Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Save your work. Index your sources. Learn the freelance business.
There are more pillars of being a good journalist but these three things are what every reporter should keep top of mind. News media layoffs have been the norm since the Great Recession and while discussions around new business models and funding sources are important, being able to pivot quickly is essential right now, as former NBC and post-acquisition HuffPost employees can attest.
While saving your stories as PDFs and Excel’ing your sources is easy, freelance can be tricky but there are people who will help, like Sonia Weiser and Nicole Clark, who has a spreadsheet tracker that even includes freelance tax advice.
If you were laid off or just want to know what random-ass freelance writing/editing gigs are out there in the universe, subscribe to my newsletter! It’s suggested $3/month but pay me whatever makes you feel most alive. You can even get it for free if you can’t afford it otherwise
— Sonia Weiser (@weischoice) March 11, 2021
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti says more losses are expected. Meanwhile, there are rumors about a Buzzfeed merger with a SPAC named after the fictional ‘Avengers’ mansion ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Zooming out on news media, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN) is on our radar as chair of the Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights. She just reintroduced a bill on collective bargaining for publishers. Brian Fung reported that Klobuchar plans to hold multiple tech-related antitrust subcommittee hearings, including standalone hearings on app store policies and news publishing, while other hearings will cover consolidation in agriculture, cable and transportation. This comes as Facebook vies for dismissal of FTC and other antitrust lawsuits. Pay special attention to President Joe Biden’s appointments of Tim Wu and Lina Khan. Wired reports the duo can finally put their antitrust theories to work.
Elsewhere on the Movers & Shakers front, here’s a list of writers for hire that were with HuffPost, where female leadership has at least temporarily ended. Some more moves of note this week:
- Kyle Blaine is now leading the White House beat at CNN after working on campaign coverage. It was also his first day back at the office in a year!
- We’re still keeping an eye out for the next move of Dafna Linzer, who was managing editor for politics at MSNBC and NBC News.
- High rollers should take stock of this NBC promotion. Now-Vice President of Editorial and Booking Jesse Rodriguez is focusing on high-level booking efforts across MSNBC, and managing relationships with network contributors and analysts. He oversees all of booking during special coverage, including election nights, breaking news, and major events.
- Jose Pagliery is now a political investigative reporter at The Daily Beast.
- Modern Healthcare tapped The Hill’s Jessie Hellmann as a congressional reporter in Washington.
- Matt Fuller is becoming a politics editor at The Daily Beast, which has several openings.
- Andrew Freedman heads back to Axios as the Biden administration targets climate change.
- Julie Zauzmer will cover local government and politics in D.C. for The Washington Post.
- Rupert Murdoch prepares to hand over his media empire.
- Elizabeth Kennedy will be The New York Times’ new White House Editor. Elsewhere, Edgar Sandoval, David Goodman, Ruth Graham, and Jamie Stockwell join The Times’ expanding team in Texas, “a state that lies at the heart of understanding America’s shifting politics, demographics and culture.”
One last sort of Mover is Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is now on Twitter. Before you try to become a super follower or make fan payments to Facebook impersonators, she says her best stuff is on Medium.
While I’ve been enjoying Twitter’s (very) free exchange of ideas, 280 characters often isn’t enough to capture complex ideas about the economy.
Follow me on Medium to read longer speeches & statements, including my remarks today to the @leagueofcities https://t.co/1VyWIbYQAl— Secretary Janet Yellen (@JanetYellen) March 9, 2021
— Megan Kashtan contributed to this intelligence briefing.
