“The New York Times has never had more paying subscribers, and yet coming to terms on paying employees has never been a bigger problem for the paper—just ask the person running the newsroom. During a meeting with the National desk last Tuesday, executive editor Joe Kahn, a 20-year-plus veteran, acknowledged the current labor standoff was a unique moment at the Times, according to two reporters in attendance, and agreed it was concerning how negotiations had been protracted. Union members’ outrage over stalled contract negotiations has increasingly spilled out into public view as the New York Times Guild has turned up the organizing pressure, with Times staffers tweeting their frustration and more than 300 of them sending emails to leadership about the effects of stagnant wages, as well as making headlines with a refusal to return to office. The company should be paying staff more money, Kahn said, according to the two attendees; but, he added, he’s the editor, not the CEO. ‘There are a lot of things in this world that are true that you don’t say,’ one reporter said of the comment. ‘A sharp editor might have struck that line.’ That same day, the head of the Times’ Business desk was asked by her staff what she planned to do about the fact that they were up in arms. ‘Nothing,’ Ellen Pollock replied, according to two staffers.” (VF)
“In 2013, when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post from the Graham family, those complications were not top of mind. The Post was in a downward spiral, sloughing off staff and flirting with irrelevance. Bezos’s money changed everything, bulking up the newsroom, revolutionizing its technology, and firmly reestablishing it as a dominant voice in the national media. But the conflicts of interest are self-evident. Pretty much every public-policy issue the Post covers affects Bezos’s sprawling personal and business interests in material ways. The very existence of people as rich as Bezos clashes with the notion of economic fairness. Recent moves have called renewed attention to how Bezos’s ownership constitutes a massive and almost entirely unaddressed conflict of interest for the Post.” (CJR)
“Russian lawmakers and state media talking heads are demanding for the oligarchs to fund Putin’s war. They specifically target Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin, demanding that they start ‘providing for the Russian Armed Forces.’” (Julia Davis/Twitter)
“Airline tickets, already harder to come by as Europe closed its airspace to Russian planes, first ballooned in price then disappeared altogether. Flights to Turkey that had once cost a few hundred dollars were now oversold at $10,000 a pop. All weekend, planes taking off for Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Israel, the Gulf—anywhere Russians could fly without a visa—were filled with Russian men, desperate to flee their own military. Soon, there were reports of the F.S.B. turning men around at the border and not allowing them to board their flights after the military provided the border patrol with draft lists. But those were avenues for people with the means to flee. The poor, who did not have cars or enough money for a flight and a life somewhere else, hid at home or changed addresses.” (Julia Ioffe/Puck)
“Some bureaucratic paperwork between the Santa Fe district attorney and New Mexico’s Board of Finance sheds light on possible, long-awaited next steps prosecutors may take in the fatal shooting on the set of ‘Rust’ last year. Santa Fe Dist. Atty. Mary Carmack-Altwies’ emergency request for $635,500 from the state to prosecute gives the first indications of the scale of any criminal case for the killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the low-budget western. In a document viewed by The Times, Carmack-Altwies said she may prosecute up to four people, each requiring their own jury trial — including the well-known actor Alec Baldwin — who authorities said discharged the weapon that accidentally killed the 42-year-old mother of one and injuring director Joel Souza.” (LAT)
“Kara Swisher’s reasoning for leaving The New York Times became more evident earlier this week — as fans noticed the paper repurposed the podcast feed for her previous show, Sway, to promote their new show Hard Fork. Back in June, Swisher announced that she would be departing the Times and her popular Sway podcast for a new venture with Vox Media and New York Magazine … Her new show, On with Kara Swisher, debuted on Monday with Chris Cuomo as the first guest. But fans of Swisher were confused when on Tuesday, they began to get notifications from their podcast apps that a new episode of Swisher’s former show, Sway, had uploaded a new episode. When the notification was opened, it led to the feed of a brand new New York Times podcast called Hard Fork. The show, which is hosted by journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, has no connection to Swisher. It appears the company repurposed Swisher’s old podcast feed and rebranded the page to get traction for the new show. Fans who once subscribed to Sway, were now grandfathered into Hard Fork subscriptions.” (Mediaite)
The Clintons family could be very intense when talking about the vast right wing conspiracy, but history, in many ways, has bore them out. Obama ran on Change, but tried, perhaps naively, to work with House and Senate Republicans until he learned — as Hillary Clinton well knew — that it is nearly impossible to work with Mitch McConnell. So it was interesting to see the Clintons once again elaborating on the vast right wing conspiracy. “Clintons Fire at Fox: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are coming out swinging against Fox News in a cover story for Variety's 2022 Power of Women issue. Chelsea Clinton bluntly told Variety, ‘We were the reason that Fox News was created. Because Rupert Murdoch recognized a great market opportunity.’ Hillary Clinton added that she did not believe the press, when it comes to combatting right-wing media, is ‘as relentless in rebutting, refuting, and making clear that this is nothing but a play for profits at the cost of truth.’ She continued, ‘Tech companies, the rest of journalism, ordinary people with platforms, we haven’t done enough to point out the dangers, point out the falsehoods, point out the hypocrisy.’” (Reliable Sources)
At one time it was the focus of family dinners — the evening news programs. CBS, NBC and ABC had gravitas. But that time has long since passed, in the era of 500-plus channels and other assorted distractions. In that time, those of us that can remember have watched Katie Couric evolve from “perky” Morning Show anchor to the first solo female CBS anchor to 60 Minutes Correspondent to digital nomad. Her husband passed away from cancer, and she devoted much time and money combatting that dread disease as an advocate. And now, unfortunately, she has it. JFK’s line that life isn’t fair comes to mind. “Katie Couric underwent treatment for breast cancer after receiving the diagnosis in June, the veteran news anchor and journalist has shared. In a detailed Wednesday post to her website, Couric writes about the experience of being diagnosed with the disease after unintentionally missing a mammogram, saying she last had one in 2020, and the treatment that followed. ‘Had the pandemic given me a skewed sense of time?’ she asked. ‘If I had forgotten to schedule a mammogram, this might be a helpful reminder for other people, too.’” (THR)