The business of media is in danger — but it sure isn’t dead. There have been layoffs across the industry and many newsrooms have cut back on the resources available to journalists. But workers have also organized unions, including high-profile campaigns at Condé Nast and The New Yorker, and started worker-owned media like Hell Gate and Defector. Guests: • Tammy Kim: Contributing Writer, The New Yorker • Alex Sujong Laughlin: Supervising Producer & Co-Owner, Defector Media • Esther Wang: Co-Founder, Hell Gate; Former Senior Political Reporter, Jezebel This show is made possible by you! To become a sustaining member go to https://LauraFlanders.org/donate Thank you for your continued support!
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The business of media is in danger — but it sure isn’t dead. Many of the rising stars that were poised to “save journalism” like Vice and Buzzfeed have either entered bankruptcy or stopped reporting on news. There have been layoffs across the industry and many newsrooms have cut back on the resources available to journalists. But workers have also organized unions, including high-profile campaigns at Condé Nast and The New Yorker, and started worker-owned media like Hell Gate and Defector. This month on “Meet the BIPOC Press”, Laura Flanders is joined by three journalists who have lived through the struggles and are a part of the solutions. Alex Sujong Laughlin is a supervising producer and co-owner at Defector; Esther Wang is a worker-owner at Hell Gate; and Tammy Kim helped organize unions at Al Jazeera America and The New Yorker, where she is a contributing writer. How do they think about the future of journalism, and what difference does it make when journalists have the freedom to speak truth to power — especially when it comes to reporting on policing and Palestine?
“. . . One of the biggest reasons people mentioned wanting to work for Defector was actually citing the Palestine coverage because it was so refreshing for them to see journalists speaking frankly about their opinions about what's happening and not being beholden to really archaic rules of journalistic objectivity.” - Alex Sujong Laughlin
“. . . In New York, Hellgate and other local news outlets were part of an initiative to get a new bill to support local news included as part of this year's budget . . . Much to our surprise, it actually was included. [It’s] a tax credit for smaller outlets and a way to support local news in an environment where Google and Facebook have killed off all of the revenue streams. Those kinds of initiatives give me hope.” - Esther Wang
". . . I think I'm still intoxicated by the dream of journalism, of being able to call anybody, of becoming an instant expert on something and then learning something else. I also think the three of us all believe that there is still a social justice component in this work . . . The existence of Hell Gate [and] Defector . . . are evidence that we're going to figure it out, that some form of journalism is going to exist and that we'll keep doing it.” - Tammy Kim
Guests:
• Tammy Kim: Contributing Writer, The New Yorker
• Alex Sujong Laughlin: Supervising Producer & Co-Owner, Defector Media
• Esther Wang: Co-Founder, Hell Gate; Former Senior Political Reporter, Jezebel
Full Episode Notes are posted the Wednesday following the podcast release and are located HERE. They include related episodes, articles, and more.
Music In the Middle: "Pleasure, Joy & Happiness by Galliano", released on Brownswood Records.. And additional music included- "Steppin" by Podington Bear.
LAURA FLANDERS: It's no secret that the business of media is in crisis. Recent rising stars that we were told would save journalism, like Vice and BuzzFeed, have either entered into bankruptcy or stopped reporting on news. Tens of thousands of media workers have been laid off. Others have organized unions with high profile campaigns at Condé Nast, and The New Yorker magazine. Some have also started worker-owned outlets like Hell Gate and Defector. Today on the show we have some of the journalists who have been part of these valiant struggles. Alex Sujong Laughlin is a supervising producer and a co-owner at Defector, and a writer and audio producer of, among other things, Defector's "Normal Gossip" podcast. Esther Wang is a worker owner at Hell Gate. Previously she was a senior reporter at Jezebel, and a columnist for "The New Republic." Tammy Kim, who once worked in employment law, and in addition to reporting on labor issues, helped organize unions at Al Jazeera America And "The New Yorker" now works as a contributing writer to that magazine, and also as a contributing editor at the feminist magazine "Lux." She's also an active member of the Freelance Solidarity Project of the National Writers Union. How does she do it? How do you all do it? We're about to find out. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Meet the BIPOC Press, a regular monthly feature of "Laura Flanders & Friends." Let's start with you Alex, this question of a media co-op, a worker-owned co-op in the media space. What is Defector, and what is different about it being a worker-owned co-op? What difference does it make?
ALEX SUJONG LAUGHLIN: So Defector Media is in many ways a news site. Like any other news site we publish every day, we cover sports and culture and politics. The big difference is that everybody who works at Defector is a co-owner. And so that means that big decisions about how the company is run, what our compensation is, whether we hire, who we hire, all of that is decided by committees, and we trust each other to make these decisions collectively rather than necessarily giving it to one person in charge at the top of the company.
LAURA FLANDERS: I should have asked you, Alex, what did the defectors consider they were defecting from?
ALEX SUJONG LAUGHLIN: Yeah, yeah, Defector is primarily composed of former employees of Deadspin, which was a site at G/O Media, and they quit all together in 2019, and started this company in 2020.
LAURA FLANDERS: Esther, coming to you, I want to hear about Hell Gate, another worker-owned co-op, and how it contrasts with the other places that you've worked, "New Republic" et al.
ESTHER WANG: Sure, well I just want to give a shout out to Defector, because they really were an inspiration when we got started at Hell Gate two years ago. Them, news outlets like Racket in Minnesota really kind of showed a new way forward for what worker-owned, journalist-run news outlets could look like. So like you said, you know, my previous job before I joined Hell Gate was as a staff writer at Jezebel, which at the time that I joined was just transitioning from ownership from Univision, GMG, to a new company called G/O Media, which was a private equity company that then installed a new CEO. Alex probably knows the story about this as well, since Defector, as their name implies, was the sports site that defected from G/O Media, and became the worker-owned site that they are today. And I think the real difference is just worker control, right? We're the ones who make the decisions about what to publish. You know, we're the ones who make the business decisions. It's not some highly-compensated CEO or anyone in the C-suite position. It's all of us, the journalists who really decide how the company is run. And I think on a practical day-to-day level, that is really empowering to us as writers, as journalists, and as workers, right, at the end of the day. We had a union at , at G/O Media, and it was so, so important for us to have that union as a way to fight for our rights, as a way to fight for our editorial independence. But I think ultimately, and at the end of the day we still realized, you know, we have this strong union and yet we're still often not the ones who are making the decisions that impact our lives. And so at Hell Gate, at sites like Defector, I think what we're really doing is taking that control back into our own hands. And I would like to think that the journalists, the journalism rather that we produce, is kind of a reflection of that.
LAURA FLANDERS: Coming to you, of course Tammy, you've been part of union organizing, and union organizing and a union isn't necessarily a contradiction to being in a co-op. You can have union-owned co-ops as well. Do you want to talk a bit about your experience organizing journalists as workers, the pros and cons of that?
TAMMY KIM: Sure, so it was about a decade ago that I was at Al Jazeera America, and there was a little bit of, I think, buzz just in media generally, because, I don't know, I guess you could sort of pin the beginning of the downfall of local media, and the hardship that we're seeing in media, to various points in time. But that definitely felt like a moment where a lotta things were shifting. And so we ended up organizing with the News Guild of New York, which is also the union that now represents "The New Yorker" and all of the Condé Nast magazines. And I think the idea was very similar to what Alex and Esther have been talking about, about how is it that we as workers can have some semblance of control and also protection for our editorial independence, for our desires, and our conditions on the job. And because it was a sort of traditional newsroom environment, we thought that, you know, and within like a very large corporation, we felt like going forward with a, you know, a relatively kind of traditional union structure made sense for us. But I think it's incredibly exciting that, you know, there's been that proliferation of different sorts of worker organizing. Right now I'm a member of the Freelance Solidarity Project of the National Writers Union. And because we're freelancers, it's a bit of an odd structure where we're essentially a solidarity union. We aren't protected by the sort of regular union laws, but we're able to do things kind of around the edges, like negotiating sort of quasi contracts with various magazines and newspapers for conditions for freelancers. So I think this is just to say that there's a lot of experimentation and flux, kind of responding to the market changes in media right now.
LAURA FLANDERS: No kidding, I'm producing this entire show from a tiny little cabin in upstate New York, on two tiny cameras. We'll tell you more about that later. Well, let's step back a little second into why you, why we all go into journalism in the first place. Who wants to start with that? I mean, it's not usually, forgive me if I'm making an assumption here, but it's not usually to bring in the big bucks and become a huge star. Sometimes it's that I guess, but often it's something else. What about you, Tammy? What brought you into journalism in the first place?
TAMMY KIM: Esther and I actually a previous life together, kind of in community work in New York City, and-
ESTHER WANG: We did.
TAMMY KIM: At that time, we were working on some cases together. I was in a lawyering capacity, and Esther was in an organizing capacity. And I think what I realized at that time, was I really loved the kind of like, client and community work, which essentially is interviewing people. And I had a kind of memory of doing journalism as a student and just thought, "Oh, this would be such a great way to kind of tell stories in a different way," from you know, the law. or sort of other structure where it just felt very limited, and I felt like I couldn't get to know people as well. Of course, journalism is transactional and comes with all sorts of, you know, ethical issues, et cetera. But I think like I'm still intoxicated, kind of by the dream of journalism, of being able to call anybody, of you know, sort of becoming an instant expert on something, and then kind of learning something else. And I also think like, you know, I think the three of us all believe that there is still like, a real social justice component in this work. I'm still very enthusiastic, and I think like the existence of Hell Gate, Defector, some of these forums, are also kind of evidence that we're going to figure it out, that some form of journalism is going to exist, and that we'll keep doing it.
ESTHER WANG: You know, when I think about that time, and the work that I did then, the work that we all did then, it's not so different from, I think, the journalism work that we do now, right? It's, you know, shining a light on social issues. It's being critical of those in power, it's holding people to account in a very real way. And I think it's just a different mechanism and a different avenue, right? To accomplish the same things. I think I also just love writing. You know, I think there's like something beautiful about like, really trying to deeply understand something, right? And to do it in a way that requires creativity, that requires openness, requires having an open mind, and that can reach a lot of people. You know, I think that's like, the power of what we all do.
LAURA FLANDERS: A lot of people went into podcasting for the same reason, Alex, especially that sense that you could get deep into a story, and we saw the enormous explosion and proliferation of the podcast world, and then a whole bunch of layoffs and backlash. Where do you think that world stands now? And tell us a bit about your experience as a podcast producer.
ALEX SUJONG LAUGHLIN: Oh my goodness, yeah. Well it's funny, because you were joking that people didn't get into journalism to make money. I think a lot of people got into podcasting to make money, and that's part of why we are where we are in the larger podcasting industry, because there was so much money, so much opportunity. The bubble's kind of burst, and we are looking around trying to figure out what's next. Back in January I met with a big group of producers in New York. I’ve got to say, like there were more than 100 of us, I think. But we all got together, and we broke into different breakout groups, and tried to figure out some concrete action steps that we can take to help this industry, like from the bottom up, as opposed to waiting for some rich person with a billion dollars to help us out by just giving us money.
LAURA FLANDERS: Well, I hope you figured that out.
ALEX SUJONG LAUGHLIN: Yeah, yeah. It's totally done.
LAURA FLANDERS: Okay good, I'm so relieved. Because my other concern, and we'll come back to what some of the strategies are, but Tammy, I mean now you are working in some outlets that have some resources, and you're writing some extraordinary pieces, I just have to say. Thank you, all of you for your work. But Tammy, I read a couple of your pieces for "The New Yorker", and some of the work that you've been doing following the experience of communities like East Palestine, Ohio, after the toxic spill. And those are stories that require resources. It's hard for any one of us as an independent to get up and go and do that kind of reporting, even if we want to. How do you think about that, and where do you think the resources best come from to do reporting that takes time, that takes in depth, that takes travel?
TAMMY KIM: Even though I'm a freelancer, I do have kind of this home base at the magazine, and they do provide the resources I need to do these sorts of stories. But I'm in touch every day with freelancers who definitely don't have that. And before this job also, I was kind of fundraising for my stories. I would you know, apply for grants that were story-specific, just so that I could have the time and the budget to travel. So it's incredibly challenging. Yeah, I think one of my concerns is that, especially now, the sort of idea of like having a reporter follow you around for a long time, kind of like glom on to you, is is almost a foreign thing to a lot of organizations and people and press people. And I think it's a thing that I'm increasingly feeling like I have to kind of explain and defend, and I think it's really an economic kind of consequence, because there just aren't that many places or people who are sort of able to do it. I do hope that, you know, in certain sectors like podcasting, online magazines, you know, some of the traditional magazines, like we can continue doing that. But I think especially like in an election year, you know, that's a thing that is making a difference between, are we getting sort of like in depth and investigative sort of texture of stories, or is it sort of just like these kind of quick hit, kind of Capitol Hill type, you know, beats on politicians.
LAURA FLANDERS: There's also the legal questions, and Esther you work with Hell Gate, that routinely reports brilliantly on city misdoings and mal-doings of politicians and landlords and the people that are supposed to oversee the two. How do you think about your legal vulnerability and how do you protect yourself when you're not a company with enormous high-paid lawyers?
ESTHER WANG: Yeah, so we actually did think about that quite a bit when we were starting up. So, you know, like most news organizations, we have insurance that kind of takes care of, we have libel insurance, and we were very fortunate to partner with a legal firm that has agreed to provide us that sort of legal review and legal counsel pro bono. I think, you know, not every news outlet has access to that, unfortunately. But, you know, we knew, you know, we would be reporting on the Eric Adams administration, we'd be reporting on the NYPD, you know, we needed to have that sort of legal backing, legal counsel, to be able to do our work, and so we were able to find it. I think, you know, when I think about the context of that question, that question in the context of, you know, what do news outlets, maybe like new startups need, right? Something that I think is really powerful about the kind of like worker-owned co-op movement is that, you know, we share these kinds of resources with each other, right? We're not just kind of like our own little ship going it alone, but you know, we have a lot of support and provide that kind of support to each other. And so, you know, I think as we kind of look at the news landscape and think about, okay, like how can we support these organizations to thrive? It's that kind of like really practical support that I think is needed, right? That kind of thing, what Tammy was talking about, in terms of like pots of money, so that reporters can do more in-depth pieces. All of that I think is really needed.
LAURA FLANDERS: It's one of the principles of cooperative ownership that one helps other co-ops, it's written in right there.
ESTHER WANG: It's written into the name.
LAURA FLANDERS: The other thing, Alex, I mean we've been focusing on some of the challenges, but there's incredible freedom that comes from the independence that you've gained, and that freedom includes editorial freedom. You've at Defector written a lot about Palestine and what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank and Israel. Can you talk a little bit about that? What's gone into the decision making there, and what you're seeking to accomplish?
AW: Our colleague Samer Kalaf, who's the managing editor at Defector, has been writing really brilliant pieces about what's happening, and also doing media criticism about, you know, just the way that people are talking about what's happening. And it's been so refreshing to see, you know, just the way, even in our Slack, the way that people respond when something like that publishes. The biggest response that we get, just from the fellow coworkers is like, "Wow, I'm so glad we work somewhere where we can be honest. I'm so glad we work somewhere where we're allowed to say this." I was on the hiring committee for our interns this spring. We hired two interns for the summer, and one of the biggest things, one of the biggest reasons people mentioned wanting to work for Defector, was actually citing the Palestine coverage, because it was so refreshing for them to see journalists speaking frankly about their opinions about what's happening, and not, you know, being beholden to really archaic rules of journalistic objectivity.
LAURA FLANDERS: All right, well you're definitely none of you going to get any break, because this is election year, and I don't know about you, but it's sort of distracting. Esther, I mean I should say, to be serious, you're going to be covering very important elections. How do you imagine prioritizing over the next few months, and what do you see as your role in a media ecosystem as big and often as celebrity focused as ours is, which is to say, as focused at the top of the ticket.
ESTHER WANG: Yeah, so at Hell Gate, I think because we're a very New York City-focused outlet, you know, our coverage of the election year I think is going to be a little bit less intense, than say like an outlet like "The New Yorker", or even Defector, or a place like the "Times." We're actually very much looking to 2025, when there are big city elections coming up, that'll have a really, really big impact on our city. But I will say when I was a senior political reporter at Jezebel, I was working there during 2020, right? Huge election year for us. You know, we really tried to kind of like, cut through the noise, I think, in our coverage of the presidential election. I think rightfully point out how much of it was so absurd, right? But I think also remind people of the real stakes, and talk really sensitively and critically about what those real stakes were, right? Like not just looking at it as a horse race, who's going to win what state and why, like which demographics are being moved and why, but you know, really talking about, like what it meant for people, what it meant for people's real lives, and really trying to keep the focus on that. And you know, because we were Jezebel, we also had a lot of fun to write, kind of like poking fun where you know, that was due, and it was like, certainly due quite a lot.
LAURA FLANDERS: Tammy, you've been looking at, you've been talking to young voters as I understand, have a piece coming out about young voters in this election?
TAMMY KIM: Yeah we've sort of, you know, obviously over the course of the year, tried to figure out who should cover what, and you know, exactly how, and so I have my sort of list of things that I've been on, and one of them over the past year has been to follow kind of teenagers and 20-somethings about how they're feeling about the election and party allegiance. And it's been a really interesting time to do that, because obviously the war on Gaza started in the fall, and that has really kind of scrambled allegiances and people's feelings about the Democrats in particular, I would say. Some of the people I've been interviewing are young teenagers, and so obviously don't really have a memory of that time, which is also very interesting. Like how could these people who will soon be voting, like not remember anything that Trump did.
LAURA FLANDERS: I want to ask each of you something about the future, and what you think the future looks like. Not for the country, but for this field, for this field of journalism. It seems to me the old model of a journalist having a lifelong career at a single outlet, that model is probably not the model for the future. It seems to me we all jump from outlet to outlet, and recreate ourselves constantly. And I'm just wondering if that's what the future looks like to you.
ALEX SUJONG LAUGHLIN: Yeah I mean, I think that I never went into my career expecting to stay in one place. So you know, it hasn't been a surprise necessarily, the way things have turned out. Although I think I've worked five places and three of them don't exist anymore, which is really sobering. I think that for a long time, the way that we've thought of journalists has been, 'so-and-so' from whatever media outlet. And I think that because people are not staying at outlets, because outlets are not staying in existence long enough to really build a legacy, I think more and more it's going to be people standing on their own names. And I mean that for better and worse. Like, I don't necessarily think that's a good thing, but I think that seeing the ways that so many journalists have eked out a living on Substack, by writing a newsletter for subscribers, and maybe also doing a podcast and then writing a book, and occasionally writing freelance pieces.
LAURA FLANDERS: And then keeling over.
ALEX SUJONG LAUGHLIN: That's the hustle, and I feel like, you know, you see so many people doing it, in part because that's what works right now. I don't know how long that will last. I don't know how many of these independent journalists our market can support, but it does feel like this, you know, building your reputation and doing your work based on sort of who you are, rather than where you work or who you work for, does feel like a lasting like trend, that's going to keep going in the future.
ESTHER WANG: There needs to be, I think, a lot more experimentation with different kinds of structures. There needs to be stronger unions at places, like at more corporate news outlets. And I think ultimately at the end of the day, like what we really need is actually more government support, right? That's something that I think people are starting to talk about a lot more. And we're starting to see movement on legislation to really strengthen and support local news. In New York, for example, Hell Gate and a bunch of other local news outlets were part of an initiative to get a new bill to support local news included as part of this year's budget. And incredibly enough, much to our surprise, it actually was included. What it is, is a tax credit for, really for smaller outlets, and a way to kind of support local news in an environment where Google and Facebook have really killed off all of the revenue streams for local outlets. So I think that those, those kinds of initiatives, are the things that really give me hope.
LAURA FLANDERS: What do you think, Tammy? You have the legal props here. I've always thought we could do a breakup of Google, have a class action suit, and the damages go to support local media and regional media all across the US, nonprofit.
TAMMY KIM: That sounds fantastic, and I'll completely sign on. I know that the News Guild and some of the other journalism unions have been talking about, not exactly that, but definitely versions of that, of kind of, how can we peel back the money that these corporations are making off of people's reporting. And so I think yeah, I think to Esther's point too, that would sort of be, that's kind of like an addendum I think, to this sort of public strategy of trying to make sure that we do have public investments. I think like, my prognosis for the future is sort of bifurcated. I think it's to me the most scary on the local news side, because I think like on the kind of magazine and digital, and some of the stuff that like I've been involved in, and I believe in it, I love it, but I ultimately think it's kind of like added value stuff, that people can sort of do, as they're cobbling together work on various other things. But people who kind of like need to be in the State House every single day, or at City Hall meetings and hearings, like that needs to be kind of professionalized full-time labor, and that money really hasn't been there recently. And so I'm hoping that, you know, kind of this, the public funding strategy, and then nonprofits will maybe fill the void for some of that, but to me that's like, the sort of biggest area of concern moving forward.
LAURA FLANDERS: Tammy, Alex, Esther, thank you so much for your work. Really, you bring a smile to my face, give me confidence about the future, whatever it looks like. I really appreciate you joining us here on "Laura Flanders & Friends."
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