An announcement: Starting next week, this newsletter will start arriving in your inbox on Thursdays. We’re doing this to better accommodate work schedules and (hopefully) capture a broader swath of some of the weekend’s news.

Today’s digest is a pitch call! We’re commissioning for our third annual print magazine, looking at shifts in the industry post-2020 and following up on newsroom promises around diversity, equity, and equity.

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.)

—James Salanga

The Objective was founded in 2020, as the “media reckoning” after George Floyd’s murder saw newsrooms’ double standards around objectivity delegitimizing Black reporters’ work. 

As attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies intended to desegregate workplaces have ramped up during the second Trump administration, creating a physical record of newsrooms’ efforts to meaningfully address anti-Blackness and systemic harms in their coverage and staffing ensures this history and moment won’t be forgotten. 

So we’re looking for reported news stories following post-2020 shifts in the industry between 800-1,200 words for our third annual print magazine. We pay $0.50/word.

Pitch us and read the full pitch call here.

Each week, we summarize a snapshot of the how and why behind what made headlines this week, both in and about journalism. 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.

📝 “The latest incident involving … Scott is part of a larger and deeply troubling pattern.” The National Association of Black Journalists put out a statement on Monday demanding respect for Black women journalists after president Trump insulted ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott.

📊 Over 12,000 articles: The number of pieces journalist Adam Johnson examined across mainstream and legacy news sources for his new book to find a disproportionate pro-Israel bias. His analysis found cable networks and print media outlets consistently applied a double standard in favor of Israel when using the terms “massacre,” “barbaric,” “savage,” and “slaughter” to describe the killing of civilians.

🛳 The hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship and subsequent quarantine has led to a resurgence in broader public health news interest. Ivan L. Nagy spoke to Helen Branswell, the infectious disease correspondent for STAT News, about the difficulty in reporting on infectious disease when the CDC and other government sources of health information have been gutted.

💰 The Cleveland Plain Dealer is in the news again. This time, it’s identified in an investigation from Popular Information as being one of many Advance Local newspapers pushing articles promoting online gambling. A few months ago, it was caught in online discourse after its editor defended the use of generative AI in reporting.

🗞️ A new analysis found at least 20 U.S. colleges have cut funding to student papers, so student journalists are fighting back. Over 300 students showed up to the Central Washington University protest in support of their student newspaper, Ananya Chetia reported for Prism. The school asked the Services and Activities Committee to reduce budget by 20%, which resulted in a 90% budget cut for the student newspaper, The Observer, and the campus magazine.

📉 Business Insider underwent layoffs on Thursday. While management reported that less than 5% of the newsroom will be affected, Insider Union and The NewsGuild of New York posted a statement: “We are incredibly concerned about management’s willingness to repeatedly rely on layoffs to make up for poor strategic decisions…”

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

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