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“Can the Media Survive?” October 21-November 4, 2024
For New York’s latest cover story, features writer Charlotte Klein talked to 57 of the most influential people in media about the future of the industry. Understandably, the majority of responses came from journalists, with some pointing out that the list of elites was incomplete. Said Marcela E. García, opinion columnist for the Boston Globe, “You can’t possibly discuss the future of journalism without Latinos, the second largest racial or ethnic group in the US.” Labor reporter Kim Kelly said that the story “had only one line about worker-owned publications (literally the only bright spot in this entire cursed industry)” and that the insiders who were quoted displayed “a negative bias against unions. I don’t wanna be a part of whatever future these ‘important’ media people are building.” The Nation’s D.C. bureau chief, Chris Lehmann, lamented that “the very bosses who have irredeemably fouled up the underlying business model for mainstream journalism are tasked here with divining the industry’s path forward. The whole exercise is a bit like canvassing the designer of the Hindenburg on the future of air travel.” And culture writer Emilie Friedlander suggested “someone should do this package from the perspective of the journalists who worked for these people, would be fun to compare and contrast.”
Puck’s Lauren Sherman wrote in the Line Sheet newsletter, “I wish there were fewer old people on it,” though she added, “it was not great for Condé Nast C.E.O. Roger Lynch and his personal brand to decline this opportunity. (Anna Wintour also declined, but like I always say, she looks to the future and she knows she is not the future, so why waste time.) A fun game: Who is the author of the anonymous Condé quote?” In his Substack newsletter, Read Max, Max Read called the feature “Gawker for bosses” and a “really classic New York magazine interview package.” “The not-so-secret theme to the package is that, as one subhed puts it, ‘The Bosses Are Feeling Bossy Again,” ’ he continued. “Amidst the wonderfully catty putdowns of each other there are lots of complaints about young staffers and unions.”
Claire Hogan, a video journalist at the New York Times, said, “the idea that Gen Z reporters being ‘less servile’ is a bad thing and somehow existentially threatening to journalism is laughable tbh.” Sara Yasin, a former managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, said it’s “hard to ‘pay your dues’ if there’s maybe nothing better/bigger waiting for you on the other end,” and “those who love yelling ab young journalists being soft are mostly ppl who are incurious/hostile to new ideas + it makes their reporting sloppy!” L.A. Times TV editor Maira Garcia noted, “While I don’t agree with everything said in this piece, it’s a thorough assessment of how people feel about the media landscape (which is really fucking grim, you know that). I’ve worked w/ entry level and highly experienced writers and yeah, I’m worried.” Meanwhile, Jay Caspian Kang, a staff writer for The New Yorker, said the feature “made me Google ‘going to law school in your forties.’ ”
A black-and-white portfolio by Paul Kooiker accompanied the story. Business reporter Sapna Maheshwari called it “some of the cruelest portrait photography ever seen!” In a conversation with Klein on his podcast The Grill Room, Dylan Byers called the photos “memorably honest, unforgiving” and added of the story that, “in our navel-gazing, self-obsessed world, it is something everyone rushed to read the moment that it came out.” Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie, included in the story, recalled his experience with the shoot: “the photographer … asked me questions to get me talking while he snapped away. At one point, he asked: ‘So, how does it feel to be one of the most powerful people in media?’ My instinctive response was: ‘It’s a delusion. It means absolutely nothing.’ ”
On X, media writer Evan DeSimone said, “I think a lot of the criticism this has received is off base. There’s a lot of interesting insight here. However, what’s hard to avoid when you explicitly seek out ‘the media elite’ is that everyone is ultimately talking their own book.” Commenter Marz offered a glimmer of hope for those invested in print magazine-making: “a story this massive — with so much reporting and so many voices on so many topics — is a great case for why we actually do still need to see some stories in print.”
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