
CityLab has been relaunched under the Bloomberg umbrella - hhs
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/citylab-has-been-relaunched-under-the-bloomberg-umbrella/
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zaphod12
I've been a big citylab reader for the past few years - always loved their
detailed takes on urban issues and some solid long form stuff.

After reading this, just clicked on bookmark and their homepage made me want
to cry. I've never seen a brand murdered overnight before. (i guess the
articles are the same? But design matters...it's a very clear message).

~~~
randcraw
Same thing happened to BusinessWeek. After being consumed by Bloomberg, it's a
shadow of its former self -- predictable, overly cautious, and much less
interesting or informative. It feels like it's run by lawyers and investors
rather than journalists who know and care about business.

~~~
lallysingh
Brand building for the terminal business.

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ilamont
_Sondag is a little unusual for this media age, in that she’s spent her entire
20-year career with one company, Bloomberg. She’s transitioning to the top job
at CityLab from a six-year stint as a standards and training editor at
Bloomberg._

Bloomberg has a reputation in the media world as being a very conservative
company to work for. I have a relative who worked for them, and while the pay
and perks were solid (thanks in large part to Bloomberg's successful terminal
business) you can never criticize the company once you leave owing to a very
restrictive NDA tied to severance.

There is also, as the NYT put it, "an entrenched culture of bullying, where
women are often objectified and sometimes face discrimination, according to
interviews with more than a dozen former employees, as well as lawsuits and
internal corporate documents."
([https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/business/michael-
bloomber...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/business/michael-bloomberg-
nda.html))

For CityLab supporters, I would be very concerned about the way it's being
absorbed into the Bloomberg mother ship. There won't be much independence to
ask hard questions when buttoned-down Bloomberg lifers are brought in to keep
the kids in line and global multinationals like Hyundai are footing the bill.

~~~
skizm
For the record, once Warren criticized him about the NDAs during his short
presidential bid earlier this year, within two days he released all the women
he had under NDA from them as well as any current employees who wished to be
released (not sure about other former employees).

~~~
bbatsell
No, he announced that anyone wishing to be released from an NDA could contact
the company “and they’ll be given a release”. He very explicitly did not give
a blanket release, and we have no way of knowing whether anyone requested but
was not actually granted one, because they would remain under an NDA.

(He also deleted the statement as soon as he dropped out of the race, so I
have to link to Wayback Machine.)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200307041238/https://www.mikeb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200307041238/https://www.mikebloomberg.com/news/statement-
from-mike-bloomberg-on-non-disclosure-agreements)

~~~
skizm
I don't get what you're saying. Are you claiming he lied? Based on him
deleting a bunch of campaign related pages after he ended his campaign?

~~~
bobthepanda
What the parent comment is saying is that he made a comment that in practice
didn't actually amount to anything.

~~~
skizm
But he sent out emails to employees saying they just had to email HR and they
would be released from their NDAs. I don't understand what more you want?

~~~
bathtub365
I'd like to see some proof it was actually followed up on and people were
released from NDA's.

~~~
skizm
I mean the company is 20,000+ people and there hasn't been one story of anyone
saying they were not allowed to get out of their NDA, nor any stories about
being fired or treated poorly after being released. So either, no one took him
up on the offer (highly unlikely given 20k people), or there was no issues
when it happened.

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tomrod
While I've enjoyed reading CityLab articles over the past few years, I've
never quite known what their business model was.

~~~
Ericson2314
Well with journalism these days, you either don't know what it is or don't
like it.

May the news be entirely subscriber funded in a post-UBI world where everyone
can afford to subscribe.

~~~
dragonwriter
> May the news be entirely subscriber funded in a post-UBI world where
> everyone can afford to subscribe

Probably not. UBI doesn’t end the appeal of “free” and doesn't change that the
people trying to sell you stuff have a motive to spend money disguising
efforts to get you to buy it as other things, like “free" news services.

The advertising targets can afford to pay for the news now, because _they are
paying for it_. But they still pay for it indirectly, and UBI doesn't change
the systems which feed into that.

~~~
Ericson2314
I know it's hard to reduce the purchasing power of advertisers, but w e can
produce their _monopsony_ power by making subscription viable again.

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SamWhited
And the RSS feeds are now gone :( I contacted support, maybe if enough people
do they'll come back. I've had success complaining about this in the past when
sites did a bit move.

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evolve2k
> Beizer stressed that the Hyundai sponsorship won’t affect editorial output,
> but it’s hard not to see a car company sponsorship as somewhat out of step
> with the average CityLab reader’s idea of the future of cities. As Joshua
> Benton noted (foretold?) when Bloomberg acquired the site last year,
> “CityLab has a comparatively small but unusually passionate group of fans
> (all of whom either take public transportation or bike to work) and some of
> them seem nervous about the new ownership.”

With a bike riding low car audience, how does it make sense to take on a car
company advertised as part of your reboot?

~~~
Barrin92
tbf Hyundai, in particular, seems to attempt to go into city planning[1] and
Toyota is apparently building some sort of futuristic company town[2]. It
seems like Japanese auto makers are attempting to branch out into urban
development so I guess it makes some sense to use this as some sort of
branding opportunity

[1][https://tech.hyundaimotorgroup.com/article/ces-2020-hyundai-...](https://tech.hyundaimotorgroup.com/article/ces-2020-hyundai-
motors-presents-a-city-of-the-future/)

[2][https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/31171023.html](https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/31171023.html)

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notatoad
So the primary funding source for citylab is now a car company? that seems a
bit problematic.

~~~
randompwd
Even more problematic is the fact Michael Bloomberg owns it, you know, the guy
who stopped journalists that worked for a subsidary of his from doing their
job.

I have zero doubt he'll interfere with the normal operation of CityLab to suit
his own agendas.

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RivieraKid
Out of curiosity, why are CityLab articles so often on Hacker News homepage?
I've never heard of CityLab elsewhere.

And a related question, is the popularity of paywalled articles here organic?
I would expect that the vast majority of HN visitors don't have a subscription
to Bloomberg etc., so paywalled articles should have a big handicap.

~~~
SquishyPanda23
> why are CityLab articles so often on Hacker News homepage?

I've always assumed it was because they had quality articles about cities.
Software engineers often have an extracurricular interest in other types of
engineering.

~~~
bobthepanda
It also helps that a lot of the urban planning trends in vogue, like "tactical
urbanism", resemble the "move fast/break things" fast experimentation ethos.

Cities produce a crapton of data, and in general HN is receptive to anything
trying to make sense of and improve things based on data.

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nojito
MapLab is really cool and everyone should subscribe

[https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-coronavirus-
lockdown...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-coronavirus-lockdown-
neighborhood-maps/?srnd=citylab)

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brailsafe
In adjacent news, Treehugger recently got a redesign. They're content has
always been hit or miss with a few decent redas amd a number of aquihires, but
I think it's still worth checking out from time to time.

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hooch
Citylab has been a real gem. Hopefully the team can withstand the headwinds at
Bloomberg and keep up the great work.

