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The Front Page is The Objective’s weekly newsletter examining systems of power and inequity in journalism. Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe here.

Hey, all. This issue of The Front Page is pretty special — we’re 100 (issues in)!

So this week, Gabe, The Objective’s co-director and co-founder, shares a little about what 100 issues of the newsletter means to him and what he’s learned in the past four years as we look forward to the next four.

And also: L.A. Times picks a new editorial board, new Twitter/X terms of service prompt news organizations to leave the platform, The Onion buys Alex Jones’ InfoWars, Al Jazeera Gaza stops broadcasting due to new bills, and Press Forward opens a new call for funding despite minor controversy during its first round of grantees.

—James Salanga

I’m not sure what I expected when I decided to publish a piece about objectivity and narratives in the summer of 2020.

100 issues later, The Objective and our newsletter are still here. What have we learned?

Media reporting and criticism are still necessary (now more than ever). Mainstream newsrooms have largely abandoned the promises of 2020. In 2024, there will be no annual industry-wide journalism diversity survey. Journalists who have asked the New York Times to do better on trans issues and on Gaza have largely been ignored by the publisher. The primary problem with media, despite all of the other issues floating around, remains the lack of influence given to communities who have historically been marginalized by newsrooms. The Objective is a broken record — we need more media criticism and reporting through the lens of marginalization and power. And whether we have a budget of $0 or $1,000,000, The Objective will keep doing the work to highlight that.

Running a consistent newsletter is hard and we need your support. Around 2,500 people read our newsletter every Friday and tens of thousands read our articles, but far fewer support our work. For four years, we produced this newsletter and The Objective with minimal financial support – we paid freelancers, but we never paid ourselves. This summer, that changed. We’ve always pushed for a runway from foundations in order to make this work happen and Borealis Philanthropy's Racial Equity in Journalism fund has given us some of that runway. The way forward for us still looks like a combination of philanthropy and a print magazine. But most of all we need reader support.

If you’re a reader who values our work and  can support us, please do! It makes a huge difference in our ability to grow and sustain our media criticism and reporting. Seriously, this isn’t just a tactic — we don’t take in a lot of revenue compared to other newsrooms and we’d love to do this work without scraping by. Support The Objective here.

This moment cannot be about defeat. It’s easy to be defeatist about the media landscape and the fact that mainstream media consistently misses the mark when it comes to trans people, Palestine, and structural oppression at large. The other day, The Objective's co-director James mentioned that it’s disheartening as a marginalized journalist to be a part of a field that doesn’t even want to claim you. But they also said something critical: Being able to cover the people who are trying to make journalism better or imagine new forms of it is at the crux of the work. We know this is true because readers like you have reached out over the last four years and tell us how important it is that we do what we do.

You can build something as a labor of care. This newsletter would not exist without the contributions of people like Holly Rosewood, Curtis Yee, Marlee Baldridge, Omar Rashad, and the countless others who have helped build The Objective into what it is today. We say that, because if you are considering building something, know that you don’t need money at first — you just need to care. Journalism can offer new visions of care through reporting on people working to make an impact with their communities. And the structures that undergird it can do better to care for their workers and recognize their labor.

We’re not saying to overextend yourself, but if it’s validating and useful and fulfilling to work on a project you care about, consider how you can build something with those you’re aligned with and determine its future together (or join other people already doing the work). That’s how The Objective came to be and I don’t regret any of the time I’ve spent building it together with other journalists who want the world to look different.

—Gabe Schneider

The Onion purchases Alex Jones’ InfoWars: The CEO of Global Tetrahedron, Bryce P. Tetraeder, published a sardonic Onion-style press release about the acquisition, made for “a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.” “No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds,” Tetraeder wrote. The Onion will relaunch the site — known for spreading rife misinformation and conspiracy theories — as a parody this January.

🧅 Read the story in The Onion.

L.A. Times draws staff ire as it prepares to select a new editorial board: The decision to select a new board comes after several former members resigned due to owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocking a presidential endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris. Soon-Shiong tweeted that “Trust in media is critical for a strong democracy,” though the staffers at his paper are unlikely to trust him. The remaining three editorial board members could potentially be ousted, too.

🗞️ Read the story in The Wrap.

News organizations, journalists debate and decide to leave X/Twitter: The newsroom said earlier this week that it will no longer post on X, calling it “a toxic media platform” and choosing to “archive” its account there like NPR and PBS did last year. The platform is updating its terms of service such that all disputes starting today must be settled in Texas court and its AI, Grok, can further scrape tweets for training data. The changes similarly prompted CNN anchor Don Lemon to leave.

(Note: The Objective will still post on the platform, but you can also follow us on Bluesky at objectivejournos.bsky.social)

🐦 Read the story in Nieman Lab.

Al Jazeera Gaza team stops broadcasting over unpaid bills: In addition to missed expense repayments, staff in Gaza had also struggled to receive payment in recent months. The newsroom has drawn much of Israel’s ire around foreign press coverage of its bombardment of Gaza, which has only continued to escalate over the past year. Its West Bank branch is currently “half-closed,” and the Gaza branch says it is aiming to rectify payment issues soon.

📺 Read the story in Semafor.

Press Forward opens second round of calls after initial controversy with first-round grantee: The second round of grants totals to $20 million and will be issued to organizations working on “solutions to common challenges in local news.” It is open through Jan. 15, 2025, and comes after the fund’s vetting practices received criticism for initially awarding a grant to the St. Louis Argus — which has reprinted other outlets’ work without permission. (The grant is now on pause.)

⏩ Read the open call in Press Forward and the St. Louis Argus saga in STL Mag.

This week’s resource is the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Cultural Competence Handbook.

As journalists look to better cover Latino communities in the wake of the election, this handbook put together by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists offers tips and frameworks for thoughtfully covering Latino communities in a non-monolithic way.

For more style guides, journalism job boards, and tip sheets, check out The Objective’s resource list.

Thanks for reading. We appreciate you being here, and we’ll have more for you soon.

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