For the Record

Quartz Sale Spurs Record Membership:

Global business publication Quartz "enjoyed its best week ever for membership last week, adding nearly 1,200 new members" following a management buyout led by co-founder and CEO Zach Seward, the digital media organization announced Tuesday. According to a letter from Seward, the spike was pegged to a 50% discount of the first year of membership, which also encompasses "unlimited access to all of our coverage and premium features like field guides, emails, and presentations."

Bandcamp Launches Live Streaming Service:

Digital music platform Bandcamp has launched a ticketed live streaming service for its users "as musicians look for ways to offer remote performances for fans," Brian Heater of TechCrunch reported Tuesday. In addition to waiving its 10% service fee until March 2021, the company has included such features as a virtual merchandising table and an optional chat mechanism. Co-founder Ethan Diamond revealed that "half of the sales on [the platform] at this point are for physical goods" in an August interview with NPR's David Krukowski.

Substack and the Future of Journalism:

Although the Substack platform has elicited widespread attention after 2014 Public Service contributor and Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald and former New York Contributing Editor Andrew Sullivan left their respective publications to self-publish lucrative newsletters without perceived editorial interference, a variety of writers told Clio Chang that "their newsletters didn't amount to full-time work" in a special report for the Columbia Journalism Review. "Substack is not the sort of thing that is going to create a sustainable next phase, but it can open the door to things that we don’t have doors for yet,” said Nathan Schneider, a media studies professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Reuters Pivots To Hybrid Events Business:

Based around FC Business Intelligence (which was acquired in October 2019), the renamed Reuters Events "plans to roll out a hybrid [...] model which will delve further into region-based networking without losing the benefits of virtual that the Reuters team has discovered over the past eight months," Kayleigh Barber of Digiday reported Monday. According to Reuters Professional Managing Director Josh London, the "hub and spoke" model "will allow networking events to take place across the world that are connected to an overall global conference," with pre-COVID capacity broken up into as many as 500 hyper-regional venues. "If the pandemic has taught us one thing, we are social animals and that speaks well to the future of the events business," said London.

News Corp Bids for Simon & Schuster:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has joined Bertelsmann's Penguin Random House in bidding on Simon & Schuster via its HarperCollins division, Edmund Lee of The New York Times reported Monday. The publisher "was put up for sale by its owner, ViacomCBS, in March," and the company may announce a winner "some time" after Thanksgiving. Lee added that "a combination with either Penguin Random House or HarperCollins, the two largest book publishers in the country, could raise questions in Washington." (Pulitzer Prize Board Co-Chair Mindy Marqués will join the company's eponymous flagship imprint as vice president and executive editor on November 30. Former Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy was appointed senior vice president and publisher of the imprint earlier this year.)

Military Veterans in Journalism Partners With Knight Foundation:

The Military Veterans in Journalism advocacy organization has announced a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation "aimed at supporting veterans through six-month fellowships, workshops, mentorship and two paid staff positions for MVJ," according to Kristen Hare of Poynter. Although 7% of Americans are veterans, "that number shrinks to just 2% among journalists" per Census data. "I train hundreds of journalists each year on perspectives we need to ensure are heard, yet 'military' is rarely mentioned when we brainstorm viewpoints that should be considered," said Doris Truong, Poynter's director of training and diversity. "Knight's investment is an important step toward further diversifying voices in newsrooms."

Hong to Edit Curbed:

Sukjong Hong will serve as editor of Curbed as it completes its integration into New York magazine and "takes on the city’s ever-changing built environment, real-estate market and design world," the publication announced last week. The former managing editor of The Architect's Newspaper, Hong also has conducted urban planning research for the Knight Foundation and the Van Alen Institute.

Ressa Steps Back at Rappler:

Rappler Executive Editor Maria Ressa "is going on sabbatical and her co-founders [...] will assume more strategic roles that will pave the way for the company’s next-generation leaders," the Philippine digital news organization announced last week. Current Managing Editor Glenda M. Gloria will succeed Ressa (who will remain president and CEO) as executive editor. Ressa, a 2018 Time Person of the Year, emerged as an international press freedom advocate after the administration of Rodrigo Duterte tried and convicted her on cyber libel charges.

Kansas City Star Leaves Building, Shifts Printing Operations:

The Kansas City Star will vacate its 2006 glass-fronted headquarters in the downtown Crossroads district by the end of 2021 and move printing to the facilities of the Gannett-owned Des Moines Register beginning in the first quarter of 2021, according to Business Reporter Kevin Hardy. The decision stems from the recent bankruptcy of parent company McClatchy, which enabled the company to renegotiate its leases. "Although our news deadlines will be earlier, our production schedule will remain materially the same and our readers will receive their newspapers as usual," said President and Editor Mike Fannin, who added that "the search would begin soon for new, smaller office space." The Star was owned by Disney and Knight Ridder prior to its acquisition by McClatchy in 2006.

Buyouts Proliferate at Gannett:

Roughly 500 voluntary buyouts were accepted at Gannett following a round of offers in October, Kristen Hare and Rick Edmonds of Poynter reported Thursday. According to an internal PDF obtained by Hare and Edmonds, the buyouts include "about 60 editors, 19 photojournalists, seven managing editors, three executive editors and 124 reporters." The media company, which employs 5,000 journalists, previously announced a net addition of journalists hrough the end of the year in a late summer earnings conference call. It also has "closed two newsrooms in Texas, closed printing presses in Montana and California and moved a newsroom out of its building in Ohio."