Get ready to review an event-filled two weeks, from another blow for modern journalists to the legal status of the independent contractor.
DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shut Down After Vote to Unionize | The New York Times
Key Quote: After last week’s vote, one DNAinfo reporter, Katie Honan, said, “If this is the future of journalism, it should be a career for people, not a postcollege hobby.”
Digital journalism is frequently unprofitable; digital journalists are frequently underpaid. It’s a clash of mutual concerns that, at the moment, has left 115 journalists in major cities across the nation suddenly unemployed and, crucially, without ready access to many clips, thanks to the purportedly momentary removal of all DNAInfo and -ist site content from the public Web. Notably, though owner Joe Ricketts has taken a public stance against the unionization of employees — and this comes on the heels of his New York-based employees’ vote to join the Writers Guild of America East — the decision impacts those at many non-union offices as well, including Chicago and San Francisco. In all, the closures mark another troubling chapter for the contemporary journalism profession.
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Harvey Weinstein and the Economics of Consent | The Atlantic
The Men You Meet Making Movies | The New York Times
Key Quote: All of them are courageous, including the women who could not find a way out. I think for me, I was able to leave Weinstein’s hotel room that day because I had entered as an actor but also as a writer/creator. Of those dual personas in me—actor and writer—it was the writer who stood up and walked out. Because the writer knew that even if this very powerful man never gave her a job in any of his films, even if he blacklisted her from other films, she could make her own work on her own terms and thus keep a roof over her head. (Marling)
I haven’t acted for almost 10 years now. Lately I’ve thought of trying to rediscover what once made it seem worthwhile. It’s a beautiful job, after all, built on empathy and human connection, and it seems strange to turn your back on something you did for so long. But for a long time, I felt that it wasn’t worth it to me to open my heart and make myself so vulnerable in an industry that makes its disdain for women evident everywhere I turn. (Polley)
In this post-Harvey Weinstein exposé media era, we’ve seen a wide variety of valid ways to tackle the nuances of sexual harassment and abuse as committed by those in positions of power. The economic realities, and what stands in the way for many women (and, as we’ve also been reminded, very young people of both sexes), may have been best plumbed in these pieces from creators and actresses Brit Marling and Sarah Polley, who have been able to leverage their abilities to attain some degree of industry autonomy — but aren’t so far removed from recognizing the boundaries standing in the way of such professional opportunity for others.
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It’s GrubHub on Trial But Uber Has a Dog in This Fight Too | Bloomberg
Key Quotes: The question of whether Lawson is an employee turns on how much control Corley concludes that GrubHub exerts over the work life of its drivers. The company, which competes with Uber in restaurant food delivery, argues Lawson decided when, where, and how frequently he performed door-to-door deliveries.
[…] Lawson’s lawyer, Shannon Liss-Riordan, argued that indicators of GrubHub’s control over drivers include that the company expects them to be be available to accept assignments during shifts they sign up for and to remain in designated geographical areas.
She alleges that the company violated California labor laws by not reimbursing Lawson’s expenses, paying him less than minimum wage and failing to pay overtime.
A story worth following — in a workforce increasingly comprising independent contractors and corporate freelancers, the nature of employer support available to these professionals will be a central question moving forward. Uber and GrubHub will be among the precedent cases.
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Universities Take a Harder Look at Whether M.B.A. Programs Are Worth It | The Wall Street Journal
Key Quotes: Since the end of the recession, the number of people willing to exit the job market to pursue full-time master’s degrees in business has shrunk. While top-ranked programs with large M.B.A. classes like University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Harvard Business School continue to rake in applicants and revenue, overall enrollment in two-year, full-time M.B.A. programs in the U.S. fell by more than a third from 2010 to 2016, according to a survey by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an accreditor.
Of the 173 business school deans and administrators across the globe surveyed by the association earlier this year, 8% of respondents in the Americas and 25% in Western Europe said their universities lost money on flagship residential programs. Nearly all of those administrators were at public universities, and 80% said they maintained the M.B.A. because of its prestige.
The angle of this story is the bottom line for academic institutions. Despite the above-cited stats suggesting lower enrollment — though without providing support for its conclusion that it’s a case of existing full-time professionals declining to enroll, rather than, for example, younger adults unwilling to take on more debt — and the anecdotal evidence of current students and alumni displeased with plans to cut programs, we have little understanding of what the shuttering of M.B.A. programs may mean for students themselves, or why M.B.A.s may or may not continue to be perceived as desirable for those still embarking on the degree. (Networking opportunities? Mentorship? An academic level of understanding that could offer additional professional pathways?) Brandon’s observation that “the need for talented managers in [his] region is currently so great, workers may not need an M.B.A. to get ahead” needs considerable more evidence-based support, to put it mildly.