Meanwhile …
There was a curious moment during Wednesday’s hearings when Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about his citizenship.
Cotton asked, “Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?”
Chew said, “Senator, I'm Singaporean. No!”
Cotton followed up with, “Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?”
Chew, appearing to be in mild disbelief, said, “No, senator. Again, I'm Singaporean.”
The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona wrote that Cotton “engaged in a bit of McCarthyism” in his questioning of Chew about the Chinese Communist Party.
Cotton later appeared on Fox News with host Martha MacCallum, who asked Cotton, “Do you have some information on this TikTok CEO we should be aware of?”
Cotton danced around a bit before MacCallum followed up by asking if he was out of line with his questions and asking again if Cotton had “any evidence that he's a member of the CCP?”
Again Cotton rambled a bit and never directly answered the question before MacCallum weakly let him go with, “Good questions, very good questions, senator.”
Good start by MacCallum, but she couldn’t stick the landing.
The Messenger goes down
The Messenger, the digital news startup that was supposed to make a big splash in the media landscape, is instead doing something else: crashing.
Started just last May with $50 million in funding, The Messenger will shut down operations immediately.
Axios’ Sara Fischer wrote, “It’s one of the biggest media failures of the internet era. Worse, the demise was foreseeable — and foreseen.”
The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin wrote, “The organization hired about 300 people, including journalists with experience at such publications as Politico, Reuters, NBC News and The Associated Press, who joined the company in the hopes that it would deliver on its promise to introduce an important new nonpartisan voice to the American news landscape.”
To be honest, I don’t know that there is much to be said because I don’t recall much that I read. Last May, I wrote about The Messenger’s strong debut with an interview with former President Donald Trump. After that, and maybe others will disagree, it just wasn’t a site that I felt moved the needle.
Semafor’s Max Tani wrote, “… the project was beset with problems from the start. Its plan to build a massive newsroom quickly backfired, burdening the company with large costs: According to a leaked balance sheet, the company spent millions of dollars on travel and entertainment last year alone. It wasn’t able to generate enough revenue from advertising, and its events and digital video businesses never got off the ground.”
Fischer noted that CEO and founder Jimmy Finkelstein “came close to raising the cash necessary to keep the business afloat for several more months, sources told Axios, but ultimately failed to close a deal to keep the company afloat. The company, which was losing tens of millions of dollars, only brought in around $3 million in revenue last year, according to financial documents seen by Axios.”
Mullin wrote, “Things quickly went sour after the launch. A well-regarded politics editor, Gregg Birnbaum, quit after clashing with The Messenger’s chief growth officer, Neetzan Zimmerman. Employees grew fatigued with demands to mass-produce stories based on competitors’ articles. The site’s debut was met with a tepid reception from industry critics like Columbia Journalism Review and Nieman Lab.”
After word got out on Wednesday, Eli Walsh, a breaking news reporter for The Messenger, tweeted, “Now that the cat's out of the bag, let me tell you something. This company worked its news and audience reporters to the bone over the last eight months. I wrote 630+ stories in that time, most of them were just copying and pasting work that other reporters put time and effort into, just for us to swoop in and, essentially, steal it. It was, and is, deeply embarrassing and humiliating to know that you're ripping off your colleagues in this industry for the sake of driving traffic at any and all costs.”
Fischer delivered a verdict: “The Messenger was built on the flawed premise that a big, generic news audience has value. It doesn‘t anymore.”
She added, “The Messenger was built on the idea that consumers would flock to centrist news across topics ranging from politics to entertainment and sports. While the site did garner a sizable amount of traffic, proving some audience interest, it was unable to support its sizable newsroom on the revenue it generated.”
News of the shutdown got out publicly before the staff was told. Apparently, the announcement caught much of the staff off guard. Reports are that they will not receive any severance.
In a note to staff, Finkelstein said he was “personally devastated” to share the news. He said even up until Wednesday, he was working to “raise sufficient capital to reach profitability,” but was unable to do so.
Finkelstein acknowledged how difficult the past year has been for media companies because of “economic headwinds.” He added, “Unfortunately, as a new company, we encountered even more significant challenges than others and could not survive those headwinds.”
Awful Announcing’s Sam Neumann writes about the sports angle to The Messenger shutting down. The staffers covering sports included noted names such Seth Davis and Jeff Goodman on college basketball, Ryan Nanni on college football, Arash Markazi on sports and pop culture), and Mike Tanier on the NFL.
Walter Hussman launches journalism awards
For this item, I turn it over to Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds.
Walter E. Hussman Jr., retired publisher of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has found a new vehicle to advocate for his passion: traditional, objective journalism. He is sponsoring a contest (advertised in The Poynter Report this week) to honor reporting in the spirit of The New York Times’ motto: “To give the news impartially without fear or favor.”
Hussman chose not to put his family name on the awards. They will be judged in four categories by state press associations and administered through the University of North Carolina and a family foundation. Prizes for print, broadcast, cable and digital news will each carry a $25,000 prize.
In 2020 and 2021, Hussman was a flashpoint of conflict at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media that bears his name. He criticized the work of history writer and scholar Nikole Hannah-Jones as she was being considered for a tenured chair. She ultimately withdrew her candidacy for the job, which was to be the centerpiece of an expanded race and reporting focus at UNC.
Also, as a condition of his $25 million naming gift pledge to UNC, Hussman had insisted on a prominent display of his “core values.” Students and younger faculty complained that the statement was outdated and not reflective of the range of the school’s programs.
“The controversy from four years ago now seems well behind us,” Hussman emailed me. “The core values have been up for over a year in stone in the lobby of the school of journalism at UNC. They have a new Dean, Raul Reis, and I have an excellent relationship with him. I also met with a new interim Chancellor last week. I have been invited to teach a class once every semester at the school, usually on media ethics. I give them real ethical situations that actually occurred, then ask them how they would decide. It seems to keep their attention and I certainly enjoy it.”
O’Donnell’s international reporting
