For the Record

Toobin Suspended From New Yorker, on CNN Leave:

The New Yorker has suspended Staff Writer Jeffrey Toobin after he "after he exposed himself during a Zoom call last week with employees of the magazine and WNYC radio," according to Johnny Diaz and Azi Paybarah of The New York Times. During a breakout pause in the election coverage simulation, Toobin "switched to a second call that was the video-call equivalent of phone sex, according to the two people familiar with the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity." In a statement, Toobin, who also is on leave from his position as CNN's chief legal analyst, said that he "made an embarrassingly stupid mistake" and apologized to "[his] wife, family, friends and co-workers." New Yorker colleague Masha Gessen, who played President Trump in the simulation, added: "I suspect he thought that when the breakout rooms started, he was disconnected and he didn’t realize we’d all returned to a live camera." (David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, is a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board.)

Bee Journalists, Union Resist Alleged Click Pay Plan:

Employees of The Sacramento Bee and the Pacific Media Workers Guild "say they are fighting an effort by owner McClatchy to base employee performance reviews on the popularity of their stories as measured by clicks," Mark Anderson of the Sacramento Business Journal reported Monday. "Sacramento Bee journalists work hard every day to serve the community," said Theresa Clift, who chairs the newspaper's bargaining unit. "This proposal from the company should be troubling to anyone who depends on The Bee for news. It would make clicks our first priority. Breaking news, pursuing investigations and holding elected officials accountable would come second." Editor Lauren Gustus, a past Pulitzer juror, disputed the union's claims: "The suggestion that The Bee is tying journalists' pay to clicks is inaccurate. We are proposing performance metrics that measure readership and engagement to better serve our communities. This is a concept both parties agreed to in prior sessions."

College Media Association Retains President After Student Walkout:

The College Media Association’s executive committee voted 3-1 with one abstention Friday against asking President Kenna Griffin to resign following a student walkout at NYU’s Washington Square News, which she advises remotely from her home in Oklahoma, according to Barbara Allen of Poynter. Although the organization initially committed to investigating Griffin after she was accused of transphobic rhetoric and racial insensitivity by her advisees in late September, it subsequently announced that it was "ill-equipped to conduct such an investigation and backed off of its plans." Griffin, who remains employed by NYU, "will presumably remain in her position until her term ends in October 2021."

Nonprofit and Entrepreneurial Local Journalism Flourishes:

Dramatic budget cuts at for-profit local newspapers acquired by hedge fund Alden Global Capital have facilitated a new wave of nonprofit news organizations, exemplified by such outlets as The Colorado Sun and The Mendocino Voice, according to Dan Kennedy of NiemanLab. "There are a number of innovative news startups appearing in towns where Alden-owned papers are only a shadow of their former selves," said Julie Reynolds, a freelance journalist who contributes to the NewsGuild's News Matters website. "A lot of these publications are small nonprofits that don’t necessarily replace the ‘paper of record’ in terms of being able to cover everything their hometown newspapers once did, but they're often filling in with important investigative stories and coverage of underserved communities that the now-diminished mainstream papers can’t or won't do."

Gannett Announces Additional Voluntary Layoffs:

Gannett "will begin offering another round of newsroom buyouts next week," CEO Mike Reed announced Wednesday. According to Rick Edmonds of Poynter, the media company "has not yet said how many," although letters are expected to go out as early as Monday. In an email to Edmonds, Reed "minimized its potential impact": "Voluntary means it's up to an individual employee to choose. Maybe zero newsroom employees choose it." He also reiterated the company's commitment "to add to its net overall newsroom staffing over the second half of 2020" while facilitating savings elsewhere.

Atlantic Launches Climate Vertical, Newsletter:

The Atlantic has launched Planet, a "a new section devoted to climate change," along with The Weekly Planet newsletter, Staff Writer Robinson Meyer announced Thursday. According to Meyer, the vertical "will cover climate change in the present tense — not as a distant threat, but as a force that is already reconfiguring business, culture, society and life on Earth" while "[recognizing] that solving climate change and zeroing out carbon pollution requires getting elbow-deep in reality." Meyer also cited 1982 General Nonfiction winner Tracy Kidder's early reporting on greenhouse gases in the magazine as an important antecedent of the section's work.

Twitter Changes Hacked Materials Policy:

Twitter "will no longer remove hacked content unless it’s directly shared by hackers" or their collaborators after it restricted sharing of a Wednesday New York Post article "which reported on claims that laptop hardware left at a repair shop contained emails and other data belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden," Natasha Lomas of TechCrunch reported Friday. "We want to address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation," said Vijaya Gadde, the platform's legal, policy and trust and safety lead.

Insider Nears Morning Brew Deal:

Business Insider parent company Insider is "nearing a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Morning Brew, a news startup known for a popular email newsletter on business and finance," Benjamin Mullin of The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Although cofounders Alex Lieberman and Austin Rief raised $750,000 while launching the site as students at the University of Michigan in 2015, the deal would value the publication at $75 million. In a statement to Recode's Peter Kafka, Insider CEO Henry Blodgett said, "I can't confirm anything, but speaking hypothetically, we'd be happy to be in talks with them. Alex and Austin are amazing entrepreneurs, and it's a terrific company."

Discourse Blog Launches Website:

Discourse Blog launched a discrete website Tuesday after initially publishing on the popular newsletter platform Substack. The news organization was launched in March 2020 by former employees of Splinter, an offshoot of the now-defunct Gawker. In a statement, Publisher Aleksander Chan and Editor Jack Mirkinson announced a variety of subscription tiers while delineating their ambitions for the site: "We have big goals in mind. We want to put out more stories every day. We want to showcase more reporting and features. We want to do more with video, audio, and art. We especially want to bring you a far more diverse variety of voices."

NYU Announces Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade:

New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute announced its Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade list Wednesday. The honorees were selected by the institute's faculty in conjunction with an advisory board that included Pulitzer Prize Board member David Remnick and fellow Pulitzer winners Dorothy Rabinowitz and Madeleine Blais. Alongside Pulitzer Board member Katherine Boo's "Behind the Beautiful Forevers," a 2013 General Nonfiction finalist (#4), the list includes David A. Fahrenthold's 2017 National Reporting Prize-winning investigation of Donald Trump's alleged charitable giving (#9) and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's "She Said" (#3; based on their 2018 Public Service Prize-winning reporting). 2016 General Nonfiction finalist Ta-Nehisi Coates' "The Case for Reparations" tops the list, with Pulitzer winners Isabel Wilkerson, Sheri Fink and Nikole Hannah-Jones also represented.