Media's unspoken "talent" hierarchy

One of the industry's indelicate truths: There are those who are considered “talent,” and those who are not.

In the past five years since I last published this newsletter, much has changed. I got a new job (staff writer at the publication known as “Gawker 2.0” or “new Gawker” or “nü Gawker,” depending on how pretentious you are), partly thanks to this newsletter. I became an editor. I lost that job when Bryan Goldberg abruptly snipped the purse strings keeping the entire venture afloat. I got another new job (senior editor at [REDACTED], where, as longtime readers may recall, I worked back when I first started this newsletter). Throughout this entire time, the media industry kept roiling. Newsrooms contracted; many people were laid off; text shed even more of its dwindling relevance; videos boomed; Twitter became a shrunken, bot-littered, fuck-ass husk of its former self; virtually everyone started their own Substack; a select few subscriber-based publications launched and thrived; still more people were laid off.

Having lived and worked through this period of never-ending bust, naturally, I have accumulated some thoughts. Not on anything so lofty as the “future of media”—this isn’t the Nieman Lab, and besides which, my outlook is so dim that, between the two of us, someone’s going to end up jumping off a rooftop if I dwell on it too much. No, instead, I’ve been preoccupied with the magnanimous question of what I’m going to do as the industry continues its downward spiral.

I’ve found, in my eight or so years working in this field, that there’s a certain reluctance to acknowledge one of the indelicate truths of media: There are those who are considered “talent,” and those who are not. You know the former: the names who are ordained the next big thing, who get to profile A-listers (or at least B-listers) for glossy magazines, who get poached for a staff job that pays a good salary to write what you could call honest-to-god features, the stuff of myth and fable. They’re the writers (yes, mostly writers) who have literary agents fighting to represent them, who land upwards of “very nice deals,” who are invited to host book-festival readings or sit on panels to wax poetic about words and storytelling and the truth alongside other well-respected, bespectacled peers. When the Longform podcast still existed, they were on it, reciting all the same things about how they got their big break back in the day.

This is what the dream once was, for basically everyone I know who entered this line of work. Yes, it’s true, most of us did not grind for years on salaries of $42,000 so that we could have the privilege of fixing other people’s copy or optimizing search headlines or churning out daily chum for traffic. (At least you got a salary, you fucker, some freelancers may hiss, which I will allow.) But, sooner or later, the wheat gets separated from the chaff. It takes a blend of luck and opportunity and network and charisma and hustle and, yes, talent, to get the designation of “star,” and most of us, for whatever reason, never hit the right combination at the right time.

These days, the dream looks a little different. Traditional and what was once called new media (websites) are barely breaking even, barring scant New York Times-sized exceptions. Those who have emerged as “talent” in this era are, generally, good on camera. They command significant social-media followings due to their wit, expertise, authority, and/or ability to look good on camera. They know how to get attention. They are adept at cultivating a cult of personality; in an unstable job market, the upside of having parasocial followers may finally outweigh the drawbacks. They may still write magazine features—quaint!—but, really, the big prize nowadays is getting their own podcast or YouTube show or TikTok series or advice column, with a six-figure salary to boot.

I would like to say that being “talent” doesn’t matter, and that it’s really about the collective whole working to put out good, honest journalism, but really, would you believe me? In the newsletter One Thing’s “new rules of media,” at least five of the 20 rules concern the importance of being what I have been referring to as “talent” for the past 700 words. After reading this list, I experienced the strong urge to kill myself, before coming to terms with what I believe is the unfortunate truth governing this era of NEW new media. The Washington Post’s announcement, just weeks later, that it would be building a “Star Talent Unit” focused on promoting its most “trusted voices” (and also “creators”), was just making explicit the unspoken hierarchy that media organizations have hewn to for decades.

🟧 The new rules of media

Well, if the media industry is going to get explicit with it, then what the hell: Yeah, I still aspire to “talent.” There are still so many things I’d like to write, and I’d like the opportunity and just a little bit of the shine to do so. This may strike some as greedy or self-serving, or at least not particularly sensitive to say out loud, considering the state of things. How uncouth to admit to ambition, to publicly pursue more; aren’t we supposed to couch our desires under at least four layers of irony, lest we lay bare the desperation of our efforts?

But, as countless self-help gurus and fortune cookies and LinkedIn hacks have declared, you don’t get anything unless you ask for it, so here I am. In the interest of getting back into the game, so to speak, I will write (in spite of the declining literacy rate, I still believe in the power of word) this newsletter, delivering media/culture/internet/etc. criticism and analysis and opinions and blogs—and occasionally mean jabs—with the intention of publishing once a month. Like in the previous iteration of this newsletter, I may also include links to good writing (such that it still exists) or other miscellanea. If you are into this parasocial thing, maybe we’ll even have exchanges in the comments or on social media.

This is me, asking.

— Jenny

Update: This post has been edited due to [REDACTED].

P.S. Today’s thumbnail photo is one I took of the frozen Hudson River in New York.

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This newsletter is unedited except by me. If you spot any typos or errors, please notify me, to my mortification.