Will working with journalism's bogeyman haunt us?

To collab or not to collab with Facebook — that is the industry question.

Hey y’all! Anita here. Now that the ghosts and ghouls of Halloween have been laid to rest for another year, I want to turn your attention towards a different kind of spectre, the bogeyman of journalism: Facebook 👻

My outsider’s approach

I mentioned in my debut newsletter that I’d recently become a coach for the Sustainability Accelerator, a Facebook Journalism Project training program for BIPOC-led and -owned news outlets, which kicked off this week. But when I was first approached with this opportunity, I was of two minds.

On the one hand, mentoring legacy and digitally native outlets spearheaded by people of colour would help support the development of a BIPOC-led media ecosystem and ultimately further racial equity in journalism. My fellow coaches and I — all seasoned and mission-focused experts of colour with long track records of serving underrepresented communities — also drive programming decisions alongside the accelerator’s executive director Tim Griggs, an independent consultant and former executive at The New York Times. Facebook neither dictates programming, nor does it tell us to promote its own tools.

Participants of the Sustainability Accelerator on launch day. (📸: Alberto B. Mendoza)

On the other hand, Facebook has earned its bogeyman reputation over the years, attracting public criticism of its handling of user data, uneven enforcement of censorship policies and oversight of problematic content on the platform, including fake news and hate speech, among many other issues. What’s more, research shows that Facebook and other social networks are where people of colour frequently encounter racist harassment online. And that’s just its reputation among the general public — for journalists, Facebook and Google pose a threat to the industry’s survival due to their increasing dominance in the online advertising market. Together, the two tech giants receive 42 cents of every ad dollar in Canada, according to the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project, leaving embattled outlets at home with scraps.

I felt similarly divided back in May 2019 when I, as a member of my former employer The Discourse’s leadership team, joined Facebook Canada’s Local News Accelerator as a participant. After speaking to my then-boss about my concerns, we decided to publish an op-ed explaining to our community members how we reconciled The Discourse’s social mission with the controversy surrounding Facebook.

This internal conflict isn’t unique. Other journalists who’ve collaborated with the social network, including trusted and respected industry peers I consulted about my decision to participate in this year’s Sustainability Accelerator, experienced similar feelings.

Jeff Jarvis, my colleague at the City University of New York, illuminates one path forward. In a public post from June, Jeff criticizes Facebook for allowing U.S. President Donald Trump “unfettered use” of the platform “to sow division and encourage violence,” while also acknowledging that it has contributed financially to CUNY.

Excerpt from Jeff Jarvis’ Facebook post. (📸: Screenshot)

Regardless of whether you call them friends or “frenemies,” as Rappler founder Maria Ressa describes her relationship with Facebook, you can’t hold someone or something accountable if you don’t have a seat at the table. So, much like how I’ve been meeting with executive management at Canadian media outlets to advise them on equity, collaborate on solutions and hold them accountable, it’s important to do the same with Facebook.

My industry can also learn from these tech giants, at least according to Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian from 1995 to 2015.

Criticise the tech giants all you like — they deserve a great deal of scrutiny and a fair amount of blame — but also learn from them. That means using them in your personal, as well as professional, lives. And being curious as to why more than 2bn people are on Facebook; or 330m on Twitter; or 430m on Reddit. They must be doing something right.

I know not everyone will agree with me on this, so I’d love your thoughts. Tell me: Should media outlets and the journalism industry at large collaborate with tech giants like Facebook? Why or why not?

Ultimately, the main reason why I decided to join the Sustainability Accelerator has far less to do with Facebook, and far more to do with the people involved — especially the publishers. Along with two committed members of Facebook’s News Partnerships team, who’ve both previously worked as journalists at reputable media outlets, the other coaches and I selected 20 participants out of 300 applications. Here are some exciting stats about the program, which addresses coverage gaps left by identity-based and geographic news deserts:

• Half of the group is composed of Black-owned, Black-led publishers, including some of America’s oldest Black papers, as well as digitally native organizations

• As a group, 80 percent of the publishers focus on local news

• Two-thirds of the participants are from the U.S. Midwest and South, areas that have historically received less investment than their colleagues on the coasts

All the participating publishers and their home bases. (📊: David Grant)

It’s not an overstatement to say that this is an immensely talented and resilient group (in fact, it might be an understatement). I’m so incredibly moved by these outlets’ commitment to journalism and to serving their communities even when their own industry shunned them. Many are over a century old, surviving multiple wars, institutionalized discrimination and several industry disruptions without mainstream support. Others have beaten the odds, demonstrating both community impact and financial success as digital outlets. My goal is to help them shift from just surviving in the short-term to thriving in the long-term.

All of these outlets share a superpower: authentic, reciprocal relationships with the communities they serve. So I’m confident they’ll succeed, as that’s the foundation of great journalism, not to mention a key component of financial sustainability.

My insider’s approach

Two things:

1. Hosting a “media in crisis” talk about Canadian journalism without inviting a featured Canadian speaker? We can do better than that.

2. Hosting a “journalism in the time of crisis” conference without including many Canadian innovators who’ve been leading the conversation for years (especially for these panels: “Alternative News Models and the Pandemic”; “Support for Journalism as a Business”; “Local Matters”; “The Evolution of Journalism Education”)? We can definitely do better than that.

That’s why I’m looking forward to collaborating with both organizations behind these two events to ensure we cast a wider net for future events. Thanks for listening and reaching out.

---

Shout-outs

Thank you, Margaret Boyer-Dry, for sending me this lovely note:

I've been checking out The Other Wave and can hardly wait for the next issue. Your mapping of the Diffusion of Allies made the Bridge Detroit example feel actionable rather than exceptional — so refreshing. I'd love to hear about what's next in your community-driven journalism work.

Margaret is the creative mind behind Lorem Ipsum, a culture newsletter that’s published three times weekly to more than 100,000 subscribers. She’s also written for New York Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

---

In my community

• My alma mater Carleton University is inviting candidates to apply for the Carty Chair in Journalism, Diversity & Inclusion Studies, the first role of its kind in Canada — a full-time, tenure-track j-school position dedicated to fostering diversity, equity and inclusion in Canadian media and journalism education

• The Online News Association, for which I serve as a board member, is now accepting applications for its 2021 Women’s Leadership Accelerator, a year-long program that helps women in digital journalism level up their careers

• The Blackwood Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Mississauga, released a video of a panel I recently moderated, called “Journalism's Myth of Objectivity”; it features Rick Harp of mediaINDIGENA, Carol Linnitt of The Narwhal, Karyn Pugliese of Ryerson University and Lewis Raven Wallace of Press On

• CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where I teach, is offering tuition-free training focused on product development that's open to Canadian journalists, as well as journalists in the U.S., Central America and South America

---

Cool stuff I like

• Check out Blood Quantum, an Indigenous Canadian zombie horror movie I first saw at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival; it became available on streaming services back in April, but recently topped everyone’s Halloween watch-lists

• This is less cool and more interesting: Ed Benguiat, the man behind The Other Wave’s logo font, died last month at 92; read his obituary in the Times

• I just became a member of Tea Base, a community arts space in Toronto's Chinatown Centre Mall, after being a longtime fan; the team behind this space are trailblazers who represent the future of community-building and you should support them

---

Last thought

Anita Zielina @Zielina

The story of Quibi is the story of *everything* that can go wrong in media & media investment: Hybris, arrogance, lack of user centricity, filter bubbles, old boy networks, nepotism, bad management ... I can’t wait for the business school cases that will be written about this.

---

How you can support The Other Wave

My professional mission has always been to support the global movement towards more thoughtful, impactful news coverage, and all the ways that manifests. If The Other Wave gets you to think even a little differently about journalism, especially in Canada, then I will have accomplished what I set out to do. And if TOW gets you to take action and support Canadian media outlets — especially ones that strive to be innovative and inclusive — I will have exceeded my expectations.

If my values and goals resonate with you, I’d really appreciate any contribution you can make to The Other Wave, whether it's providing feedback, passing along resources, donating money or simply sharing this newsletter with your friends.

See ya in two weeks,
Anita