers: how do we spread to other cities. Pierce is in a position to do stuff that’s But it’s fascinating to see share information to keep our working with two LPFM sta- more than a minute or so long, that those points of view exist. community engaged in what’s tions elsewhere in upstate New if they do it at all. And the And it’s important to know going on and create a popu- York, and he plans to create a noncommercial stations are they exist.” Pierce wanted lation that cares about our small network. He imagines focused on the state capital to create a place like that on town, our place?” the other stations will broad- and not on the neighborhood.” the airwaves—where people Some volunteers are in cast hyperlocal news to their With newspapers cutting go to learn what happened in their 20s, some in their 70s. communities and share stories staff or closing entirely, news their community. And all are responsible for of wider interest for others to deserts have been spreading Because the Sanctuary is getting segments together for broadcast. It’s the NPR struc- across the U.S. While Troy, focused on social and envi- the show. “Hudson Mohawk ture, writ small. If the “Hudson with its proximity to the near- ronmental justice, the stories Magazine” airs every weekday Mohawk Magazine” model by state capital Albany, isn’t tend to cover marginalized evening at 6, and again the can be replicated, it could a desert, it’s also not awash groups and labor issues more next morning at 7 and 9— mean more news coverage in in local coverage. The local than traditional media. And hours when locals are com- more communities. paper has seen cuts, and other because the staff is all vol- muting and more likely to be “There’s hope,” Pierce says. outlets, like the local public unteers, the production isn’t in their cars and near a radio. “The situation for journalism radio station, serve a wider, always as pristine as it might The station doesn’t pay to and media—media in general, regional audience. be on a larger station staffed get official ratings, so nobody journalism in particular—it’s Pierce worked in news ra- with professional producers knows how many people lis- just very depressing right now. dio prior to joining the Media and reporters. “It’s a lift. ten. The anecdotal evidence— So for people to be able to put Alliance. But his inspiration It’s an experiment,” says contributions, calls, comments their hands on the problem for the show, he says, came Elizabeth Press, a Sanctuary in the community—suggests and try to make a difference, from—of all places—a local board member who also helps people hear the show. The however small it may be, that’s

TIMES UNION Facebook page: “It’s hundreds put the show together. “But I station also streams live to the a huge thing.” 

nieman reports SPRING 2019 15 VISUAL ARTS JOURNALISM: NEWSROOM PRESSURE AND GENERATIONAL CHANGE A survey of more than 300 journalists finds visual arts writers and critics addressing issues of race, gender, identity—and relevance by mary louise schumacher It isn’t just that the art world has changed, well as more than a dozen countries. with a proliferation of biennials, long lines for The survey, conducted in the summer Instagrammable art shows, and mind-bog- of 2017, included more than 100 questions, AT A TIME gling art market records. It is that art’s place some of which replicate those of a semi- in the world has changed, too. The planet at nal 2002 study done by the National Arts when we are increasingly understanding large is generating visual culture on a scale Journalism Program at Columbia University the world through art and images, the jour- that is hard to fathom today. The once-rare under the leadership of András Szántó. That nalists who make sense of visual culture are tools of the artist are now ubiquitous, a swipe earlier study, which focused solely on visual facing a critical moment of generational or a click away, in so many hands, and while art critics, provided a rare opportunity for change and insecurity. not everything spilling through our social comparison over a period of upheaval for As media companies continue to shed feeds is art, some of it actually is. both media and culture. journalists—about 1,000 in one recent The job of discerning what’s genuinely Much has changed since then. I remember week—making the case for arts writing is as artful, what’s worthy of our collective atten- taking that earlier survey, when Google was in challenging as ever. Indeed, as we prepared to tion—the job of art critics and writers—has its infancy, Facebook and Twitter still in our publish this article, my own job was eliminat- never been more relevant. While I was the future, and rounds of newsroom buyouts less ed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as part 2017 Arts & Culture Fellow with the Nieman perennial. The large majority of respondents of a system-wide downsizing by Gannett. Foundation for Journalism, I invited my peers worked for daily newspapers then, while less “I’ve lost over 100 colleagues to layoffs in the field to take an online survey about the than a third of the current group do. Indeed, in my career,” tweeted Jeneé Osterheldt, a priorities and pressures of their work. nearly half work for web-only outlets today, writer for The Boston Globe who explores We received 327 responses from visual many hustle to write for multiple publica- culture and politics broadly, including vi- arts writers and critics. They work for daily tions, and nearly a quarter are running their sual art. “I wish that was an exaggeration. newspapers, alternative weeklies, magazines, own independent platforms at least part of And the erasure of diversity, culture, copy- digital journals, and websites in the U.S. and the time, according to the new numbers. editing, and the arts in journalism isn’t just work from more than 100 cities in 38 states, The new survey points to an optimism

scary. It’s dangerous.” Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, as about the art that’s being made today and a TIMES/REDUX WILLIAM WIDMER/THE NEW YORK

18 nieman reports SPRING 2019 will doubtless draw additional conclusions. us… in terms of how it’s shaping the future of Art is often a lens through which de- art history and the future of museum work.” bates that occupy the country—about In this moment of cultural reckoning, it race or gender, for instance—are seen. It makes sense to ask whether arts journalists may begin with a single artwork, an artist have the competencies to engage with such action, or a social media thread, but many issues and artworks, formally, culturally, and art-world discussions have a way of becom- politically. Are the most relevant writers on ing national debates. One sign of genera- art today those with the salaries and staff tional change is the degree to which arts jobs? Do they come from the ranks of tradi- journalists today are willing to write at the tional arts journalists? intersection of art and politics. What we do know is that about a third Several art-world controversies unfolded of the arts journalists who took our survey in the months leading up to our survey. Some write in a way that touches on politics regu- called for the removal from the 2017 Whitney larly, while a healthy majority do so at least Biennial of a painting by a white artist that occasionally. Kara Walker, who was depicted the body of Emmett Till, a black It is the kind of writing that can capture a among the artists teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in larger audience, too. When The Washington mentioned by survey 1955. Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” is based Post’s art critic Philip Kennicott, who often respondents, pictured in 2018 in front of her on a galvanizing civil rights-era photograph writes about art and politics from his perch performative sculpture of the 14-year-old’s mutilated body in his cas- in the nation’s capital, reviewed the portraits “Katastwóf Karavan” ket. Some suggested the artwork could not be of Barack and Michelle Obama, by African- in New Orleans divorced from the violence people of color American artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy face today and criticized the reiteration of the Sherald, respectively, his review snagged PREVIOUS SPREAD: original image as callous. a million sets of eyeballs. While that might A view of “Repellent Similarly, Native Americans and oth- have been a peculiar case, a particularly po- Fence,” installed across the U.S.- ers accused the Walker Art Center in tent convergence of art and news, the audi- Mexico border in 2015 Minneapolis of trivializing the hanging of ence size was unheard of for the arts team, near Douglas, Arizona, 38 Dakota men by installing Sam Durant’s says Christine Ledbetter, who was the Post’s by Postcommodity. “Scaffold” on its grounds. The large, out- arts editor at the time. While traditional re- The art collective door sculpture included representations of views tend to have small, loyal readerships, was mentioned by the gallows used in the mass executions by reviews or essays that address broader polit- survey respondents when asked to name the U.S. government in 1862. And, of course, ical issues tend to hold meaning for a broader artists they believed memorials and monuments to Confederate audience, she adds. were worthy of leaders are a flash point for debates about The list of artists that arts journalists care championing racism and white supremacy. about is also revealing. We asked survey re- Art institutions are trying to keep up. spondents to name up to three artists that belief that the definitions for art are expand- While museums have talked about inclusiv- they believed were worthy of championing. ing. Art beyond the art capitals of New York ity for years, many are working at it more The result was a very long list of more than and Los Angeles is increasingly important, urgently in the political climate of Black 400 artists. Only about 30 of those artists as are artists addressing issues of race, gen- Lives Matter, Time’s Up, and the protests at were mentioned more than once, a function der, and identity. As for influence, it’s con- Standing Rock, rethinking what they pres- perhaps of respondents in a lot of places centrated in the hands of veteran critics, a ent, whom they hire, and how the story of naming artists in their own backyards. Still, small cadre of mostly white men based in art gets told in their galleries, for instance. while there’s little consensus about specific New York City. The movement to decolonize museums, to artists, many of the artists on the list have In the Spring 2018 issue of Nieman rethink how work by some groups is present- something in common: they tackle thorny, Reports, I teased out a couple survey find- ed, has been covered widely, from The New political issues through their work. ings. I wrote about an emerging vanguard York Times to Teen Vogue to Vice. While this list shouldn’t be considered in visual arts writing, publications, proj- “What we’re learning in real time along a ranking, artists who came up more often ects, and individuals producing some of the with the rest of the world—and hoping— than others, as a group, are illustrative. They most promising and inventive work today. is that this really is a turning point in his- include Postcommodity, a collective based I also highlighted the rise of Hyperallergic, tory,” says Marcelle Polednik, director of in New Mexico and Arizona that installed the for-profit blogazine founded by Hrag the Milwaukee Art Museum. “I think this massive scare-eye balloons across the U.S.- Vartanian and Veken Gueyikian, which to- moment in time is a very significant one for Mexico border a few years ago, bringing an day rivals the arts journalism of legacy me- indigenous perspective to the immigration dia, according to the survey. It was the only debate; Kara Walker, who is known for mu- digital newcomer to top a list of publications THE JOB OF DISCERNING ral-sized, black cut-paper silhouettes that well-regarded for criticism. WHAT’S GENUINELY explore racial stereotypes; Anicka Yi, who At this moment of transformation, what creates esoteric, gender-and-science-relat- follows is my read on some of the topline ARTFUL HAS NEVER ed experiences; and Kerry James Marshall, takeaways from the survey, the data for which whose paintings are known for exploring

PREVIOUS SPREAD: © POSTCOMMODITY, PHOTO CREDIT: MICHAEL PHOTO CREDIT: MICHAEL PREVIOUS SPREAD: © POSTCOMMODITY, POSTCOMMODITY AND BOCKLEY GALLERY COURTESY: LUNDGREN, I’m sharing so others can dig in as well. Some BEEN MORE RELEVANT black subjects typically left out of the art

nieman reports SPRING 2019 19 historical canon. Hank Willis Thomas, critics write thoughtfully about non-white whose work leverages branding aesthetics aesthetics, too many enforce white aesthet- to address issues of social justice, is also in ic supremacy. The notion that only works this group, as is LaToya Ruby Frazier, whose emerging from European traditions are wor- photographic projects explore black life and thy of contemplation and celebration still social inequality, particularly in America’s shapes what is covered, what is held up as small towns. Postcommodity, a collabo- exceptional, and what is rendered invisible.” ration between artists Cristóbal Martínez One of her most important arguments and Kade L. Twist, describes the collective was that white artists need to be covered by as “a shared indigenous lens,” while Walker, journalists of color as well. “Critical Minded Marshall, Thomas, and Frazier are black art- exists to support ecologies of aesthetic ex- ists. Yi is Korean-born. cellence that are not predicated on the white These artists represent quite a contrast gaze,” she says. to 2002, when Jasper Johns and Robert While we attempted to be as inclusive as Rauschenberg, quintessential postwar possible in our invitation, there are writers on heavyweights—and white men—were the art who may not be represented in this survey favorite living artists among art critics. The for any number of reasons, including because earlier survey posed the question differently, they do not identify as arts journalists. though, asking respondents to indicate how One of the most insightful writers on the It’s a fair question, and it’s been a while. much they liked specific artists rather than Schutz controversy, for example, was novel- Richard Nixon was president the last time a asking them to name artists. ist Zadie Smith, and the Globe’s Osterheldt is female visual art critic won the Pulitzer for This is probably a good time to state an an important voice on art, despite having the criticism. That was Emily Genauer in 1974, unsurprising finding: The field of arts jour- broader title of culture writer. the second year the prize for criticism was nalism remains mostly white. About 60% of The art critic who holds most influence awarded, for her writing for the Newsday those who took our survey agreed to answer in the U.S. today, according to her peers, Syndicate. Manuela Hoelterhoff snagged one, a question about the race/ethnicity that best is Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic at The too, in 1983, for writing about a broad range describes them. Of those, 167 identified as New York Times. Survey respondents were of subjects, including art. And Jen Graves, white, four identified as black, five as Latino, invited to name up to four critics whom they the former art critic for The Stranger, was a six as Asian, and 20 additional respondents considered “most influential,” and more than finalist in 2014. described other or mixed ethnicities. Our a third named Smith, considerably more than Smith got her start accidentally, writ- highest-paid colleagues, the fewer than 20 anyone else. ing a fiery rebuttal to a piece in Artforum people who reported making $80,000 or Smith is known for her unsparing but about Minimalist artist Donald Judd. She more, are mostly white men, too. Not a lot generous criticism and for promiscuous joined the Times, where she had freelanced has changed since 2002, when the field’s lack interests, especially ceramics, textile art, vi- for a while, in 1991 and wrote for The Village of diversity, including among the then young- sionary or so-called outsider art, design, and Voice earlier in her career. She is also the first er generation, was highlighted. video art. She’s been writing about art for woman at The New York Times to hold the So what are the implications of a mostly more than 45 years and views her job as “get- position of co-chief art critic. homogenous field of arts writers? What is the ting people out of the house,” making them Beyond Smith, the most influential crit- cost to the culture of having the top jobs and curious enough to go see art, according to her ics are veteran voices, mostly white men much of the influence in the hands of a few bio at the Times. based in New York City. It should be noted white men? While the survey didn’t define influence, that, for our question about influential crit- The Nathan Cummings Foundation and the consensus about Smith is presumably, at ics, more than half of the mentions went to the Ford Foundation recently began a new least in part, a recognition of her work. That just six writers. Smith was the only woman collaboration called Critical Minded, intend- seems significant, given how rarely female in that top tier. And while a majority of the ed to support the work of critics of color writ- art critics are so celebrated. There was some survey’s respondents were women—who ing about all artistic disciplines and broadly lamenting when the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for are generally less likely to hold staff jobs and about culture. Last May, Elizabeth Méndez criticism went to Smith’s husband, New York more likely to believe they are expendable— Berry, of the Cummings Foundation, wrote magazine’s senior art critic Jerry Saltz, rather few of them were well ranked in terms of an important essay about the project, making than to her, some even likening the loss to influence. Jillian Steinhauer, former senior the case for what’s at stake when so many of Hillary Clinton’s in 2016. editor of Hyperallergic and now herself our salaried critics are white and male. I’ll let Margaret Carrigan was among the first a frequent contributor to The New York her speak to the issue: “While some white to weigh in for The Observer: “I wake up Times, and Carolina A. Miranda, an arts most days and think at least once, ‘What writer for the Los Angeles Times, were the MANY OF THE ARTISTS if Hillary had won?’ Today I woke up and women ranked behind Smith. thought, ‘What if Roberta had won?’” A In that very top group of six, Saltz, known MENTIONED BY SURVEY headline in The Art Gorgeous read “The for ardent and engaging writing, as well as TAKERS TACKLE THORNY, Hillary Syndrome: Everyone Thought social media showmanship, was ranked im- Roberta Smith Should Have Won The mediately behind Smith. The Pulitzer board POLITICAL ISSUES Pulitzer,” while another in The Guardian praised him for “a canny and often daring read “Congrats, Jerry Saltz – but when will perspective on visual art in America, en-

THROUGH THEIR WORK a female art critic win a Pulitzer?” compassing the personal, the political, the MCMULLAN VIA GETTY IMAGES A. SCOTT/PATRICK PRESS TRIBUNE VIA THE ASSOCIATED JOLES/STAR OPPOSITE: DAVID

20 nieman reports SPRING 2019 pure and the profane.” Others in this august those who made it to the top of the list do that comes to mind is the word ‘nontradi- group are Holland Cotter, the other co-chief carry that formal title. What happens to this tional,’” says Steinhauer. “I feel like the vet- art critic at The New York Times; Peter ranking when those who’ve been writing for eran critics all have these staff jobs and fill Schjeldahl, art critic at The New Yorker; Ben more than 25 years are removed from it may this sort of old-school critic role.” The latter Davis, national art critic for artnet News; hint at what’s ahead for art criticism—includ- group, she said, offers a “much more varied and Christopher Knight, art critic for the Los ing more women, more critics of color, and picture of what criticism can be and can do.” Angeles Times. wider ranging purviews. “They are largely independents who have Except for Davis—an outlier in this Some of the less veteran voices in the carved their own niche,” says Charlotte Frost, pantheon; more on him in a moment—all mix—in addition to Davis, Steinhauer, a scholar of digital art criticism and execu- of these critics have been writing about art and Miranda—include Hrag Vartanian, tive director of the London-based gallery for more than 30 years and work for legacy editor-in-chief and co-founder of Furtherfield. “But that’s where art criticism publications, many with long traditions of Hyperallergic; Claire Bishop, an art histo- originated from,” she adds, noting that the publishing art criticism regularly. Schjeldahl rian, contributor to art publications, and earliest critics were similarly independent is the most veteran among them. He’s been author of “Artificial Hells,” an overview of writers with multiple expertises. “So it’s a writing for more than 50 years. This indicates participatory art practices; Hannah Black, a return to tradition or origins in some sense.” that influence may be accrued and tied to the conceptual artist and writer known for chal- Given the interest in politics among arts reputation and reach of a critic’s publication. lenging the Whitney Museum of American writers today, it shouldn’t come as a surprise Except for Knight, notable as the only West Art for exhibiting Schutz’s “Open Casket” that the election of Donald J. Trump had an Coast critic and perhaps the only one writing painting; Paddy Johnson, founder of Art impact on the profession. I decided to add a for and about a local region, they are all also F City; Andrew Russeth, co-executive edi- question about Trump’s election at the last based in New York, a critical proving ground tor of ARTnews; Claudia La Rocco, a poet moment, after talking with a colleague who for the art world. and critic with a special interest in perfor- told me she was recommitting to her job af- Davis is the only critic in this top tier mance; Antwaun Sargent, an arts writer ter he had won the presidency. The survey working for a web-only publication, and he’s focused on black contemporary art; Hito reveals she was not alone. Trump’s election been writing for fewer years, about 15. Among Steyerl, a philosopher, filmmaker, and author changed the way many arts journalists feel his peers, he’s known for trying to make of “Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary about what they do. This was true for jour- sense of the more image-driven arts writing Civil War”; and Maggie Nelson, a MacArthur nalists across the spectrum of experience, of the internet era, what he calls “post-de- “genius” known for vulnerable, personal crit- from veteran writers to those entering the scriptive” criticism, and his much-discussed icism that she sometimes calls “autotheory.” field, according to the survey. collection of essays, “9.5 Theses on Art and These writers don’t fit the mold of their It should be noted, too, that we are a very Class,” published by Haymarket Books forerunners. They are as likely to write liberal bunch. Of the more than 200 arts jour- in 2013, was nominated for Best Work of about a cat video festival (Steinhauer), nalists willing to share information about Criticism by the International Association of neoliberal capital (Steyerl), or the histo- their personal politics, more than eight in Art Critics. Davis, who got his start at a com- ry of death cultures (Black) as they are to 10 identify as either liberal or progressive. In munity newspaper, the Queens Courier, and engage artworks on a museum wall. Most fact, arts journalists were more likely to vote has written for a range of publications includ- write more broadly about culture and soci- for the Green Party or to describe themselves ing The Brooklyn Rail, e-flux, The New York ety, addressing ideas that surface through as “other” than to vote Republican in 2016. Times, and Slate, is currently working on a contemporary art. Some explore the ways Of those who’ve reframed their think- book about artistic appropriation. visual culture is reshaping our lives. ing in the Trump era, many were willing to It’s worth noting that the question of “If you look at the veteran critics list and elaborate at length within the context of an influence was specifically about critics, and then you look at this other list, the first thing anonymous survey.

A woman hangs up a protest sign on a construction fence near the controversial sculpture “Scaffold” at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (part of the Walker Art Center) in May 2017. The sculpture was ultimately removed

OPPOSITE PAGE: New York Times co-chief art critic Roberta Smith and her husband Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine, were both among the most influential critics noted by survey respondents

nieman reports SPRING 2019 21 “I am more aware of having to defend Mirroring an ad for the the arts as key aspects of personal freedom,” Whitney Museum’s wrote one respondent, a full-time staff writer Andy Warhol at a website. retrospective, this poster—in the style of “I have always known that I write to build a Warhol screenprint— creative community, to support makers…but was made to protest I have become more conscious of the need to the involvement of give people who feel silenced, isolated or shut Warren B. Kanders, out a place to speak…” wrote a freelancer for a Whitney board regional publications. member and owner of a company that made “A democratic society thrives on a diver- tear gas canisters used sity of opinions, a healthy tension between against migrants at the ideas, free expression, and open debate—all U.S.-Mexico border attributes, I feel, of the best of contemporary visual art,” said an editor and writer. A staff reviewer for a major newspaper wrote, “It has made me look at art (even his- torical art) with more of an eye to political climates and conditions, sometimes at the expense of being able to focus on and ap- preciate other aspects of the work the way I could before… It’s also made me more impa- tient with some art-world rituals that are tied to social and market forces.” “The election of Donald Trump made it seem more futile when I write strictly about art, but in a way, it’s also reiterated the im- portance of things like art, and contempla- tion, and the ability to just enjoy something, or think quietly, or talk to people in an open way,” wrote a freelancer working for an arts publication in Florida. Of the respondents who answered the question about Trump’s election, many also felt that Trump’s presidency should have no and that “they’re going to be gone.” In a more critics, and Szántó and his team identified bearing on their work. Here’s a pretty typical recent interview with In Other Words edi- 230 of them. We don’t need data to tell us example of what these journalists had to say: tor Charlotte Burns, Saltz said: “I’m a dying that jobs and coverage have been squeezed “Artists and art writers have no advantaged breed. Critics are a dying breed.” and eliminated since then. perspective on what to do about Trump. I A lot hinges, of course, on how one counts Still, the field is gathering new voices. Arts stick to what I know.” and defines critics, or arts journalists more journalists who’ve been writing about art for Conventional wisdom in recent years broadly, for that matter. Some count only a decade or less but who’ve made it past the suggests that visual arts journalists, par- those who are full time or on staff, without two-year mark represent 47% of our survey’s ticularly critics writing for print and main- some kind of a hybrid beat like my previ- respondents. More than 75 individuals in stream audiences, are increasingly rare, the ous one as art and architecture critic for the more than 20 states described themselves as dodo birds of the art world. End-of-an-era Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Others are pri- the “chief art critic” or equivalent for their talk has become commonplace, one of our marily interested in those with the “critic” publication. Of those, more than 25 hold a favorite pastimes. In a typical example, art title and who write mostly formal reviews. staff position at a newspaper, a count that’s critic Deborah Solomon offered up a “little While the survey was not designed to incomplete because we know some newspa- prayer for art critics” on WNYC radio in provide a definitive headcount, so to speak, per critics didn’t take the survey. 2013. Describing critics as bossy and easy to it does suggest that arts journalists may be With that said, arts journalists believe hate, she reported what she believed to be a less rare than some imagine, which is not their beats are at risk. Most of the survey’s sorry fact: that there were only 10 full-time to suggest losses are not real. When the respondents felt moderately secure in their art critics left at newspapers and magazines 2002 survey was conducted, most major jobs, at best. For those that have some kind of in the U.S. That same year, Johanna Keller, general-interest news publications had a formal position, a third thought their media who founded the arts journalism program at at least one visual art critic, though there organization would not make a priority of re- Syracuse University, said: “If you are count- were notable exceptions, including one of placing them if they left, and only about one ing full-time critic jobs at newspapers, you America’s largest newspapers, USA Today. in 10 believed it would be a “great priority.” may as well count tombstones.” Referring Also, the odds of a publication having a critic About 30% of respondents have been to print jobs in particular, Saltz, echoing his dropped for lower-circulation publications writing about art professionally for more wife, Smith, suggested in 2015 that there were then. Again, the 2002 survey looked at a than 20 years. And while such lengthy ten-

“these last 20 jobs left in the United States” more tightly focused group of traditional art ures point to some stability in the field, it DECOLONIZE THIS PLACE AND MTL+

22 nieman reports SPRING 2019 may also indicate a lack of opportunities When it comes to the artists we care about plicated Kanders’s involvement in the for advancement. Consider that less than today, many of them are working outside the Whitney within larger global histories of a third of the survey’s respondents pursue art capitals. More than half of the artists wor- colonialism, queer erasure, gentrification, their work on a full-time basis with a staff thy of our ink, so to speak, exist beyond New class struggle, and violence.” position. About two-thirds are freelancers, York and Los Angeles, according to the sur- In such moments, visual literacy, news many of whom work for several outlets and vey. Some of those artists also create work literacy, social justice, global politics, and the vast majority of whom are working with- rooted in or about off-center geographies, art become part of a rapidly moving whole out a contract. For those who do have staff like Postcommodity on the border. that arts writers and critics contribute to jobs, fewer than one in 10 felt “very secure” Arts journalists have also grown more and respond to. With audiences speaking so in their positions. A third of all respondents bleak about the impact of money on art. More directly to art institutions, this raises ques- report that their jobs are “not at all secure.” than half say the art world is too dependent tions about what the role of arts journalists Income patterns tend to reflect employ- on the market and commercial institutions, can and should be. ment patterns. The majority of arts jour- and more “strongly agree” today than did in As we consider this question at a mo- nalists—60%—make only half of their total 2002, a leap from 29% then to 51% today. A ment of generational shift—as those who earnings or less from their arts writing. More small minority—about 16%—disagree, and hold influence prepare to leave the field— than half make $20,000 or less a year. This most of those only “somewhat.” And while the survey’s respondents offered up some raises serious questions about who has ac- the contemporary art market continues to important self-critique. Many are criti- cess to our field and who can afford to work set records—including a recent auction re- cal, for instance, of the field’s focus on for such wages. One of the critical questions cord for an artwork by a living artist, David high-profile artists and exhibits at the ex- facing the profession is how to support the Hockney, which sold for a bit more than $90 pense of other deserving artists and issues. work of cultural writers in a sustainable way. million—a significant majority of arts jour- A large majority of the journalists, across In some ways, the survey was a referendum nalists don’t cover such things. Only 10 peo- age groups, agreed on this point. They also on the internet and what it’s meant for art. A ple said they report regularly on the market, believe that the field as a whole is focused large majority of arts journalists believe that auctions, and collectors. on the art centers of New York and Los the definitions for art have expanded since Arts journalists are covering a very dif- Angeles at the expense of deserving artists the rise of the internet. They also believe ferent world today. When the 2002 survey and issues in the rest of the country. their audiences are both more informed— was conducted, writing for a web publication These critiques and others mentioned and confused—about art in the digital era, wasn’t even a consideration and there wasn’t in this article raise lots of questions about that society is oversaturated with images and a real-time discourse driven by hearts, likes, the future. While most of the survey’s re- the art world overpopulated with art. retweets, and hashtags. Most of the 2017 re- spondents believe what they do has an im- On the whole, though, arts journalists are spondents believed the internet had changed pact on the art in their region, one might pretty optimistic about the art being made criticism in meaningful ways, and younger ask what will become of local and regional today. Most believe artists are breaking gen- journalists were even more inclined to say so. critics working outside the heat and energy uinely new ground. About eight in 10 respon- As I’ve been writing these last para- of the art capitals, not to mention the art- dents said most of their work is focused on graphs, artists and activists with the ists they cover. Also, if new competencies the art of today. group Decolonize This Place have staged are called for today, are there new pathways Indeed, a majority of arts journalists are demonstrations at the Whitney Museum into the profession? Where should hiring proud of the work that’s been produced in of American Art in New York, protesting editors be looking for new voices? Will we the last 25 years, much as those in 2002 were the presence of Warren B. Kanders, owner look back in another 15 years to see a field proud of the art produced in the quarter-cen- of the company Safariland, on the muse- that remains mostly white? tury before that survey. Nearly a quarter of um’s board, after reports that the compa- It’s also worth asking this: What will be the survey’s respondents even believe we are ny’s tear gas canisters were used against the fate of the traditional art review amid all witnessing a “golden age” of art today, slight- migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S.- of this change? Respondents were lukewarm ly more than believed so in 2002. Mexico border. The flow of images and on the idea that critics are doing a good job But there is another side to this coin. insight that led to this protest was swift, of championing artists who will be seen as While some believe we’re living through the from wrenching and viral images from the important in the future. While most agree, most exciting time for art, almost as many say border, including a mother and her daugh- less than 5% do so strongly. As our focus is the glory days have faded. More than 20% of ters being teargassed, to reporting by art being recast, what—and who—are we not respondents believe that “there was a gold- sites like Hyperallergic to online organizing paying attention to? en age of American art and it has passed.” around a hashtag to a highly Instagrammed Arts journalists have the capacity to form Moreover, the overwhelming majority rejects protest at one of the nation’s most august narratives, shape canons, set cultural agen- the idea that we’re witnessing a golden age— museums. A poster created for the protest das, or, at least, to inspire curiosity and “get 75% dispute this, and 30% do so strongly. by Decolonize This Place and the collective people out of the house,” as Smith put it. MTL+, done in the style of an Andy Warhol With the relevance of our work on the line screenprint, replicates images of the canis- and a lot at stake just now, we should con- TRUMP’S ELECTION ters and is made in the fashion of an adver- front the questions facing our field—and the CHANGED THE WAY MANY tisement for the Whitney’s blowout Warhol pressures on it.  retrospective, of which Kanders is listed as The full survey can be viewed online at ARTS JOURNALISTS FEEL a significant contributor. Now, images of www.niemanreports.org. If you would like to the poster are free to proliferate, too. discuss the survey or its results, please email the ABOUT WHAT THEY DO As ARTnews reported, protesters “im- author at [email protected].

nieman reports SPRING 2019 23 HOW IMPLICIT BIAS WORKS IN JOURNALISM

Avoiding the pitfalls of hidden biases can lead to better story selection and more inclusive reporting by issac j. bailey illustration by doug chayka nieman reports SPRING 2019 25 was born in Charleston, throughout that day. My race matters—it round by 11 percentage points. During the South Carolina, the city where can’t not matter where I live—and it re- final round, ‘blind’ auditions increased the the Civil War began, and at- mains near the top of my mind as well. But likelihood of female musicians being se- tended a school system still it does not shape my daily perspectives and lected by 30 percent.” segregated and underfund- mood nearly as much as my stutter. Disparate treatment also shows up in ed nearly half a century after That’s how I first came to understand the job applications with black-sounding and Brown v. Board of Education, a concept of implicit bias, long before I knew white-sounding names on resumes that are system that didn’t know quite researchers had coined the term and tried otherwise identical, on dating sites, and in how to handle students like me. to measure it. Having to contend with how choices people make on Airbnb. It’s been de- Nearly everyone in my others responded to my stutter taught me tected in housing decisions that have led to high school received free or that people’s brains run on autopilot more increased segregation. reduced lunch. I received free than they like to admit. I relied upon that Implicit bias has also been found when lunch and food stamps and big, knowledge to conduct race relations courses human beings create technology to do the rectangular boxes of government cheese. I designed, telling participants to close their judging impartially. Software engineer Jacky By the time I reached college, I couldn’t eyes and report the image that automatical- Alciné discovered that Google Photos was count all the days of ridicule I had experi- ly popped into their heads when I uttered classifying his black friends as “gorillas.” It’s enced in class and in the hallways and on the words like “criminal” and “drug dealer.” a problem Google has acknowledged will take playground because I was different. Every day, Most of them would sheepishly reply they time to fully contend with, which is why it I had been underestimated and overlooked imagined a black man. blocked its algorithm from recognizing go- for something over which I had little control, That’s implicit bias at work. rillas, and at least for a time racial terms such something which shaped my life like noth- While research into implicit bias is still de- as “black man” or “black woman.” ing else. At private, elite Davidson College, I veloping, what we know now has important Journalism has not been immune to the knew no one would understand what I had implications for journalism. A commitment phenomenon, with research showing that experienced in my young life. There wouldn’t to grappling with implicit bias could become female politicians are treated differently in be enough people like me around. an effective way to help the industry produce news stories, and by voters, from male Things got no better after I had secured a news coverage that more accurately depicts politicians, while black families are overly degree and had been recognized for my writ- an increasingly diverse world, transform au- associated with crime and Muslims with ing and thinking abilities. That’s why I walked dience engagement and increase trust, and terrorism by media outlets convinced they into interviews thinking it unlikely I’d land a identify and overcome unspoken and unre- treat every group fairly. Studies such as one in job—and walked out knowing my initial fears alized internal divisions that negatively affect Political Research Quarterly have found that had been realized. The process repeated itself relationships within newsrooms. stories in which the candidates running are multiple times. My credentials and talent and Implicit bias refers to an automatic or only women, the focus is more often about potential didn’t matter. unconscious tendency to associate particu- character traits and less often about issues. Though I’m two decades into my journal- lar characteristics with particular groups. It Researchers at the University of Alabama ism career, little has changed on that front. is not malicious but could lead to disparate found that terror attacks committed by In an industry struggling with a decades-long treatment of individuals and groups. Muslims received 357 percent more cover- lack of diversity, I’m still facing the same bar- The phenomenon was illustrated in an age than attacks committed by others. riers I faced when I was a young boy because analysis of orchestra auditions. Until the The bias blind spots in our thinking are my chosen profession employs too few peo- 1970s, orchestras were only 5 percent fe- ple like me, too few people who understand male, even though those conducting the the challenges I face. auditions were convinced they were choos- Yes, I am a black man who grew up in a ing candidates based solely on the quality of racist South and work in an industry with a their play. Then most major orchestras began horrific track record on racial diversity. Your doing something called “blind” auditions, in brain has probably conjured images of po- which a screen concealed the identity of the MY STUTTER tential employers, probably a white man, not musician, allowing the jury to judge only the TAUGHT ME THAT a woman, because “employer” and “white music being played without unwittingly be- man” so easily go together. ing influenced by gender. PEOPLE’S BRAINS However, I’m not referring to my diffi- According to “Orchestrating Impartiality: RUN ON AUTOPILOT culties dealing with race, but rather with a The Impact of ‘Blind’ Auditions on Female nearly-lifelong struggle with a severe stut- Musicians” by Claudia Goldin and Cecilia MORE THAN THEY ter that has cost me more professional op- Rouse, “using a screen to conceal candi- LIKE TO ADMIT portunities than the color of my skin. It is dates from the jury during preliminary the first thing I think about when I wake up auditions increased the likelihood that a every morning, wondering how I will cope female musician would advance to the next

26 nieman reports SPRING 2019 largely the result of how the brain process- enous groups, in which everyone believes Linking to an article about Wimbledon’s es the flood of information it constantly and shares the same values and outlook and all-white garment policy, The Wall Street receives. We receive billions of bits of infor- experiences, implicit bias can seemingly lay Journal tweeted “Something’s not white!” along with a photo of Venus Williams mation every day, most of which we can’t dormant. The effects of implicit bias become consciously process. The brain sorts through more noticeable when a well-established or- A growing number of white men feel put what we need to focus on, often prioritizing der, no matter if it was good for a few and bad upon for being white and straight. things that will ensure our survival. That’s for the majority, is challenged. Today, seem- Then there are the disabled and mentally why we can be startled by a sudden, unknown ingly everything is being challenged. ill, who often feel excluded. sound or a shadow that shows up unexpect- White evangelical Christians believe What about police officers who feel un- edly in our periphery. It doesn’t matter that they see implicit bias, or even intentional fairly attacked by media because of the focus it’s unlikely to be a bear or a ghost; our brains animus, at work in how mainstream media on statistically-rare police shootings? automatically cause us to respond as though depict them. Gays and lesbians and bisexuals and the it might be, just in case. Live in an environ- Liberals believe they see implicit bias transgendered and Muslims and Arabs and ment long enough and such associations can because journalists and media outlets have the overweight—the list is long—are among lead to automatic, misleading responses. become so concerned about cries of “liberal others who feel aggrieved. Because we live in an environment that bias” from conservatives they’ve slanted cov- For journalists, correcting for implicit includes centuries-deep stereotypes about erage to avoid that label. bias can be a way to account for gaps in our groups, it also seeds the ground for negative Native Americans suffer from a host of knowledge and perspective that might be associations that affect how we view others. disparities on a variety of issues, as much as undermining our work in ways of which we When you live in an environment that re- African Americans, but are often left out of are unaware. peatedly reinforces the idea that “criminal” discussions and media coverage. Take my stutter, for example. I know and “black man” is the norm, the brain has Asian Americans and Latinos too have most people are aware of stuttering but a tough time making you comfortable with expressed concerns about their portrayal in believe they understand it better than they dissimilar pairings. media. do. They probably rarely encounter severe The growing recognition of implicit bias Women feel the sting of limiting gender stuttering, forcing their brains to rely upon is happening as the U.S. undergoes profound stereotypes in print, online, and on the air. incomplete and often distorted information demographic shifts and as technological Journalists of color know the dismal sta- even as they try to make sense of what they and other advances make it possible for the tistics about their representation in most are encountering.

NIGEL FRENCH/PA WIRE VIA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PRESS WIRE VIA THE ASSOCIATED NIGEL FRENCH/PA formerly-unheard to be heard. In homog- newsrooms in the United States. That’s why bullies and non-bullies have

nieman reports SPRING 2019 27 initially laughed when hearing me speak. choosing her photo seemingly made sense. It on time and was planning to attend college. The bullies did so explicitly, purposefully, provided important context. In the context of the emotional issue of to belittle me. Non-bullies, including family That’s not all it did. Many readers viewed questionable police shootings, to many read- members and friends, have done so reflexive- the tweet as a not-so-subtle jab at Williams’s ers, it signaled something sinister. Young ly—as though they couldn’t help it—because skin color. While the journalists who pulled black men are “no angels” even when they my stutter made them uncomfortable. together the tweet, story, and photo had are on the receiving end of bullets. It suggests Each of them viewed me the way a gag- reason to believe they had checked all the there is an inherent link between criminality gle of producers at broadcast outlets—NPR, appropriate journalistic boxes, they neither and blackness, particularly given that such MSNBC, CNN, and NewsOne among them— accounted for implicit bias—their blind descriptors have rarely been used for young have since come to see me. They don’t use spots, or their audience’s—nor appreciated white men, such as Dylann Roof, who have the words “too dumb to talk,” like the kids the still potent issue of race. committed massacres in churches, movie who taunted me on the playground, while re- Those journalists could have earnestly theaters, and schools. scinding offers to appear on air. But the result believed writing “something’s not white” A journalist who fails to recognize she has been the same: a broad-based silencing over the photo of a black player had noth- has blind spots can unintentionally distort by a media infrastructure built, maybe unwit- ing to do with race. That’s how implicit bias the meaning of her reporting. Not under- tingly, to nearly almost always exclude voices works. It’s not ill-natured, but it can blind you standing the country’s racial history can un- that don’t sound quite … right. to other people’s realities. For many Venus wittingly convince even the best journalists A similar process may be at play in the Williams fans, there is no escaping the im- to write about minority groups in ways that minds of readers, listeners, and viewers as port of race. She isn’t well known only be- can lead to harmful racial stereotypes—or they process a journalist’s work, answer- cause she’s a great player, but because she’s exclude them from coverage all together. ing unanswered questions based on their a great black player in a sport that had long That’s why implicit bias researchers are own experiences and interpreting a re- felt off-limits to black people. In less than an more concerned with providing journalists port based on the context provided. Take, hour, The Wall Street Journal had deleted the with tools to help them recognize their bias- for example, a tweet by The Wall Street tweet and apologized. es than expecting training to automatically Journal about the 2017 Wimbledon tennis Another example of this phenomenon is lead to changed behavior. championships: “Something’s not white! At the intense reaction to a New York Times “Implicit bias became a popular topic Wimbledon, a player failed his pre-match article about Michael Brown, whose shoot- a few years ago, but the election of Donald undergarment check.” The tweet accompa- ing death at the hands of a police officer in Trump as president really accelerated jour- nied a photo of Venus Williams, a high-pro- Ferguson, Missouri, led to explosive pro- nalism organizations’ fervor to be as accurate file black player who, along with her sister tests. Brown was said to be “no angel.” On as possible,” says Tonya Mosley, the senior Serena, helped redefine the sport over the the surface, it was just another benign de- Silicon Valley editor for KQED in the San past two decades. scriptor that parents across the globe have Francisco Bay area, who helped create an Readers could have understood the used to sometimes playfully refer to their interactive implicit bias workshop for jour- tweet as a light-hearted attempt to discuss own children. The intent of the journalist nalists while a Stanford University Knight Wimbledon’s all-white garments policy. John Eligon was likely a sincere attempt to Fellow. “We don’t think ‘bias training’ offers Including the photo of Venus Williams was describe Brown’s past run-ins with authority some magic solution, but a real discussion a reasonable journalistic decision. But a bet- and a much-discussed strong-arm robbery as about how our work is impacted is valuable.” ter choice would have been a photo of the part of a fuller picture of the complex life the Mosley, along with Knight Fellow Jenée white 18-year-old male player referenced teenager had lived. Eligon told Times public Desmond-Harris, conducts workshops in the tweet, or a differently-worded tweet. editor Margaret Sullivan that in proposing a designed to help journalists think about Williams was doing unexpectedly well in a profile of Brown he wanted to tell the story their individual work and their approach- major tournament late in her career and, a of a young man who, “despite his challenges es. Journalists are asked to reflect on their week earlier, had to change out of a pink bra and obstacles, was someone who was making upbringing and how their “interactions and that violated the all-white policy. That’s why it.” Brown had graduated from high school world views creep into their approaches to journalism.” Often, journalists “just want to talk freely about the challenges they are dealing with. This shows us that there is a want, a need, to talk through one of the main tenets of journalism—and that is objectivity,” Mosley says. The workshops are not an easy fix, but neither were sexual harassment and cultural competency trainings, says Mosley. One of the most powerful tools in her toolkit is the self-audit, an objective examination of one’s own work. Are almost all your sources white men? Is your work devoid of voices that don’t A crowd prays outside of Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston. The Post and Courier discussed implicit bias’s implications when

covering the mass shooting there in 2015 PRESS ASSOCIATED STEPHEN B. MORTON/THE

28 nieman reports SPRING 2019 In one study, white participants spend of virtual courtroom so judges and jurors around 10 minutes in the body of a virtual can’t be influenced by a witness’s attrac- black person, learning tai chi. Afterward, their tiveness, a defendant’s skin color, or a pros- scores on a test designed to reveal uncon- ecutor’s body language, Benforado wrote. IMPLICIT BIAS IS scious racial bias shift significantly. “These He knows journalism can’t adopt the NOT ILL-NATURED, effects happen fast, and seem to last,” one of same reforms but believes three changes can the researchers told Rothman. A week later, make a substantial difference now: Remove BUT IT CAN the researchers found that white participants racial identifiers from resumes, adopt a blind BLIND YOU TO still had less racist attitudes. resume review, and stop using personal con- OTHER PEOPLE’S While virtual reality and other efforts nections and word-of-mouth to make hires, have shown promise, there is no guaran- practices that are sure to reproduce the kinds REALITIES teed solution to correcting for implicit of staffs that have always been produced. bias in news coverage. Mosley and others “Really trying to make newsrooms more have said training efforts can even backfire if diverse is really, really critical,” Benforado not well-designed, creating resentment says. “We are all biased, but people are biased and obstinance. in different ways. You don’t want everyone But there are several things outlets can with the same perspectives. Eventually you do to lessen the likelihood implicit bias will will bring someone in for an interview, so neatly fit into a number of “traditional” cat- influence their work. Innovative thinking think of ways to tie your hands a little more egories? If so, ask yourself why. Is it because aimed at reforming the criminal justice sys- to focus on the metrics you are looking for there are no credible voices on your beat out- tem speaks to the challenges and potential and less on the intangibles, such as thinking side of the traditional ones? Or is it because of such efforts. they ‘feel right’ or ‘fit’ our culture. Any uncon- your source list was built upon a foundation Adam Benforado, a law professor at Drexel scious biases could come in there.” of traditional voices who most frequently University, tackled implicit bias in “Unfair: Hiring reform is only part of the solu- recommend other traditional voices for in- The New Science of Criminal Injustice,” a tion. Internal practices must also change. clusion in your stories? detailed look at cognitive processes—not im- Newsrooms should begin aggregating and Sometimes, the best voice for a partic- partiality, racist malice, or a nuanced under- studying data about their coverage deci- ular story will be a straight white man. The standing of evidence—and how they affect sions, including tracking how many stories self-audit, though, forces the journalist seemingly-benign factors, such as “the cam- are told about a particular area and who is to stop and think, to reconsider how her era angle of a defendant’s taped confession, usually included in the stories as sources, source list was built and is being used on the number of photos in a mug shot book, or among other things. “If you are working a daily basis. a simple word choice during a cross-examina- as part of a team, have an outside person Maybe non-traditional voices are avail- tion,” which in turn help determine guilt or review it with racial cues removed to look able and can deepen your stories but will take innocence in court cases. for problems,” Benforado says. “It’s possi- an extra call or two to identify, contact, and Researchers have found that jurors view- ble that in interviewing white people versus include. If implicit bias is essentially having ing a taped confession are more likely to black people, the same journalist might be our thinking on autopilot, the self-audit is the believe the suspect is making a voluntary asking different questions but think they are journalist re-taking the wheel. statement when the camera is focused on the asking the same question. How many stories A journalist can use such a periodic as- suspect. When the camera is positioned to are about white wealthy people? Poor black sessment to determine if they are reliant show the interrogator and suspect in profile, people? It could tell you there is a problem, upon a particular kind of voice, while un- “the bias toward believing that the suspect whether it is implicit or explicit.” wittingly ignoring others. is making a willing statement is removed.” It It might not be possible to pinpoint “It takes daily practice by individuals and affects every level of the system, from the cop how implicit bias influenced an individual a company/organizational commitment for on the beat to the juror in the jury box and the story or hiring decision, but these kinds of there to be a true cultural shift. We talk at judge presiding over it all. tests can force newsrooms to not only think length about journalists building a toolkit, Benforado has proposed a radical solu- anew, but to implement strategies and pro- and using those tools on a daily basis, some- tion to a radical problem, which amounts cedures that lessen the likelihood that im- times story by story,” Mosley says. “We ask to, among other things, creating a kind of plicit bias will keep quietly shaping coverage journalists to reflect deeply and examine veil for courtrooms to do to criminal jus- and hiring patterns. how their own upbringings, interactions, tice what blind auditions did for elite or- The Post and Courier in Charleston, and world views creep into their approaches chestras. He wants to eliminate as many South Carolina has had discussions about the to journalism.” factors as possible that might trigger a per- implications of implicit bias, though it hasn’t Virtual reality may be part of the solution son’s implicit bias. No more telling jurors done testing or comprehensive training on to the implicit bias conundrum by allowing to consider the defendant’s body language the subject. Its newsroom is not diverse. But people to do the seemingly impossible: have or allowing them to even know the race of covering racially-charged news events has firsthand experience about what it feels like the defendant. The goal is to remove the forced it to grapple with the issue in ways it to live in another person’s skin. As Joshua possibility that jurors, judges, prosecutors, had not previously. Rothman of The New Yorker reported, re- and police officers will unwittingly rely In 2015, a white North Charleston police searchers have found that “inhabiting a new upon implicit-bias triggering factors to officer was caught on video shooting a black virtual body can produce meaningful psycho- make what should be impartial decisions. man who had his back to the officer. Just a logical shifts.” The system may need to move to a kind couple months later, Roof, the young white

nieman reports SPRING 2019 29 supremacist, killed nine black people during been times in the eight years I’ve been at a Bible study at one of the nation’s longest- NPR when we were doing that better than standing black churches. we are now, but it’s never been enough. Like “We talked a lot among ourselves, and we everywhere, we struggle to find the time or sought advice and feedback from our com- THE NEW YORK TIMES money, or the people motivated enough to munity,” says executive editor Mitch Pugh pull those conversations together.” about coverage decisions. “We listened a HAS MANDATED He has noticed a difference in how white lot. Maybe not as much as we should have at IMPLICIT BIAS journalists and journalists of color view first, but as these stories continued, I think TRAINING FOR ALL NPR’s efforts, a split not unique to NPR. we realized we needed to listen more.” A few That phenomenon showed up during the of their journalists, such as Jennifer Berry HIRING MANAGERS 2016 election cycle when many journalists Hawes, Glenn Smith, and Doug Pardue, of color were exasperated by the “economic “understood the limitations of their own angst” narrative embraced by many white experiences and did their very best to en- journalists to explain why blue-collar white sure their stories reflected what was really voters chose Donald Trump. “White jour- happening in Charleston and the impact on nalists not pressing the question much; all our readers.” journalists of color often frustrated by But Pugh has not heard much about im- bias training isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? what does and doesn’t get covered or how plicit bias testing and training options. “We Not necessarily, says Lacey, who believes the it’s covered,” he says. “But that’s a surface are woefully behind in terms of building a training should be embraced by more in the description. Our most recent sourcing re- newsroom that accurately reflects our com- industry. “Taking unconscious bias training search tells us that Latinos, for example, ar- munity,” he says. “But we have to be better. does not mean that every story that one en’t included much by anyone but Latinos. Plain and simple. The nature of some of the handles in the weeks and months and years And every racial group has blind spots about biggest news stories of the last five years has after that training is going to be without crit- somebody else.” forced us to reckon with issues we’re likely icism and that everybody is going to like that Other outlets are grappling with these more comfortable avoiding.” story,” Lacey says. “It won’t result in perfect issues in a variety of ways that touch on var- The New York Times has mandated im- journalism. What it does is prompts one to ious biases, implicit and otherwise. National plicit bias training for all hiring managers, be reflective.” Geographic put together an entire issue to which must be completed before managers NPR has also been tackling the issue. The examine race, as well as the magazine’s own conduct interviews. Like many other organi- podcast “Code Switch,” hosted by Shereen racist history. Journalists such as Wesley zations dealing with the issue, the company Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby, is one of Lowery of The Washington Post have said believes a newsroom-wide mandate might the most high-profile, tangible manifesta- other media organizations should exam- make the training less effective. But it has tions of a national media outlet’s attempt ine their history with race. The Financial been made available to non-managers, and to contend with its blind spots concerning Times is examining ways to better reach hundreds have voluntarily taken it. race. NPR has not required journalists to women, who only make up roughly 20 per- National editor Marc Lacey has found the take the implicit bias test, but its human cent of its subscribers. program helpful. “It prompts you to ques- resources department brought in an implic- Ed Yong of The Atlantic has been open tion your assumptions,” he says. “It prompts it bias trainer in 2017 for a few workshops. about the difficulty of trying to “fix the gen- you to not assume that your first judgment Keith Woods, vice president for newsroom der imbalance” in his articles through self-au- of something is the right one. It prompts training and diversity, hopes to conduct dits. He was surprised to learn that 35 percent you to realize that there are points of view more. New hires participate in orientation of his stories in 2016 included no female other than your own. All of these things are workshops held monthly during which they sources, and he used men as sources more healthy for good reporters. It’s not just one talk about coverage of race issues. Such dis- than three-quarters of the time in his stories. group that has unconscious bias; it is some- cussions also take place when news desks A colleague of his found that women made up thing that everybody on the planet has and is and shows are grappling with coverage ques- less than a quarter of her sources. something we can work on.” tions. It took effort, but Yong increased those Although the Times employs journalists Still, Woods doesn’t believe “we do a numbers, adding an estimated 15 minutes of from all over the world and has committed to good job at all wrestling with racial bias” be- work per piece to his workload. Since then, training designed to eliminate blind spots, it cause, “like the rest of society, we’ve pushed he’s been using lists of tips that teach journal- has not been without controversy. The Times the issue of bigotry so far to the extreme in ists how to diversify sources and a database was heavily criticized for a piece that got pil- our heads that unless you’re wearing your of underrepresented experts in science, the loried as “the Nazi next door.” Its coverage in sheets at night or sporting a swastika tattoo, field he covers. It’s the kind of effort that can the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, you don’t regard that as a personal challenge. lead to enriched stories that better illustrate particularly a piece that suggested the investi- People believe that if they’re already on the the complex reality of the world—while serv- gation into the Trump campaign was bearing side of the angels as a journalist, they’re not ing as a bulwark against implicit bias. no fruit even as it featured an abundance of the ones who need the work. The reality is To combat their blind spots, Tim Carney, critical stories about Hillary Clinton’s email that we all need it.” commentary editor at the Washington usage, has been scrutinized. Critics claim the The difficulty is having a sustained com- Examiner, says his writers sit at the same paper has had a long-running bias against the mitment. desk and talk through issues. His staff in- 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. “There’s only one way to improve this: cludes two immigrants, one a Pakistani Does that suggest diversity and implicit more talking,” Woods said. “There have Muslim, and a mix of “Midwesterners,

30 nieman reports SPRING 2019 Northeasterners, rural folk, city folk, millen- designed to do, which means almost always Harris. They include history lessons, solid nials, Gen X-ers.” They speak freely about excluding potential sources who are incon- definitions of bias, and exercises “around difficult issues, he says. “On the most diffi- venient, no matter how much value those getting comfortable talking about your own cult issues like race and sexuality, we really sources may bring to an on-air discussion. I social identities.” She also recommends try to press one another to think through the wanted them to know that journalists must training by Patricia Devine of the University issues from everyone’s perspective. It helps decide if the convenience of the status quo is of Wisconsin, which “approaches prejudice, that we have diversity but also are fairly uni- more important than the disruption of elim- the action you take on a bias, as a habit fied ideologically. In other words, I think we inating journalistic blind spots in hiring and to be broken.” That training resulted in talk more openly about race and ethnicity at coverage decisions. Those of us who present increased hiring of female faculty in science, our desk because we’re all conservatives and real difference can’t just be shoved into pro- technology, engineering, and medicine not worried about some opportunistic liberal grams designed for people unlike us. departments and showed that participants jumping out and calling us racist.” That’s why warnings from skeptics of were more likely to speak up about racism But conservatives have a few disadvan- implicit bias tests and training should not two years later, she says. tages when it comes to seeing clearly on race, be ignored. Among the skeptics is Olivia “In my personal experience at Wisconsin Carney says. They’ve been called racist pub- Goldhill, who says the implicit bias nar- Public Radio, I have seen diversity train- licly so frequently it “inures us to complaints rative “lets us off the hook. We can’t feel ing lead to conversations about coverage, about microaggressions and implicit bias.” as guilty or be held to account for rac- changes in coverage, reflections of cover- Young conservatives are likely to believe that ism that isn’t conscious,” she wrote for age,” Dargan says. “I have also seen more perspective doesn’t matter, which makes it Quartz in December. “The forgiving notion acceptance about the need for diverse teams harder to sympathize with others or examine of unconscious prejudice has become as a result of learning about bias.” their own biases. And conservatives simply the go-to explanation for all manner of She doesn’t want to make sweeping don’t have as many black and Hispanic peo- discrimination, but the shaky science … claims about the effects of implicit bias ple “among our ranks.” suggests this theory isn’t simply easy, awareness or training in newsrooms. It’s Carney says he will consider implic- but false. And if implicit bias is a weak just too new to know or provide many con- it bias training for the opinion page at the scapegoat, we must confront the troubling crete examples about change that can be Examiner. He knows well that “one’s expe- reality that society is still, disturbingly, all directly linked to that rising awareness and riences matter. It’s a contradiction to state too consciously racist and sexist.” training. “It’s a hard thing to measure; it’s that journalists can and do cover issues ob- Goldhill cited a recent meta-analy- not like measuring how many clicks you jectively and that race matters.” sis that looked at 492 studies from several get on an article,” Dargan says. Some of the Objectivity is a nebulous term. Still, for researchers, which found that “changes in ways to measure effectiveness include more the longest time, white male journalists set implicit measures are possible, but those diversity among colleagues, sources, and au- the standard for objectivity, which was af- changes do not necessarily translate into dience, and better retention of employees fected by their experiences and background changes in explicit measures or behavior.” from marginalized communities. even when they didn’t acknowledge that real- That remains among Goldhill’s primary Which brings me back to questions ity. And for a long time, I let broadcasters off concerns about implicit bias tests, or even about implicit bias concerning me and my the hook because I was convinced they had attempts to definitively declare what result stutter. How will I ever know if I had been objectively considered having a stutterer like is or isn’t caused by implicit bias. “Journalists left out of stories for a decade because of me on the air before turning me away. That’s should be focusing on behavior. I’d be very implicit or explicit decision-making? Does why it took nearly a decade before my voice careful about referring to anything as ‘im- the answer to that question matter more was heard on NPR airwaves. plicit bias’ without evidence,” she says. “I than the reality that I had been excluded I began to gently push back because I do not think racist police shootings or the for all those years? I’ve decided to stop wanted those broadcasters to realize that the lack of women in senior positions can be un- wondering and start focusing on what infrastructure they built to produce a daily equivocally attributed to unconscious preju- broadcasters can do to make sure people or weekly show works well for what it’s been dice. Within the newsroom, as in all offices, like me aren’t left out any longer. I think the focus should be on behavior, and To accommodate someone like me, there should be repercussions for prejudiced broadcasters will have to commit to treating behavior … I think using data to monitor ar- me differently—because I am different. That ticles and how various groups are portrayed may even mean leading the segment with a helps create clear evidence of bias and shows brief explanation about why I sound differ- how articles need to change.” ent than the typical guest. WARNINGS Ultimately, for Goldhill, “If you act in No reputable journalistic outfit can cred- FROM SKEPTICS a prejudiced way, then you should be held ibly claim ignorance about blind spots that OF IMPLICIT accountable,” she says. “Far too many affect coverage. It is a choice to try to tackle people shirk responsibility by suggesting those blind spots or leave them as is, no mat- BIAS TESTS AND their unconscious is to blame, rather than ter if the bias is implicit or explicit. And while TRAINING SHOULD themselves.” I understand the hesitance to make bias Jennifer Dargan, a Knight Fellow who training mandatory, I can’t help but think of NOT BE IGNORED took a leave of absence from Wisconsin that as evidence that the industry isn’t quite Public Radio to research the subject, urges ready to change. The value of the implicit journalists to participate in workshops like bias debate is that it’s becoming clearer that those created by Mosley and Desmond- journalists can—and must—decide. 

nieman reports SPRING 2019 31 Journalists are saying yes to unions to lift salary floors, win or improve basic benefits, and provide some cushion to the industry’s volatility by steven greenhouse

WHY NEWSROOMS ARE UNIONIZING NOW n january 2015, The Washington employees posted their thoughts, pro and also said they wanted a union so they could Post’s labor reporter at the time, con, about unionizing. This online debate have more of a voice on the job. Lydia DePillis, wrote a story was fully accessible to the public. Also unusu- “It feels like a real movement. There’s a called “Why Internet journalists al, Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton—unlike lot of energy,” says Lowell Peterson, execu- don’t organize.” DePillis observed many corporate executives in the U.S.—did tive director of the Writers Guild of America, that many writers were individu- not declare war against unionization. Denton East. “It’s not as if we’re dragging people who alistic and had “built personal instead said he was “intensely relaxed” about are reluctant to talk to us. They’re eager to brands” and therefore apparently it. Tommy Craggs, Gawker Media’s executive talk to us and sign up and get going.” had scant interest in unions and editor, added that he was “politically, temper- The recent burst of media unioniza- collective action. One employee amentally, and, almost, sentimentally sup- tion is one of the bright spots in a labor she interviewed said digital me- portive of the union drive.” movement that has been declining for de- dia workers were “half-looking to In promoting unionization back in 2015, cades. Organized labor fi rst achieved major jump elsewhere,” so why fi ght to Nolan said he wanted to ensure that everyone strength in the United States during the have a union if you’re not going to received a fair salary and that pay and raises New Deal, with the passage of the National stick around? An editor told DePillis that de- were set in a fair, transparent, and unbiased Labor Relations Act in 1935, which gave pri- spite the industry’s low salaries and instabil- way. In what became a recurring theme, he vate-sector workers a federally protected ity, digital journalists were “so unprepared added, “We would like to have some basic right to unionize. In 1930, about 11 percent for anything like union organizing…They all mechanism for giving employees a voice in of non-agricultural workers were union went to good schools, and very few of them the decisions that aff ect all of us here.” members; that climbed to almost 35 percent seem to have any experience with labor in On June 3, 2015, Gawker’s employ- in 1954, before sliding to just 10.5 percent in the real workforce.” ees voted 80 to 27 to unionize, becoming 2018. The decline in recent decades has been Two months later, Hamilton Nolan, a the fi rst major website to take that step. fueled by many factors, including the loss senior writer at Gawker, was talking with an (Truthout, a nonprofi t progressive website, of manufacturing jobs, corporate America’s organizer from the Writers Guild of America, had unionized in 2009.) Gawker’s move growing resistance to unions, and labor’s East, a union largely of fi lm and television sparked a movement, and within months, image problems, including union corrup- writers, when the organizer told him that journalists at Salon, Vice Media, Huff Post, tion and unions often being viewed as ob- workers at one news website she hoped to and the Guardian US had unionized. As this solete and obstructionist. But with many unionize seemed scared of retaliation if they union wave grew, journalists at about 30 Americans upset about stagnant wages and pushed for a union. Nolan surprised her by websites unionized and so did journalists increased income inequality, unions have saying why not try to unionize his compa- at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, their highest approval rating in 15 years, ny, Gawker Media, which included Jezebel, The New Yorker, New York magazine, and with the strongest approval coming from Deadspin, Gizmodo, and Jalopnik. Soon The New Republic. And newsrooms are Americans aged 18 to 34. Nolan was chatting up his coworkers, and still continuing to unionize; the Hartford Unionization of journalists caught fire within three weeks, nearly 40 Gawker work- Courant, the Virginian-Pilot, Refi nery29, soon after the Newspaper Guild was founded ers met one afternoon at Writers Guild head- Fast Company, and WBUR in Boston have in 1933. Many reporters and copy editors had quarters to discuss unionization. unionized in recent months, and workers grown fed up with low pay, layoff s, and earn- The next day, Nolan posted a piece on at BuzzFeed, the Allentown (Pa.) Morning ing far less than typesetters and pressmen. Gawker with the headline “Why We’ve Call, and podcasting startup Gimlet Media One challenge the Newspaper Guild’s orga- Decided to Organize.” While noting that have asked for union recognition. (Gawker nizers faced was convincing journalists that Gawker was “a very good place to work,” Media filed for bankruptcy protection unions weren’t just for the blue-collar prole- Nolan wrote, “Every workplace could use a in June 2016 as a result of Hulk Hogan’s tariat. In city after city, the Newspaper Guild union. A union is the only real mechanism lawsuit, and two months later Univision won raises, overtime pay, and a guarantee that exists to represent the interests of em- acquired the company and picked up the that layoff s could only be for just cause, and it ployees in a company.” union contract, even as it closed down the ultimately won health coverage and pensions “It was obvious that you needed to be Gawker.com website.) for most Guild members. At some papers, the unionized for the same reason that news- The legacy newspapers that have union- journalists also won a guarantee that power- papers needed to be,” Nolan says. “There is ized recently have done so largely because ful publishers—they often tilted well to the always a structural imbalance in the work- of accumulated anger about downsizing, right—could not tilt the newsroom’s journal- place without a union. You can talk about years without raises, and ever-worsening ism. To be sure, unions at some newspapers getting better wages, better benefi ts, edito- health benefi ts. Digital news sites generally were weak and not terribly eff ective at win- rial protections, all those important things, unionized for diff erent reasons: to lift the ning raises or better conditions. but regardless of how good your job is, if salary fl oor, win or improve basic benefi ts, Today’s wave of media unioniza- you’re not working under a contract, you’ll and provide some cushion to the industry’s tion comes as the industry is in crisis. Many always be at the mercy of your boss if you volatility. In digital, there was also a desire legacy newspapers, especially local ones, don’t have a union.” to bring some rules and rationality to what face a severe fi nancial squeeze. Digital me- Within days, an extraordinarily trans- often seemed like capricious workplace de- dia are in the middle of a shakeout, with too parent debate had erupted in which Gawker cisions. In both legacy and digital, journalists many websites chasing too few advertising

nieman reports SPRING 2019 33 dollars, as Facebook and Google gobble up persuade journalists to stay. “In the past five much of that revenue. There have been lay- years, we’ve seen a lot of businesses starting offs galore—for instance, Vice Media laid off on the backs of people who haven’t been 250 in February and BuzzFeed laid off 200 properly compensated and doing tricks to in January. Just weeks later, BuzzFeed’s staff make people work longer and harder,” says announced a major effort to unionize with Emily Bell, head of the Tow Center for Digital the NewsGuild. Journalism at Columbia University. “If costs Some longtime critics of labor say union- go up because creating a union means you ization has hurt media companies’ profitabil- have to figure in health coverage, working ity and fueled some of the layoffs. But labor’s hours, proper compensation for leave, that supporters say the layoffs and shakeout had has to be a positive thing, even if it means we already begun before the wave of unioniza- have fewer digital businesses.” tion. “In an extreme situation, a hardball “This generation is tired of hearing that union play could potentially hasten the shut- this industry requires martyrdom, that it down of a publication,” says Alan Mutter, requires that you suck it up, that you accept a former newspaper editor who recently low wages and long hours,” adds Nastaran retired from teaching media economics at Mohit, chief organizer for the NewsGuild’s the University of California, Berkeley. “But New York local. “The demands of this work my guess is there are very few union leaders have increased significantly. The industry who would push so hard that they accelerate has been asking workers to do more and those forces of demise. The problem is that more with less.” neither union nor management, even when Vice Media was one of the first compa- operating hand in hand and heart to heart, nies to unionize after Gawker. “The biggest can prevent any of those forces that are bear- motivating factor was money,” says Kim ing down, especially on local newspapers.” Kelly, a longtime music editor at Vice who David Chavern, president of the News was one of the 250 Vice employees laid Media Alliance representing 2,000 news- off in February. “We were being paid very, papers in the U.S., says, “We are neither for very low, very much under the market rate. or against unionization.” He adds, “We are People were having a very hard time living focused on the challenges posed to journal- in New York, and they expected us to deliv- ism by the major platforms (Facebook and er this inspiring, challenging content at the Google, in particular), and I don’t think that same time that people couldn’t afford rent, having or not having a union changes those couldn’t afford lunch, were living with their market dynamics.” parents—all while Vice’s founder was buy- But union organizers say unionization ing a $23 million mansion.” actually improves publications and thus Several of the early digital contracts helps increase readership. They argue that made impressive gains. Some Vice writers unions, by bringing better pay, benefits, and were earning just $35,000, and the contract working conditions, attract better journal- set a $45,000 floor, giving some writers an ists and reduce staff turnover, by helping immediate $10,000, or 28 percent, raise. Gawker’s first contract called for a 9 percent raise over three years, as well as a minimum salary of $50,000 for any full-time employ- ee and a minimum of $70,000 for senior Tony Barone, a NewsGuild of writers and editors. To help reduce the hel- New York official, ter-skelter aspect of raises, every Gawker in June 2017 employee was given the right to meet at joins New York least once yearly with his or her supervisor Times employees to discuss merit raises. In case of layoffs, protesting plans to Gawker pledged two weeks’ severance pay lay off copy editors for every year on the job, and it improved its 401(k) plan to give a dollar-for-dollar match for the first 3 percent of pay. TODAY’S WAVE Impressed by such gains, more digital journalists unionized, including those at OF MEDIA Thrillist, Mic, Salon, Jacobin, ThinkProgress, UNIONS COMES and Al Jazeera America (before it closed). “Once Gawker did it, other folks said, ‘We AS THE INDUSTRY could do this,’ and it quickly became the IS IN CRISIS norm in the new media world,” says Dave Jamieson, HuffPost’s labor reporter. PRESS ASSOCIATED RICHARD DREW/THE

34 nieman reports SPRING 2019 HuffPost’s first union contract, reached in The NewsGuild had at first viewed digi- General Harrison Gray Otis, who acquired January 2017, had some innovative language tal and legacy differently. Many newspapers partial ownership of the Times in the late to enhance newsroom diversity and ensure were big, lumbering, decades-old companies, 1800s, was a vehement foe of unions, and so editorial independence amid concerns that while digital sites were often new, small, and was his son-in-law Harry Chandler. Those publisher Arianna Huffington’s business in- funded by Silicon Valley, with many workers views persisted at the Times throughout terests—her being on the board of Uber, for doing coding and video, far different from much of the twentieth century, with the pa- instance—could skew coverage. the work done by traditional newpaper jour- per serving as a megaphone for the LA busi- Battered by cutbacks and layoffs in tradi- nalists. Nowadays, however, as newspapers ness community’s campaign to keep the city tional newsrooms, the NewsGuild, former- and magazines have vastly expanded their as “open shop,” as non-union, as possible. ly the Newspaper Guild, at first held back digital work, Grant Glickson, president of Not surprisingly, Times employees were from seeking to unionize digital newsrooms. the NewsGuild’s New York City local, says, wary of pushing for a union. Nor was there The main reason: the NewsGuild, which “We don’t view digital and legacy print as dif- any urgency to do so during the last quarter of represents 25,000 journalists at 200 media ferent—we view it all as one and the same.” the twentieth century because the Chandlers organizations, was in a defensive crouch, pre- For decades, the Los Angeles Times had had transformed the Times into one of the occupied with the industry’s crisis and news- a reputation as the nation’s most anti-union nation’s finest newspapers and paid its jour- paper shutdowns and layoffs. But seeing the newspaper. That was perhaps understand- nalists handsomely. But all that began to Writers Guild unionize numerous news sites, able, considering that a union activist dy- change after the Chandler family sold the the NewsGuild jumped in and unionized the namited the Times building in 1910, killing paper to the Tribune Company in 2000. Guardian US, Law360, and In These Times. about 20 of the newspaper’s employees. That company—which real estate magnate

nieman reports SPRING 2019 35 Gawker employees, on the company’s rooftop in June 2015, discuss voting to start a union. The website, now defunct, sparked a wave of unionization at digital media outlets

Sam Zell bought in 2007, before dragging it “There was just an overwhelming sense $8.1 million in compensation in 2016. In into bankruptcy—didn’t have the Chandler’s that management was bad, that there wasn’t December 2017, two weeks before the sched- expansive public-minded view about invest- anything we could do about it,” Pesce says. uled unionization vote, the LA Times Guild’s ing in journalistic excellence. Instead, the “We didn’t have a seat at the table. That investigating team reported that Tronc had Tribune Company, caught up in the legacy was when people really realized that if they awarded a $5 million-per-year “consulting media’s financial crisis in the digital era, stand up and say something about this, we agreement” to Ferro for three years. shuttered many of the Times’s domestic and can actually effect some change.” “It was just rapacious,” Miranda says. foreign bureaus, downsized its newsroom Pesce contacted the NewsGuild, and it Matt Pearce, a national desk reporter, from 1,200 to around 400, and didn’t give dispatched Mohit, who was based in New adds, “Tronc’s model was they’ll continue across-the-board raises many years. York. Pesce admits that he and his cowork- pumping equity out of the paper, and they’ll “It felt like death by 1,000 cuts,” says ers knew little about organizing. They were figure out what comes next, and we in the Carolina A. Miranda, a culture reporter in a rush to announce their effort on social newsroom will continue to make sacrifices for the Times. Bettina Boxall, who won a media and hold a unionization vote. But the and do dangerous work, all without annual Pulitzer Prize for her environmental cover- NewsGuild urged them to slow down. “They raises to keep up with the cost of living in age, says, “I’ve been here for 30 years, and said, ‘You’ve got to talk to everyone,’” Pesce Southern California. It was untenable. We the past 20 years have been endless corpo- says. “‘You have to make sure everyone’s saw that things were getting worse. So we rate tumult and mismanagement. It has tak- views are heard. You have to hold everyone’s carved out our own path.” en the form of not just endless layoffs and hands a bit.’” The company hired anti-union consul- buyouts, but also years without raises and To rally workers behind the union drive, tants to fight back. Management distributed having to pay more for health benefits and Pesce, prize-winning investigative reporter a flyer to the staff, saying, “Don’t be misled more for parking.” Paul Pringle, and other Times staffers did by the Guild’s promises.” Tronc warned that Discontent grew in October 2017 when something highly unusual—they did some things could get worse with a union, telling an ownership team that succeeded Zell hard-hitting investigative reporting about the newsroom, “There is no obligation on (and renamed the company Tronc for their own company, specifically about the ex- the part of a company to continue existing Tribune Online Content) fired the Times’s cessive spending of Tronc’s executives. The benefits and it is not against the law for the top editors and named as editor-in-chief Los Angeles Times Guild posted those stories company to offer reduced wages and bene- Lewis D’Vorkin, whom the newsroom be- on Twitter, Facebook, and its own website, fits in bargaining.” lieved wouldn’t champion robust journal- and shared them with other publications. Notwithstanding management’s oppo- istic values. Then Tronc eliminated the The union supporters wrote that even as sition, in January 2018, the Times journal- weeks of accrued vacation pay that em- Tronc was chopping newsroom positions, ists voted overwhelmingly, 248 to 44, to ployees had accumulated over the years. Michael Ferro, Tronc’s chairman and largest unionize for the first time in the paper’s “That sort of sparked it,” says Anthony shareholder, used a private jet that cost the 137-year-history. Pesce, a data reporter. company $8,500 an hour to operate and a Throughout the unionization drive, Pesce and a half-dozen co-workers total of $4.6 million in less than two years. there was a largely unspoken goal—to

formed the nucleus of a pro-union effort. Tronc’s CEO, Justin Dearborn, had received pressure Tronc to sell the newspaper to a TIMES/REDUX NEW YORK RUTH FREMSON/THE

36 nieman reports SPRING 2019 public-minded owner who cared about jour- tween managers and employees. People have sticking point: Slate’s management, despite nalism and would invest in the newspaper, shared goals,” Peretti said, adding that often the website’s progressive reputation, was instead of siphoning away its resources. A when there’s a union, “the relationship is insisting that workers be allowed to opt out month after the unionization victory, Tronc much more adversarial.” Saying that unions of paying any fees to their union—similar agreed to sell the Times and The San Diego often insist on rules defining individual roles, to right-to-work laws abhorred by unions Union-Tribune for $500 million to Patrick he said, “for a flexible, dynamic company” and liberals. In January, Slate dropped that Soon-Shiong, a billionaire doctor. that “isn’t something I think would be great.” demand. “We were super relieved and sur- With its new owner, the LA Times is hir- In February of this year, three weeks af- prised,” says Slate audience engagement ing dozens more reporters and editors and ter BuzzFeed laid off 15 percent of its work- editor Aria Velasquez. With that demand re-opening bureaus. The paper has revamped force, its editorial staff announced that 90 dropped, the two sides quickly negotiated a a diversity training program that staffers percent of eligible workers had signed cards contract that includes a $51,000 minimum complained was being misused to hire top- saying they wanted to join the NewsGuild. salary and across-the-board raises with high- notch reporters of color for low pay. Before Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed er percentages for those with lower salaries. unionization, complaints about the diver- News, said the company looked forward The deal also codifies anti-harassment poli- sity program were largely ignored, but with to “meeting with the organizers to discuss cies, creates a diversity task force, and gives unionization, the program was fixed. a way toward voluntarily recognizing their Slate’s journalists rights to derivative works. Even so, contract talks between the union.” Neither Peretti nor Smith would Slate executives declined to comment. union and management still got bogged comment for this story. Probably the most-discussed unionization down, most recently over discussions re- Like Peretti, Jacob Weisberg, at the episode in digital media involved DNAinfo garding intellectual property. Early this time the Slate Group’s chairman and ed- and Gothamist, two local news websites year, the union argued the company was itor-in-chief, also voiced opposition to owned by Joe Ricketts, the billionaire being “draconian” about restrictions on unionization. In an email to staffers in founder of TD Ameritrade and patriarch journalists’ selling rights to books and oth- March 2017, he wrote that unionization of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs. er creative projects. Norman Pearlstine, the would disrupt the “flexibility and fluidity” DNAinfo bought Gothamist in March 2017, LA Times’s executive editor, insisted that of Slate’s newsroom and could threaten and the next month, the vast majority of the the company’s stance on intellectual prop- efforts to be “a sustainable, profitable busi- sites’ combined staff in New York signed erty was reasonable. Pearlstine notes that ness.” Weisberg added that a future with a cards saying they wanted to unionize, fear- the company has increased payroll by more union is “filled with bureaucracy and pro- ing the merger could result in layoffs. Ben than 10 percent as “a significant investment cedure. That world is just not Slate-y … A Fractenberg, the longest-serving reporter in retention and recruitment,” while also union fosters a culture of opposition, which for DNAinfo, says there were also concerns improving paternity benefits and transit is antithetical to our way of doing things.” about fair pay, editorial standards, and the benefits. “We have also committed to giving Nonetheless, Slate’s staffers voted over- “very scattershot” way raises were given. employees a voice in many matters, such as whelmingly in January 2018 to join the Ricketts declined to recognize the union diversity and inclusion,” he says. Writers Guild. Over the ensuing 11 months, based on the signed cards, insisting instead The LA Times journalists helped pre- however, Slate’s workers grew frustrated on a formal unionization vote conducted by cipitate a sale to a deep-pocketed, pub- about failing to reach a contract with man- the National Labor Relations Board. Ricketts lic-spirited owner, and journalists in several agement. So in December, Slate’s staff vot- made his opposition clear, writing to the other cities hope that unionization will help ed 52 to 1 to authorize a strike. The main staff, “As long as it’s my money that’s paying them achieve a similar result. Unions are for everything, I intend to be the one mak- among “the few people making the point ing the decisions about the direction of the about the failure of the local press to repre- business.” Dan Swartz, chief operating offi- sent the public interest,” says Ken Doctor, cer of DNAinfo, sent the staff a letter, not- a newspaper industry analyst who writes ing that Ricketts had invested “literally tens the Newsonomics column for Nieman of millions of dollars of his own money” in Journalism Lab. “Union efforts have put the site and asking, “Would a union be the back into the public conversation what is the final straw that caused the business to be responsibility of those who own the press closed?” In September 2017, the month be- and work in the press to their communities.” fore the unionization vote, Ricketts wrote a Even though most news websites have blog item called, “Why I’m Against Unions At liberal reputations, their executives are Businesses I Create”: “I believe unions pro- sometimes unenthusiastic or outright op- mote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic posed to unionization, an attitude that some- that destroys the esprit de corps businesses times angers liberal readers. In one of digital need to succeed … It’s my observation that management’s first major statements about CRITICS OF LABOR unions exert efforts that tend to destroy the unions, Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s founder Free Enterprise system.” and CEO, said in August 2015 that unions SAY UNIONIZATION Nonetheless, 25 of the 27 workers at might be appropriate in a factory setting, but HAS HURT MEDIA the news sites’ New York office voted in not in a field like digital journalism, which October 2017 in favor of unionizing with the he said requires dynamism and flexibility. “A COMPANIES’ Writers Guild. A week later, Ricketts shut lot of the best new-economy companies are down the sites, not just in New York, but in environments where there’s an alliance be- PROFITABILITY Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and

nieman reports SPRING 2019 37 Washington, costing 115 workers their jobs. based in Manhattan, paid some employees placing a 15-foot-tall inflatable rat outside That day Ricketts, who founded DNAinfo in just $40,000. Law360’s offices. 2009, posted a letter online that said in part: After the noncompete contretemps When a top executive of the company “DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, involving Russell-Kraft, several workers visited, the workers wore union T-shirts. and businesses need to be economically suc- formed a union organizing committee, and One Friday in December, everyone walked cessful if they are to endure. And while we within months a majority of workers had out and picketed the front and back doors. made important progress toward building signed pro-union cards. Law360, a subsid- Two days later, the two sides finally reached DNAinfo into a successful business, in the iary of LexisNexis, rejected the workers’ a deal. The Law360 workers celebrated end, that progress hasn’t been sufficient to request for voluntary union recognition, and approved the contract, 168 to 0. “Over support the tremendous effort and expense and a unionization vote was scheduled. To the course of several years the bargaining needed to produce the type of journalism on persuade workers to vote no, Law360 hired committee could talk until it was blue in which the company was founded.” the Labor Relations Institute, an anti-union the face,” Smith says. “But it wasn’t until the Journalists at DNAinfo and Gothamist consulting firm. Law360 had its employ- company saw the union was solidly behind were shocked to discover their websites sud- ees attend four anti-union sessions, where the bargaining committee that they would denly shut down and redirecting readers to they were warned that things might not im- make some real movement.” Law360 and Ricketts’ letter. “I was definitely stunned,” prove with a union and that workers might LexisNexis officials declined comment. says Fractenberg, who was covering a be unhappy with what’s in their contracts. The contract provides an immediate 22 Manhattan Supreme Court hearing when he Rodriguez, who was one of the leaders of the percent raise on average and sets a $50,000 learned of Ricketts’ decision. “I couldn’t be- unionization effort, said one consultant told minimum. It provides for an annual bonus lieve it happened.… It was seen that they were the workers, “Not voting in the union is free. pool of at least 3 percent of payroll, and for laying us off only because of the union.” In Voting the union in, you pay dues.” the first time, the workers are guaranteed a statement at the time, a spokeswoman for Notwithstanding Law360’s anti-union paid sick days and bereavement time. As for DNAInfo said: “The decision by the editorial push, its workers voted 109 to 9 to unionize the noncompete provisions, Law360 had team to unionize is simply another compet- with the NewsGuild in August 2016. agreed to remove them earlier when New itive obstacle making it harder for the busi- In early 2018, after a year of negotiations York State’s attorney general threatened to ness to be financially successful.” without reaching agreement, Law360’s work- sue over the issue. When journalists took jobs at Law360, a ers were frustrated. Danielle Smith, a general The Law360 contract has an unusual news service that covers legal matters, they assignment reporter, says, “We thought man- successorship provision, meaning that if were sometimes surprised to discover a non- agement was playing hardball to drag out the LexisNexis sells Law360, any acquirer would compete clause in the boilerplate of their negotiations. We saw that the only way to get be required to comply with the contract’s employment contract. Those who voiced significant movement at the bargaining table provisions—and could not, for instance, concern were often told, “Don’t worry—it’s was to show our solidarity.” order a pay cut. Law360’s union said in a just a formality; it’s never been enforced.” One day the workers walked out of their statement, “Let this incredible contract be But when Stephanie Russell-Kraft left offices, on West 19th Street in Manhattan, for a testament to what media workers can ac- to take a reporting job at Reuters in the fall 30 minutes. Next came an hour-long walkout. complish when they unionize and win a seat of 2015, an attorney for Law360 sent her In late October the staff voted 141 to 11 to at the table.” a letter, telling her she was violating her authorize a strike. Then in November came Law360’s successorship clause was one noncompete. Law360’s lawyer also wrote an even longer walkout, with the NewsGuild of several innovative provisions that digi- to Reuters’ general counsel about Russell- tal journalists have demanded—and won. Kraft’s noncompete, and two days later Workers at the Gizmodo Media Group, for- Reuters fired her. merly Gawker Media, have also won a succes- “That was really the galvanizing moment sorship clause. The Nation’s contract gives for people at Law360 to unionize,” says Juan four months of fully paid parental leave to Carlos Rodriguez, a senior writer who cov- employees with one year or more of service. ers environmental law. “The noncompete In their first union contract, journalists at was outrageous. It completely violated The Intercept won unusual language on pa- industry norms. We started to see what it rental leave, calling for four months of mater- was—a wage depressant. By preventing us nal leave and four months of paternal leave. from going to competitors who paid better, The Intercept contract also has an innovative they didn’t have to pay us more.” provision on diversity, saying, “the Employer Several other management policies were will ensure that it interviews at least two can- also riling Law360’s employees. According didates from groups traditionally underrep- to Rodriguez, Law360 had a policy that resented in journalism (i.e. women, people of didn’t pay time-and-a-half when employ- FOR DECADES, THE color, or those identifying as LGBTQ+) prior ees worked more than 40 hours a week, but to making a hiring decision.” instead paid just half of their regular hour- LA TIMES HAD A The Onion’s union contract includes ly pay, sometimes less, for their overtime REPUTATION AS anti-harassment language and calls for hir- hours. It also had a quota system—about the ing a consultant to “conduct a climate as- number of stories written, stories edited, THE NATION’S MOST sessment” of how workers are treated. The and news pitches—that many found oner- new Vice contract negotiated by the Writers ous. Another concern was salary; Law360, ANTI-UNION PAPER Guild contains non-discriminatory language

38 nieman reports SPRING 2019 DNAinfo reporter Ben Fractenberg addresses a rally, hosted by the Writers Guild of America, in New York City in November 2017, days after DNAinfo and Gothamist were shut down

about not just race and gender identity, but attempt to organize the paper’s newsroom. papers all around the country. That made also socioeconomic status and criminal con- Johnson reached out to the NewsGuild me want to cry.” victions. Some of these provisions in digital and to two fellow reporters: Megan Crepeau, In April 2018, the Tribune organizing media contracts go far beyond what was in- who covers Chicago’s criminal courts, and committee went public and within weeks, cluded in traditional newspaper contracts. Peter Nickeas, who covers violence. The 85 percent of the staff had signed pro-union Charles J. Johnson, a homepage editor three brainstormed, chatted up others, and cards. Tronc initially rejected the union’s at the Chicago Tribune, couldn’t help but soon there was a 40-person organizing com- call to grant voluntary recognition, but un- notice the explosion of unionization in dig- mittee. Two nationally known columnists, der pressure, it recognized the union in May. ital media, and he began thinking, “Why not Clarence Page and Mary Schmich, joined Bruce Dold, the Tribune’s editor-in-chief us, too?” The Tribune’s newsroom had been the effort. and publisher, said, “As we move ahead, we repeatedly downsized, and its once-good sal- The Trib’s staff was overflowing with need to be united as one organization with aries had fallen well below those at the union- grievances. “This famously anti-union an important purpose—to help the compa- ized Chicago Sun-Times. place, there wasn’t a union here for a long ny transform and thrive as a business, and to The Tribune, which has won 27 Pulitzer time in large part because people felt they serve our readers world-class journalism.” prizes, has long been Chicago’s establish- didn’t need it,” Johnson explains. For de- (In October 2018, Tronc changed its name ment paper, with a conservative editorial cades, the Tribune had paid its staff more back to Tribune Publishing. The company page and a staunch anti-union history. The than the Sun-Times did to help keep a did not respond to requests for comment.) Sun-Times has been a feisty tabloid for union out, but things had changed as own- “The short of it is people don’t like the blue-collar Chicago and has long been one ers Sam Zell and then Tronc were tight-fist- instability in the newsroom, and they want- of the nation’s best tabloids. But even as ed about raises and benefits. “Some people ed some way to advocate for themselves,” the industry crisis forced the Sun-Times to work second and third jobs to afford to says Nickeas. “The Tribune hasn’t had an cut back its staff and journalistic ambitions, work at the Tribune,” Johnson says. “There ownership that’s interested in journalism its union contract helped maintain its pay are reporters here with super-significant in years. A union is a way to say, these are scale, pushing it above the Tribune’s. (In beats making less than 50 grand a year. our priorities. We don’t want to be dictat- 2013, the Sun-Times was purchased by a These are professional-class jobs paying ed to by Sam Zell or whoever spins us into group of private investors that included the working-class wages, and these people have bankruptcy or whoever is our fourth or fifth Chicago Federation of Labor.) Under the working-class worries about being down- owner in so many years.” Guild contract, Sun-Times journalists earn sized, laid off, cast aside in a market that is Tribune Publishing and the union have at least $66,000 after five years, while one really stripped down.” not yet begun contract negotiations, but the prominent Tribune reporter complained of As in Los Angeles, the Tribune’s journal- company has already shelved a threatened earning $54,000 after eight years. ists weren’t fighting just for better pay, but move to adopt a health insurance plan staff- In October 2017, Johnson heard that jour- for better journalism. “The newsroom was ers say is worse than the current one. nalists at the LA Times were unionizing with bleeding. It continues to bleed,” Crepeau “I don’t think anyone said this was the the NewsGuild. (At the time, Tronc owned says, noting that the newsroom has 184 em- perfect solution to what ails the Tribune or both the Tribune and LA Times.) “That ployees, down from 223 last spring. “Salaries the media writ large,” Johnson says. “But this re-energized me,” says Johnson, who, daunt- can’t keep up. We can’t retain talent. The is the tool available to us, and we’re finally

SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES ed by the challenge, abandoned an earlier Guild folks provided us with pay scales for starting to use it.” 

nieman reports SPRING 2019 39 books levity to the interaction and make com- plex material more accessible. It’s here where we truly see the medium start to differentiate itself as something more than a straightforward disseminator of informa- Agents for Good: How Bots Can tion. One of the more offbeat examples of this approach is a project from the German Boost Accountability Journalism broadcasting corporation Westdeutscher Rundfunk called “Superkühe” (German In “Automating the News,” for “super cows”). The project followed three cows (Uschi, Emma, and Connie) Nicholas Diakopoulos is from three different farms over the course optimistic about a hybrid human- of thirty days in 2017, exposing and con- trasting differences in the agricultural algorithm journalistic practice production of milk on an organic farm, a family farm, and a factory farm. Daily re- ports included images, videos, and written Nicholas Diakopoulos, director of Northwest- It works by first listening for tweets that content produced by reporters who were ern University’s Computational Journalism have a link to a New York Times article. following each cow as it gave birth to a Lab, is optimistic about the role algorithms can Then it harvests all the article’s comments, new calf and entered into milk production. play in the media, but he acknowledges that en- scoring each text based on metrics such as Sensors placed around (and inside) the suring their ethical use will require vigilance. length, readability, and whether it describes cows tracked milk production, health, eat- Bots with nefarious aims make a lot of head- a personal experience. The comments are ing behavior, and activity level. lines. This excerpt from his book “Automat- ranked by an overall weighted score, and All of the structured data and content ing the News: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the bot selects a comment likely to contain about the cows then fed into a chatbot the Media,” published June 10 by Harvard a personal story or anecdote. The selected on Facebook Messenger, which allowed University Press, focuses on bots with a public- comment is then tweeted back at the per- users to interact and chat with a simula- spirited and/or accountability purpose: son who had originally shared the article tion of any of the three cows. By person- link. If the person was interested enough to ifying the experiences of each cow and n just one month in 2017 an unpre- share the link on Twitter, maybe they’d also using the chat interface to frame a more tentious little bot going by the han- be interested in someone’s personal experi- intimate encounter, the bot creates an dle “AnecbotalNYT” methodically ence reflecting on the story. opportunity to empathize with the ani- I pumped out 1,191 tweets addressed The goal of AnecbotalNYT was to bridge mal’s experience and learn about animal at news consumers on Twitter. It’s the New York Times commenting commu- conditions and treatment relating to dif- perhaps surprising to see people genu- nity back into the network of people shar- ferent agricultural approaches in a casual inely engage the bot—a software agent ing links to New York Times articles on and even entertaining format. Instead of that presents itself as nothing more— Twitter. People who might not otherwise reporting about an entity such as a cow, replying to or agreeing with it, elaborat- pay attention to New York Times comments the use of bots creates an opportunity to ing on the views it curates, responding thus became a new potential audience to interact directly with a simulation of that emotionally, rebutting or explicitly dis- engage. And engage it did. One tweet the cow, leading to a shift in perspective from agreeing with it, even linking to contra- bot sent received 124 retweets, 291 likes, third to second person. Consider the pos- dictory videos or articles. Eighty-eight and 5,374 people clicking on the comment sibilities for news storytelling: instead of percent of the replies were from the user to read it in full. That article was about reading a quote from a source a reporter the bot had initiated contact with, but 12 Cassandra Butts, an Obama-era appointee had interviewed, readers themselves could percent were actually replies from other who died waiting for confirmation from chat with that source via a bot that sim- Twitter users. By catalyzing engagement a Republican Senate. AnecbotalNYT’s ulated responses based on the information both with the targeted user and with oth- curated comment for the story struck a the reporter had collected. One advantage ers who could then chime in, the bot chord with liberals, capturing a common might be to draw users in closer to the story opened the door for human users to sentiment and sharply critical attitude and the “characters” of the news. interact more with each other. toward a US Senate viewed as playing po- I designed AnecbotalNYT as an experi- litical games at the expense of individuals ment to help raise awareness for interesting like Cassandra. That’s just one example of personal experiences or anecdotes written the kind of engagement the bot can gener- “The ability of bots as comments to New York Times articles. ate. Over the course of April 2017 Twitter users engaged with 57 percent of the 1,191 to monitor aspects of Adapted from “Automating the News” by tweets the bot sent, including some com- public life and behavior Nicholas Diakopoulos, published by Harvard bination of retweets, likes, and replies. invites examination of University Press. Copyright © 2019 by the Presenting information via chat inter- President and Fellows of Harvard College. faces also offers new possibilities for fram- how they may contribute Used by permission. All rights reserved. ing that information using the persona of to the accountability

the bot, which can enliven and provide function of journalism SUPERKÜHE/WDR

40 nieman reports SPRING 2019 In some cases bots not only gather information but also process that in- formation to operate as public-facing monitoring and alerting tools. Given the importance of Twitter to the Trump presidency, Twitter bots are routinely oriented toward monitoring Trump- related activity on the platform. For instance, the @TrumpsAlert bot tracks and tweets about the following and un- following actions of Trump and his family and inner circle in order to bring addition- al attention to relationships at the White House. The @BOTUS bot produced by National Public Radio (NPR) had the goal of automatically making stock trades A German broadcaster made a chatbot to share the experiences of a cow named Uschi based on monitoring the sentiment of Trump’s tweets when he mentioned pub- more attention to those behaviors on so- of the bot’s exposure of its practices, Em- licly traded companies. Another Twitter cial media platforms? erson lamented that he still didn’t know bot, @big_cases, from USA Today mon- The attention bots bring to an issue “if it’s changed policy or made reporters itors major cases in US district courts, can, at the very least, serve as a construc- think twice about anything.” including those relating to Trump exec- tive starting point for discussion. Take To try to answer this question I col- utive orders. Quartz built a bot called @ the @NYTAnon bot on Twitter, for exam- lected some data on the proportion of actual_ransom that monitored the Bitcoin ple. John Emerson designed the bot for New York Times news articles that had wallets of hackers who had blackmailed the express purpose of accountability. “It used any of the 170 terms the bot was people into sending a ransom in order to was to kind of put pressure on the Times tracking over time, both before and after unlock their computers. The bot, which to be a little stricter about when its sourc- the bot was launched. Did reporters use broke news on Twitter, was the fi rst to es are or are not anonymous,” he told me. fewer phrases with respect to anonymous report that the hackers had started with- The practice of using anonymous sources sourcing after the bot started monitor- drawing money from the bitcoin wallets. by news media is a fraught one, because ing? The results indicated that there was a Although none of these monitoring bots is while it may be justifi ed in some cases slight shift downward in the use of anon- interactive, all do demonstrate the poten- in order to protect sources, it also un- ymous sources, perhaps as much as 15 tial of bots to complete the autonomous dermines the reader’s ability to evaluate percent, in the three months after the bot gathering, analysis, and dissemination cir- the trustworthiness of the information launched, but that the use of anonymous cuit in narrowly defi ned domains. source on their own. The key is to not sources then increased again. There was Bots can also be connected up to streams overuse anonymous sources or be lax in no clear or defi nitive signal. I talked to of data produced by sensors to provide ad- off ering anonymity just because a source Phil Corbett, the associate managing ed- ditional monitoring capabilities over time, is feeling timid. The bot actively monitors itor for standards at the New York Times including of environmental conditions such all articles published by the New York about the pattern. According to Corbett as air quality. A notable example of a mon- Times for the use of language relating to they didn’t “detect any major shift” in itoring bot is @GVA_Watcher, which posts the reliance on unnamed or anonymous their use of anonymous sources during to various social media channels when air sources. If an article uses any of 170 dif- that period, but he wasn’t able to fi rmly traffi c sensors run by amateur plane-spot- ferent phrases such as “sources say,” refute the possibility of a change either. “I ters around Geneva’s airport in “military offi cials said,” or “re- will say that I don’t think much attention Switzerland recognize a signal quested anonymity,” the bot was paid to the Anon bot, so that seems to from a plane registered to an will excerpt that piece of the me unlikely to have had much eff ect. On authoritarian regime. The bot article and tweet it out as an the other hand, Margaret and some of the is intended to draw attention image to draw attention to the other public editors did periodically fo- to the travel patterns of au- context in which the New York cus attention on this issue, so that could thoritarian leaders who may Times is using an anonymous have had some impact,” Corbett added. be entering Switzerland for source. The initial reaction to The more likely route to accountability nondiplomatic reasons, such as the bot included some inde- here was perhaps not the bot directly, but money laundering. pendent blog posts as well as a rather the public editor drawing attention The ability of bots to mon- post by then-New York Times to the issue, which in at least one instance itor aspects of public life and public editor Margaret Sulli- was spurred by the bot when she blogged behavior invites examination van suggesting that at the very about it. Bots may not be able to provide of how they may contribute “Automating the News: least she and perhaps others in enough publicity or public pressure all How Algorithms to the accountability function the newsroom were aware the Are Rewriting the by themselves. But to be more eff ective of journalism. Can bots help Media” by Nicholas bot was monitoring their use they could be designed to attract atten- hold public actors accountable Diakopoulos (Harvard of anonymous sources. Still, tion and cause other media to amplify the for their behavior by drawing University Press) despite the NYT’s awareness issue the bot exposes. 

nieman reports SPRING 2019 41 nieman career in journalism. Lipinski, journalism organization. race, religion, and culture at notes formerly editor of the Tribune, Most recently, Richardson BuzzFeed News. and Madigan are alumni of the was editorial director at the University of Michigan. nonprofit Solutions Journalism 2010 1964 Network. Prior to that, she was Maria Balinska has been Robert J. “Bud” Korengold, 1997 editor and publisher of The named the executive director who served as a foreign Richard Read has joined Chicago Reporter. of the US-UK Fulbright correspondent in Europe the Los Angeles Times Commission, which supports before transitioning to a career as the paper’s Northwest 2004 educational exchange between in diplomacy, died on March 15 correspondent, based in Masha Gessen is a recipient British and American citizens in Vernon, Normandy, France. Seattle. Read, most recently of the 2018 Arthur Ross Book at universities on both sides He was 89. Korengold was a a member of the NerdWallet Award, receiving the bronze of the Atlantic. She will begin UPI correspondent in Paris and investigations team, spent medal for her 2017 book her new position in July. From London and bureau chief in more than two decades as a “The Future is History: How 2016 through January, she was Geneva and Moscow. Following reporter at The Oregonian in Totalitarianism Reclaimed co-CEO and editor of The his Nieman year, he returned to Portland. Russia.” The annual award Conversation US, a nonprofit Moscow as Newsweek’s bureau from the Council on Foreign digital publication with work chief, then became bureau 1999 Relations recognizes written by academics, edited chief in London. He joined the Pippa Green has been nonfiction books that make an by journalists, and shared with now-defunct U.S. Information appointed South Africa’s outstanding contribution to the news organizations. Agency in 1973 and went on to press ombudsman, a position understanding of foreign policy serve in diplomatic roles as a she has held since April. or international relations. 2012 press officer and counselor for The ombudsman serves as Jonathan Blakley has been public affairs at U.S. embassies a member of the country’s Geoffrey Nyarota is now appointed the executive around Europe, including Press Council, an independent head of journalism and director of radio programing Brussels, Belgrade, London, regulatory body that helps communication training at KQED, an NPR-member and Paris. settle disputes between media at the Christian College of station based in San Francisco. organizations and members of Southern Africa. A longtime Previously, he was program 1971 the public. journalist, Nyarota has held director at Minnesota Public James F. Ahearn, a longtime academic positions at Nordic- Radio. reporter and editor in New 2000 SADC Journalism Centre Jersey, died in Rhinebeck, Andreas Harsono, a in Mozambique and Oslo David Skok is a new member New York on April 13. He was researcher for Human Rights University in Norway, and he of the Nieman Advisory Board. 87. After starting his career at Watch, traveled throughout has been a board member at Skok is the founder and editor the Boston bureau of UPI, he Indonesia—an archipelago the Reuters Institute for the in chief of The Logic, which was assigned to the Trenton about as sprawling as from Study of Journalism at Oxford provides in-depth reporting on bureau to cover New Jersey London to Baghdad—for three University in the U.K. Canada’s innovation economy. politics. The Record newspaper years while working on “Race, in Bergen County, New Jersey Islam and Power: Ethnic and Susan Orlean’s latest book, 2013 recruited him in 1961 to run its Religious Violence in Post- “The Library Book”—which Finbarr O’Reilly has joined Trenton bureau. He spent more Suharto Indonesia.” The book was published by Simon & the board of A Culture of than five decades at the paper, was published this spring by Schuster in 2018 and tells the Safety (ACOS) Alliance, among New Jersey’s biggest in Monash University Publishing. story of the 1986 fire at the a coalition of major news terms of circulation, including Los Angeles Public Library organizations, freelance a decade as managing editor. 2003 that destroyed thousands journalist associations, and Frank Langfitt is the of books—is being adapted press freedom NGOs working 1990 author of “The Shanghai for television by Paramount to promote safe journalistic Ann Marie Lipinski has been Free Taxi: Journeys with the and Anonymous Content, in practices for freelancers and honored as the namesake of Hustlers and Rebels of the association with Brillstein local journalists working the Lipinski Journalism Fund, New China,” published in Entertainment. Orlean will around the globe. ACOS a gift given by retired Chicago June by PublicAffairs. The help adapt the book and serve Alliance provides free hostile Tribune chairman and CEO book is based on Langfitt’s as an executive producer. environment training, support, John W. Madigan and his experiences providing “free and access to resources to help wife Holly Madigan to The rides for good conversation” 2009 journalists stay safe on the job. Michigan Daily, the University while he was a Beijing-based Hannah Allam has joined of Michigan’s student paper, NPR correspondent. NPR as a national security 2014 to support future journalists correspondent, focusing Tammerlin Drummond by funding programs for Susan Smith Richardson has on counterterrorism in March joined the ACLU Michigan Daily staff members been named the CEO of the and domestic security. of Northern California as a and high school students Center for Public Integrity, Previously, she was a national communications strategist. interested in pursuing a a nonprofit investigative correspondent covering Previously she was a metro

42 nieman reports SPRING 2019 columnist for the Oakland Berlin. Luo plans to use the movement and gender Tribune/Bay Area News Group. funding, which begins in politics. Dale, who is based July, to research a nonfiction in Philadelphia, was a key Anna Fifield, Beijing bureau narrative book about love AP reporter covering the Bill chief for The Washington and desire among the elderly. Cosby sexual assault case. Post, is the author of “The Great Successor: The Denise-Marie Ordway is a Matt Karolian is the new Divinely Perfect Destiny of new member of the Education general manager of Boston. Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Writers Association’s board com, a website covering Un,” published in June by of directors. Her two-year Boston and the surrounding PublicAffairs. It is a behind- term officially began at area that is operated by Boston the-scenes look at the rise and the EWA’s annual national Globe Media. He began in that reign of one of the world’s seminar in Baltimore in May. role in April and continues most infamous—and elusive— A former education reporter to be The Boston Globe’s tyrants and his North at the Orlando Sentinel, she is director of new initiatives. Eliza Griswold, NF ’07, Korean regime. managing editor of Journalist’s winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Resource at Harvard’s Christine Mungai has joined Prize in General Nonfiction Taylor Goldenstein joined Kennedy School. The Elephant, a Nairobi, the Houston Chronicle as a Kenya-based publication ‘A Classic reporter in their Austin bureau 2016 examining the African in March. Previously, she Wendi C. Thomas is a new condition through essays, American was a reporter at the Austin member of the Nieman features, and longreads, as Story’ a curator. Previously, she American-Statesman. Advisory Board. She is the Eliza Griswold, NF editor and publisher of was a writer and editor at Tim Rogers has a new MLK50: Justice Through africapedia.com. ’07, wins a 2019 position at Univision, where Journalism, a Memphis-based Pulitzer Prize he’s a producer for “Real nonprofit newsroom focused Frederik Obermaier is Each year, more than 2,500 America with Jorge Ramos,” on poverty, power, and public featured in the Alex Winter- entries are submitted for just a news show that appears on policy. directed documentary “The 21 awards in the Pulitzer Prize Facebook Watch. Previously, Panama Papers,” which was competition. Eliza Grisworld, Rogers was Fusion’s senior 2017 released in October and is NF ’07, in April joined the editor for Latin America. Katherine Goldstein is the being screened around Europe more than 100 Nieman creator and host of a new and North America. Obermaier Fellows who are Pulitzer Prize 2015 podcast, “The Double Shift.” and his Süddeutsche Zeitung winners. Griswold won the Gabe Bullard is senior editor The reported narrative colleague Bastian Obermayer 2019 Pulitzer Prize in General at NPR-member station podcast focuses on stories of initiated the investigation Nonfiction for her book WAMU in Washington, D.C. mothers who work, with jobs into the Panama Papers in “Amity and Prosperity: One Previously, he was director everywhere from the campaign 2016 after an anonymous Family and the Fracturing of digital content for “1A,” a trail to the (legal) brothels whistleblower leaked the of America,” published nationally-broadcast WAMU of Nevada. documents to them. in 2018 by Farrar, Straus show. and Giroux. The Pulitzer Mary Louise Schumacher 2019 Board called the book, set David Jiménez is the author has been invited to participate Matthew Teague’s 2015 essay in the small town of Amity, of a new book, “El Director” as the 2019 Distinguished for Esquire, “The Friend: Love Pennsylvania, “a classic (“The Editor”), which Critic in the Smithsonian Is Not a Big Enough Word,” American story, grippingly was published in Spain by American Art Museum’s is being made into a movie. told, of an Appalachian family Libros Del Ko in April. It is Clarice Smith lecture series in The essay details his wife struggling to retain its middle an insider’s account of the November. The Clarice Smith Nicole’s death from ovarian class status in the shadow crisis at Spain’s El Mundo Distinguished Lectures in cancer and how the couple’s of destruction wreaked by newspaper, where he was American Art were established close friend uprooted his life corporate fracking.” brought on as editor only to be in 2004 to present new to move in and help Teague Griswold, who is fired a year later, in May 2016. insights in American art from and his two young daughters currently a contributing the perspectives of the finest before and after Nicole’s writer at The New Yorker Jieqi Luo has been awarded artists, critics, and scholars. passing. Directed and a distinguished writer a research grant through by Gabriela Cowperthwaite in residence at New York Crossing Borders, a program 2018 and staring Casey Affleck, University’s Arthur L. Carter of the German charitable Maryclaire Dale has a new Dakota Johnson, and Journalism Institute, spent institution Robert Bosch beat at The Associated Press, Jason Segel, “The Friend” seven years doing on-the- Stiftung, conducted in where she is one of two began filming in Fairhope, ground reporting for “Amity cooperation with the reporters assigned to coverage Alabama—where the Teague and Prosperity.” KATHY RYAN KATHY Literarisches Colloquium focusing solely on the #MeToo family lived—in February.

nieman reports SPRING 2019 43 sounding education. I got to know why after she died. As I gained more experience as a journalist, I got to appreciate her story more because it was so typical back then and therefore resonated with hundreds of Why the Stories of thousands of other war widows. Her story was Japan’s story. Everyday Moments Matter I regretted not fully knowing the sacrifices she’d made and not asking her questions The only way to get at truth is to get to get her story. I should’ve asked how she felt when I moved to America in 2000, her out of the newsroom and report with former enemy, to become a journalist. I all your senses—and your heart should’ve asked why she never badmouthed by yoshiaki nohara America or Americans. I should’ve known about the event along the river. I should’ve thanked her for her perseverance. s a reporter, I have written nu- I’ve tried to reconstruct the riverside merous stories about people. I hope scene over and over in my mind. So much I got as many stories right as I could, so, I realized, that it affected my work as a A but I’m sure I missed many, too. The journalist during my remaining time at The one I most regret not capturing is a Herald and at Bloomberg News in Tokyo, personal one. where I have worked since 2009. That is the story of my grandmother, my I am old-school in terms of not putting father’s mother, Hamako Nohara. myself in a story, but I can’t fool myself about She died at the age of 86 in January what kind of stories I care about most and 2006, when I was learning the ropes on my report and write with my heart. I have taken first reporting job at The Herald in Everett, pride in writing about a Japanese-American Washington. I was too busy writing about and his twin brother who fought for the U.S. strangers in the U.S. to be up to date on my after being sent to an internment camp, family in Japan, my mother country. a problematic foreign workers program By the time I traveled back to my parent’s in Japan, and the plight of Japanese single place in Yamaguchi, a prefecture in western mothers and their children. Japan, her funeral was over. My parents parents kept her test scores while tossing out My Nieman year gave me time to pause apologized for not having told me that she the others. She used to walk several miles to and reflect on my career. I asked myself had been hospitalized for a broken leg. They school wearing sandals made of rice straw simple questions: Why am I drawn to those had expected her to recover and didn’t want despite getting frostbite. She loved studying stories when nobody is telling me to do to worry me. But her chronic liver problem and dreamed about becoming a teacher. them? Why do I think data analysis and got worse fast, and she died. But World War II took everything interviews with experts and policymakers Her death devastated my parents. I from her—her dreams, her home, and her are not enough for an enterprise story? Why remember how small and fragile they looked. husband. She became a widow with two do I feel compelled to report on the ground My father, a truck driver with thick forearms, children too small to remember anything and listen to people? openly said he was lonely. That surprised about their father. They moved from one As I searched for answers, I thought me as he rarely talked about his emotions. relative’s place to another and at one point about the riverside scene and I tried to He talked about his mother’s story, parts of lived in a place that was more like a horse imagine once again what it was like for my which I had never heard. shed than a house. My grandmother held grandmother to survive after the war. My grandmother grew up in a rural town various jobs, including in construction, and I realized I’ve been trying to capture in Yamaguchi as the oldest of six siblings. suffered tuberculosis, but she persevered to stories like hers, stories about ordinary She was the best student among them. Her build a better life for her children and her people who are left behind to struggle due grandchildren, including me. to greater forces. I believe that a truth, if not My father recounted an event to me. the truth, exists in everyday moments and One day when he was small, he was taking a the struggles of those people. And the only walk with his mother along the river in our way to get such a truth is to get out of the hometown. He remembers her stopping and newsroom and report with all my senses and asking him: “Shall we jump off from here?” my heart. “I realized I’ve been trying He got so scared, but spoke up. “No, I I am glad I interrogated my motives to capture stories like [my don’t want to,” he shouted. as a journalist. I see my own path going grandmother’s], stories She listened to him and decided to live. forward with more clarity. And I thank my When she was alive, I took my grandmother grandmother for that.  about ordinary people who for granted. When I was a boy, she used to are left behind to struggle tell me and my brother to study all the time. I Yoshiaki Nohara, a 2019 Nieman Fellow, covers due to greater forces didn’t know why she was so passionate about economics for Bloomberg News in Tokyo ABITBOL OPPOSITE: LISA

44 nieman reports SPRING 2019 Nieman Online

“[Georges] really helped me prepare for asking the tough questions Uprooting Corruption in Israeli Media Corruption in the Israeli news industry is and being more up front with your rampant, but it’s not too late to start anew. Shaul Amsterdamski, NF ’19 and editor at university….[it] really helped me Israel’s public broadcasting corporation Kan, argues that many Israeli journalists move forward.” and news outlets must make amends— — and big changes—in order to regain the Ian Brooking public’s trust. Student journalist

Newsonomics: The New LA Times News industry analyst Ken Doctor takes a look at the “new” Los Angeles Times where, under the ownership of billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, tens of millions in new investment and ambitious digital plans are paving the way for revitalization—and top-notch journalism—following the Tronc disaster. Doctor’s Newsonomics series focusing on the Times includes in-depth interviews with Soon-Shiong and executive editor Norm Pearlstine.

Podcast World Attendees of the 2019 Christopher J. Georges Conference on College Journalism, In Hot Pod, a weekly newsletter about including Ian Brooking (second row, far left), pictured with keynote speaker Marisa podcasting that’s published on Nieman Kwiatkowski (front row, center). See videos from the conference at www.nieman. Lab’s website every Tuesday, Nicholas harvard.edu/sites/the-2019-christopher-j-georges-conference-on-college-journalism/ Quah provides a deep dive into the happenings and the movers and shakers of the booming podcast industry. Topics include Spotify’s podcast acquisitions and ambitions, public radio podcasts as a vehicle to increase donations, unionization at podcast shops like Gimlet, and the latest podcast-listening statistics.

Newsroom Odes In a 10-part series of poems, Don Nelson—who, currently the publisher and editor of the Methow Valley News in Washington, has been in the newspaper business for nearly 50 years—chronicles the legacy newsroom and its unique, but sadly disappearing, culture. Each poem is written from a different perspective, including city editor, photographer, and longtime subscriber.

High Notes from Writers, Editors Following the 2019 Power of Narrative conference, Storyboard shares some nuggets of wisdom about the craft from the conference speakers, including “Columbine” author Dave Cullen and Storyboard’s own Jacqui Banaszynski. SPRING 2019 VOL. 73 NO. 2 The Neman Foundaton for Journalsm TO PROMOTE AND Harvard Unversty ELEVATE THE STANDARDS One Francs Avenue OF JOURNALISM Cambrdge, Massachusetts 02138 NIEMAN REPORTS VOL. 73 NO. 2 SPRING 2019 NEWSROOM UNIONIZATION THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY