
The Atlantic lays off almost 20% of staff - augustocallejas
https://www.axios.com/the-atlantic-layoffs-coronavirus-49cc6ad2-6579-45cd-b816-e20865f7351e.html
======
jbellis
85 comments and not one seems to have read past the headline here.

"The 68 staff cuts are mostly attributable to the collapse of the company's
events business."

Reporters aren't losing their jobs here. Events staff with no events to run
are.

~~~
burkaman
> In the memo, Bradley says that sales, editorial and events staff are all
> impacted.

There will more than likely be events to run in the near future.

~~~
empath75
Not for the next year or so.

------
GnarfGnarf
The sum of annual subscriptions across all newspapers I'm interested in is
exorbitant.

What if I could pay on a per-article basis? I wouldn't have a problem paying
50¢ or $1.00 for an article I was interested in. It's not practical for each
publisher to set up micro-payments. But, if there were an intermediate agent
that accepted and managed payments for individual random articles, the money
could be aggregated and remitted in a lump sum to the publishers. Sort of like
an old-fashioned news stand.

What the newspaper business needs is a middleman who will collect micro-
payments from me and millions of others, aggregate the money, charge my credit
card once a month, and pay each publication weekly or monthly for the
collective readers who have selected articles.

The middleman could accept PayPal payments, or I could open an account with my
credit card, and pay once a month for all the individual articles I have read.

There is a Website called Blendle that proposes to do this. However, only a
subset of articles are available. Publishers are reserving the prime content
for full subscribers, and leaving Blendle with the crumbs. That's not going to
work.

~~~
nillium
In reality, the reason why these have failed in the past is human psychology.
Think about this with something other than news -- we all have $800
smartphones, but stare at the app store thinking, "hmm...do I really want to
spend 99 CENTS?"

When you subscribe to a publication, you have to make decision once. You think
about the amount of money against all future potential articles you can read,
and decide from there. When you're paying for EACH article, all of a sudden
you have to make that decision with every click. Is this article REALLY worth
50 cents?

Not to mention, this incentivizes the totally wrong things. People say they
hate clickbait, but the aggregators and social networks that now act as
gatekeepers force that kind of behavior -- publishers of course only get paid
when you click through to their article. And in this case, it's even more
profound -- we're no longer talking about a few cents from display ads, but 50
cents to $1.

For what its worth, we're trying a different tack -- especially when it comes
to local news: [https://blog.nillium.com/what-can-napster-teach-local-
news/](https://blog.nillium.com/what-can-napster-teach-local-news/)

~~~
JoshuaDavid
I wonder how well it would work if it cost $1 to read an article, but there
was an easy way to say "this was a bad article and I want my $1 back" some
relatively large fraction of the time. I know that if I had already paid $1
for an article, then read and enjoyed it, I would not be inclined to want my
$1 back. However, if I'm being asked to pay $1 just based on the headline, and
then the article is clickbait and I have no recourse, I'm probably never going
to pay $1 for another article from the same source.

Also, in that system, "90% of readers were satisfied enough to let the author
keep their dollar" would be a pretty strong signal of quality (especially so
if the platform takes more than a 10% cut: this is one of the rare cases where
a higher cut to the middleman might actually result in a better product).

~~~
mercer
This was how Blendle used to work, and for me at least it was very effective.
Despite using it rarely, I probably still spent tens of euros on it. The
ability to instantly get my money back if I didn't like an article played a
big part in that.

For some reason they changed their model to all-you-can-read for $10 a month,
so perhaps it didn't work so well. I stopped using Blendle as a result, though
:-/.

------
burkaman
> Between the lines: The Atlantic's new majority ownership stake from Emerson
> Collective, the impact investment vehicle owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, has
> allowed the company to accelerate its growth in recent years, including a
> major staff increase and expansion that began in 2018.

"Emerson Collective is a social change organization that uses a broad range of
tools including philanthropy, impact investing, and policy solutions to create
the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Established and led by
Laurene Powell Jobs, Emerson Collective is working to renew some of society’s
most calcified systems, creating new possibilities for individuals, families,
and communities."

\- [https://www.emersoncollective.com/about-
us/](https://www.emersoncollective.com/about-us/)

Laurene Powell Jobs has ~$22 billion. She could pay the salaries of these 68
employees for the next 10 years if she felt like it without noticing a change
in her bank account.

Obviously she is not obligated to do anything, but if employees of my "social
change organization" that were hired under my watch, with my encouragement,
were impacted by a possibly temporary economic downturn in the middle of a
global pandemic and I could help them without sacrificing anything, I hope I
would.

~~~
TechBro8615
Why does an “impact investor” own a newspaper anyway? Does this affect story
selection and editorial behavior?

What “impact” could one expect to have by investing in a media organization,
other than pushing an agenda?

~~~
untog
Do you think that an informed population is a net positive or a net negative?
I personally think the former, and I had a pool of spare cash lying around I
might try to put money towards that effort.

~~~
fullshark
Only if they are informed about the topics I think are important primarily,
with a focus on the facts that sway them to the positions I support. Otherwise
they might support a government backing policies I disagree with.

------
minimaxir
As noted in the Vice layoffs thread a week ago
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23193140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23193140)),
these industry layoffs are a function of revenue pipelines, and it is 100% not
related to the type of content or political leanings.

~~~
rayvd
Except where revenue pipelines are influenced by readership reaction to
content quality or political leanings informing that content?

Don't think you can make a statement like "100% not related".

~~~
bearcobra
100% not related is probably too strong, but reports say they've broken
readership records and have added ~90,000 subscribers since March. It seems
much more plausible that the collapse of the events and ad businesses due to
current economic conditions are the driver.

~~~
kristianc
Both can be true. Ad revenues have been hit by COVID for sure, but the
remaining ad dollars have gravitated toward higher-quality and more credible
news sources. Clickbait and hype merchants like VICE, Buzzfeed, and latterly
the Atlantic (the Buzzfeed of the Aspen Institute set) have suffered
disproportionately.

~~~
bazzert
Exactly right, I used to be a subscriber and keen reader but lately it has
been ridiculous headlines like this one ...
[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-
georg...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georgia-
reopening-coronavirus-pandemic/610882/)

------
alistproducer2
This sucks. The Atlantic was doing great reporting in the beginning of corona,
pointing out how few tests were.being done. It was necessary work that
reminded me how important real journalism is.

~~~
cbHXBY1D
The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg (now the editor-in-chief) laid the
ideological groundwork for the US to invade Iraq, one of - if not the biggest
crimes of the 21st century. [1] The Atlantic sold the Iraq War with reporting
that relied heavily on war hawks, neocons in the Bush administration, and at
times complete fabrications. It it is hard to shed a tear for an organization
which helped create a conflict resulting in the deaths of 1.2 million Iraqis.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Goldberg#Views_on_Iraq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Goldberg#Views_on_Iraq)

~~~
alistproducer2
Interesting, thanks. I guess that explains David Frum being a contributor.

------
shortformblog
Their subscription model is strange—it’s $49 per year, which isn’t a lot, but
it FEELS like a lot because there is no monthly option like most publications.

But events are a huge portion of business for pubs like The Atlantic. It is
sad to see these cuts though because they are really putting out some of the
most important thinking around this crisis right now, cutting stuff that digs
beneath the surface and highlights the broader trends at play.

------
nojito
Real Journalism is very expensive.

I fear the day when all the financially viable "news" is some YouTube channel
with no investigative staff powering it, but caters to a niche that doesn't
care about accuracy or integrity to sustain itself.

~~~
InTheArena
I don't know - I would argue that Scott Manley and Tim Dodd do a better job
then any mainstream media on reporting on Space news, and the tech youtube
community is better then almost anyone save maybe Ars Technica.

~~~
nojito
The Tech youtube community is centered around clickbait and shoehorned brand
warfare to generate views.

There are some worthwhile youtubers, but the vast majority create useless
content to keep you watching.

>Scott Manley and Tim Dodd

Space is very very niche. But The Economist and Nature have provide some
pretty good space content in recent memory.

------
blaser-waffle
Events? I would have guesses ad revenue -- it's tanking most places.

~~~
gxqoz
They host the Aspen Ideas festival which I'm guessing is often a big revenue
driver. Many publications (the New Yorker for instance) have moved to hosting
these events to diversify their revenue streams. Whoops.

~~~
ghaff
A number of organizations that make a chunk of their operating income off
events and have made them virtual still seem to be trying to collect possibly
reduced but still hefty ticket prices. There's one event I was planning to
attend in June that's now virtual and the $650 registration is a bar that I'm
having a bit of trouble getting over.

And, yes, a number of magazines in recent years have added premium events to
their revenue streams.

------
sunstone
Why don't the magazines get together and offer a package deal? Kind of like
cable but for print media. I know Apple has something like that but I'm not an
Appostle. If I could pick the publications I want I would be on that in a
heartbeat.

------
zwieback
It's my fault - I let my print subscription lapse because someone gave me
their free New Yorker gift subscription. I didn't feel like I could keep up
with both plus the Atlantic RSS feed still has a lot of good stuff for free.

------
mmhsieh
what is really the minimally-functional enterprise size for a journalistic
organization? you need reporters, editors and fact-checkers. that is the
atlantic model. or, if you want just reporters, we can have pure indy
reporting on massive platforms where it is a pure marketplace of ideas. the
future does not appear to favor the atlantic model.

~~~
minimaxir
Off the top of my head:

\- Sales (for ads/sponsorship to actually make said revenue)

\- Tech (for managing said traffic to make said revenue)

\- Social media/distribution (for sourcing said traffic to make said revenue)

\- Data Analysis (for analyzing all of the above)

\- Legal (not directly related to revenue but is essentially required for
journalism at this level)

Even the "indie" journalists often have teams in these areas working for them,
just with less visibility.

~~~
mmhsieh
you are right, the overhead is bigger than i thought. i suppose if one wants
to be a youtube journalist, google somewhat takes over the role of sales,
tech, social media, and even data analysis if you count their optimization of
pushing your videos to key users. either you pay out of pocket or put yourself
at the mercy of google.

------
tengbretson
I guess I would have assumed that these positions would all have been
furloughed months ago since I don't imagine very many of them fit the
qualification of "essential"

~~~
Traster
I would have assumed that most of the work at The Atlantic is knowledge work
that can be done remotely, so there would be no reason to furlough.

~~~
sjg007
Might be hard to get the scoop for stories... although everyone is in the same
boat.

------
bryanmgreen
I hope this isn't indicative of larger business troubles.

They've provided some of the most quality editorial over the years.

Thankfully John Oliver, podcasts, paid individual-contributor newsletters, and
documentaries are taking over long-form investigative journalism and news-
aggregator sites and social media are increasing their reach, but I still feel
there's value in "traditional" editorial institutions.

------
ProAm
I cant view the article, is there a way around the paywall?

~~~
sokoloff
I can’t tell if that’s an actual request, an _extremely clever meta-comment_
on the viability of online journalism, or a bit of both...

~~~
thomas
Giving them the benefit of the doubt. Great meta comment. Next time add an
archive.is link too.

~~~
radicalbyte
It highlights a very real and very hard to solve problem with newspapers
though.

I read a dozen sites on the internet, a dozen newspapers. I can't afford to
pay a $10 monthly subscription fee to all of them so in the end I end up
paying nothing to any of them.

If, however, I could pay a reasonable monthly fee which would give me access
to all of the newspapers I read then I would do it. It's easier than getting
around adblock or searching for open alternatives.

~~~
asdff
Lots of them are free with your library card. Plus, you don't need to
subscribe to everything. Those dozen newspapers all cover the same stories for
the most part, pick whichever one has the best writing on the topics you are
most interested in and just stick with that.

------
jasonv
I'm surprised how much rationalization towards the billionaire class is being
employed to reason against sympathy and sustenance for the working class
individuals impacted by this.

The billionaires have all the advantages, and often hold a moral and political
posture that they promote socially that are at odds with these actions.

~~~
swiley
My mother just yelled at my sister this week telling her “she’s not mature
enough to get married” because her personal trainer job is currently on hold
and my mom is paying her rent. This is something I’ve seen quite a few
“conservative” parents do to their kids: they don’t think about what the kids
are dealing with they just see that they aren’t making money and scream at
them. It’s something she used to do to me before I finished college and it
made getting out of bed and other every day things super hard. I used to be
conservative but the total and complete lack of empathy people have even
towards their own kids pushed me away from it.

~~~
pmorici
I'd suggest that yelling aside your mom might have a point. The fact that she
is paying you sister's rent sounds extremely generous and unless your family
is independently wealthy probably a financial hardship for her. Had you ever
considered that the empathetic view of her side might be that she is being put
in a difficult position of having to choose between paying her child's rent
and being in a financially stressful position hence the yelling? Chalking it
up to the by product of political leanings seems like a rationalization.

~~~
swiley
I happen to know they’re not in a remotely financially stressful position.

------
jeegsy
As long as they follow the guidelines of the medical experts, everything
should work out in the end. We are all in this together.

~~~
empath75
As long as we ignore that the economy is in very deep trouble, the economy
will be fine.

~~~
lame-robot-hoax
The economy is in trouble because of the virus, not because of lockdowns or
following advice of medical experts.

People scared to die or spread a viral infection to loved ones => reduction in
eating out, going to concerts, or traveling => major economic pain for the
service industry.

~~~
noarchy
Obviously the voluntary actions people are taking is having an effect on the
economy. But when you declare that entire sections of the economy are illegal
("non-essential"), then this has an even bigger impact. Now businesses that
could have tried to stay open with certain precautions are simply out of
business. This puts even more people out of work.

~~~
makomk
Also, the voluntary actions people are taking are affected by how they see
this pandemic, which of course are in turn heavily affected by media reporting
(and also how other countries have reacted).

