This week, co-director Gabe Schneider wrote a review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book The Message. You can read it in full on The Objective.

Also, let us know your favorite media criticism of the year! You can reply directly to this email. We’re compiling a list for our final newsletter issue of 2024 — reply to this email with the takes you’ve raved over with friends and coworkers, or tried to implement in your journalism practice.

In this issue:

And also: Layoffs at Vox Media, Patrick Soon-Shiong’s plans for AI-powered “bias meters” at the L.A. Times, how ChatGPT search misrepresents publisher content, and chronicling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike, the longest in the U.S.

—James Salanga

In The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about the stories that shaped his understanding of journalism and the stories that shape our world. He also comes to a conclusion that’s eluded too many journalists: Our biggest legacy media institutions and the language they use have failed us.

I first came to know Coates as an immature journalist looking for better words and a journalism job to take me away from my dorm. Between two-hour essay writing sprints in the early morning before class and a sporadic sleep schedule, I spent hours scribbling over a print-out of his Atlantic article, “The Case for Reparations”. I wanted to understand: What made his journalism compelling enough to warrant the reinvigoration of a national conversation about reparations? Was The Atlantic the place to learn about writing? And could I (should I?) follow in his footsteps?

The Message, instead of responding to my old curiosities — now sated by time and experience — reintroduced me to a writer who simultaneously believed in the power of his words and was humbled by them. The book, considering his accolades and experience, is Coates coming to terms with the challenge (and self-inflicted necessity) of building a more tenable world for journalists and the communities they cover – but I’m uncertain if his challenge to the institutions that raised him up is forceful enough.

In his haste to become a better writer, Coates internalized the language of white writers and adopted their same set of assumptions. “I thought I could stand apart, but looking back, I see the parts of my thinking that were most reinforced were those that dovetailed with those around me,” he writes. While making the case for reparations in 2014, Coates based his arguments on Germany’s reparations program to Israel without examining its exact implications for Jews and Palestinians.

He got it wrong, he says, because “there were no Palestinian writers or editors around me. But there were many writers, editors, and publishers who believed in the nobility of Zionism and had little regard for, or simply could not see, its victims.”

Despite all of this, he doesn’t name names: At a recent event in Los Angeles, when asked if he could have published the chapter on Palestine in The Message while he was at The Atlantic, Coates said it wouldn’t have been possible today. But when the interviewer pushed again to ask specifically about current Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, Coates responded, “These critiques I have of media extend long past that. I don't like the idea of putting it on a singular person — these are structures.”It’s certainly a kind and careful approach, and I do believe the structures need to be dismantled, but I’m not sure it’s that simple. Institutions can be resilient, but they ultimately rely on norms defined by rules and rules defined by people. I believe Coates also knows this, because he acknowledges he learned from the writing of his peers with white supremacist beliefs, despite their moral failures.

Continue reading the full story on The Objective.

— Gabe Schneider

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Journalists may want to be done with COVID-19, but the virus isn’t done with us — or the communities we live in and report on. It is a disservice to people’s health and lives to mischaracterize or inaccurately report on COVID-19. Here’s how to improve your coverage. Read more.

Vox Media announces layoffs before holidays: The layoffs predominantly affect Thrillist, Eater, PS (PopSugar), and the media production and technology team, and follow multiple rounds of Vox Media layoffs last year. Vox and the Vox Media Union didn’t share specific numbers of layoffs, but its union says the changes “decimate” Thrillist and greatly impact Eater’s Cities team.

💻 Read the story in The Wrap.

New bias (meters) to come to the L.A. Times: To swift rebuke from staffers, billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong announced he’s been working on AI-generated “bias meters” on Times news stories. Soon-Shiong has also reportedly begun reviewing all headlines of opinion pieces pre-publication. His leadership decisions have been tied to a drip of editorial resignations, including senior legal affairs columnist Harry Litman and assistant editorial page editor Kerry Cavanaugh.

🪫 Read the story in CNN.

How ChatGPT search (mis)represents publisher content: Whether or not they allow OpenAI’s crawlers, publishers face the risk of their content being misattributed or misrepresented in ChatGPT search, as the company has also made no explicit commitment to verifying the accuracy of citations. That comes from an analysis led by the Tow Center for Journalism, which analyzed a mix of 20 publishers, including some actively involved in lawsuits against OpenAI and others in partnership with the company.

🔍 Read the story in Columbia Journalism Review.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike — the longest in the U.S. — isn’t over: Post-Gazette workers walked off the job in October 2022 after seven years without a union contract, and they’re still striking while publishing on their union publication, the Pittsburgh Union-Progress. The new presidential administration could impact the legal process that might end the strike: the National Labor Relations Board issued an injunction request (which the Post-Gazette appealed) to resume bargaining that could effectively end the strike, but a new general counsel could pull the case.

✊ Read the story in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

This week’s resource is the Language, Please: Religion, Spirituality, and Worldview subsection.

It’s holiday season! And in writing about upcoming holiday celebrations and their importance to various religions, this stylebook may be a helpful one to consult for useful guidance around accurate and thoughtful language.

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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