The two news stories in our digest this week focus on changes connected to Condé Nast: The layoffs at Condé’s former landmark queer and trans publication Them (after it was sold to publisher Equalpride) and the folding of Self Magazine, which made disability and chronic illness a serious component of its women’s health coverage.

Also, one commentary story looks at a framework naming the roles community members have always played in sharing information — outside of major news media.

An abbreviated version of our media links is on Instagram each week, focusing on what a handful of those stories say about how power and identity impact journalism. (Previous week’s here.)

One last note: If you’re in Chicago, I’d love to see you at our forthcoming collaborative panel on independent media celebrating 50 years of Project Censored’s muckraking journalism in a couple weeks! More details here.

—James Salanga

Them is facing devastating cuts to its newsroom under fresh ownership, according to social media posts by a number of staff members earlier this month announcing they were being laid off. Equalpride purchased the Condé Nast publication in February and did not respond to The Objective’s inquiry over email about the workforce reduction at Them.

“I could make my living on this for a number of years, and that is an increasingly rare prospect for queer journalists,” Samantha Riedel, a longtime contributing writer who received a notice that she would no longer be writing daily news for Them on a part-time basis, said.

Them has been providing needed diverse representations of queer and especially transgender communities, reporter Jireh Deng writes, but its capacity is now dented while the number of U.S. anti-trans bills proposed, predominantly targeting healthcare, education, and sports, are on track to exceed that of 2025.

Read the full story.  

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This story was originally published in Mother Jones and is reprinted with permission. 

Condé delivers another loss to readers and reporters alike, as the almost 50-year-old publication was a lifeline for chronically ill readers. “Self may not have been a revenue driver for Condé, but its work was transformative for readers,” reporter Julia Métraux writes. 

Vivian Delchamps Wolf, a disabled and chronically ill professor of English at Dominican University of California, spoke with Métraux about the importance of reporting that “refuses to present chronic illness as pitiful.” 

Read the full story here.

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Image by Kiss Me I’m Polish.

Community members, not just journalists, have historically and currently played a vital part in strengthening local news. Communities have a long history of creating grassroots information-sharing and media when mainstream news has failed to meet their needs.

So Journalism + Design Lab’s network lead Megan Lucero uses the initiative’s “Community News Roles” framework as a jumping-off point to invite newsrooms to shed a scarcity mindset at a moment of deep distrust in newsrooms and instead, build on the work others in the community are already doing.

Read the full story here. 

🤵💔🤖 Three unions (the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee, and Kansas City Star) have filed complaints against McClatchy’s push for its in-house gen AI tool. Execs plan to use the reporter’s name on the article even if it’s produced or altered by the tool.

✊ In other McClatchy news, the Idaho Statesman, The Tacoma News Tribune, The Olympian, Tri-City Herald, and Bellingham Herald have all pledged to strike after a year of negotiating for conditions “where talented reporters can afford to stay.” Journalists are fighting for a wage floor of $52,000 and are asking for support with their strike fund.

🌍 In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, Larry Madowo talks about the tension between reporting on a place often misrepresented and infantilized in the Western press, and reporting on Africa accurately, which often includes deep criticisms. 

🧅 ’I’m Being Silenced,’ Says Man Who Never Shuts Up. The InfoWars IP faces liquidation after more than $1 billion in defamation judgements from Sandy Hook families. The Onion is making a bid to obtain the IP to create a whole new slew of conspiracist characters, and has said it will share the profits with the families. The ruling depends on a Texas judge, and Infowars owner and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has appealed the auction.

📝 The Xylom, which reports on global health and environmental disparities, is seeking feedback. To improve their coverage, they want to know: How do you engage with news?

👉 Follow-up: “Everyone’s just doing the best they can with this really shitty situation.” Some staffers who were offered severance earlier this year at The Washington Post have been offered a “delayed layoff” by the union.  

Have a story you think we should include in this section of next week’s newsletter? Let us know here or by responding to this email.

This issue is by James Salanga and Marlee Baldridge. Thanks for reading. We’ll have more for you next week.

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