What happened when one school banned smartphones (spoiler: nirvana)
These are the best things I found on the internet this week!
What’s up everyone,
If you read this newsletter, you’ve got to be at least somewhat interested in the media business. So you may have heard already that the past week-plus has been apocalyptic for journalism outlets — mass layoffs at The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times, TIME, and Business Insider, plus strikes/walkouts over worker protections at Condé Nast, the New York Daily News and … oh yeah, Forbes.
The unionized employees at my workplace staged a three-day walkout over the stalled, and potentially even purposely subverted, negotiations over a collective bargaining agreement that have stretched for more than two years with no end in sight. Even the most basic provisions, like editorial separation between journalists and advertisers, investors, sponsors etc., are being fought tooth and nail.
In short, journalism is “dying,” and even though it will never fully cease to exist, its severe contraction will have drastic consequences on our world that I think no one can fully calculate right now. This ranges from the mundane (if no one is there to report out newsworthy nuggets, then all of those content creators and aggregation websites where people actually consume their news will have no material to steal) to the utterly critical (people abusing power with no public awareness or recourse).
Right now there’s little reason for hope or optimism, but I’m going to stick around in this crazy industry for as long as I can.
In the meantime, every Tuesday for this crazy side gig that yields me exactly $0 per year, I will also continue to put out my weekly “conversation starters, a roundup of the best, most interesting and most entertaining content on the internet. Hopefully you read, watch, enjoy, and maybe even consider subscribing to one of those sites where you hit up against a hard paywall. Grazie mille!
What’s the coolest story or thing you found on the internet this week? Reply to this email and shoot me a link. Would love to hear from you!
I’ve often felt that top notch music criticism, especially of pop music, is more interesting than the music it is commenting on. And make no mistake, Steven Hyden is one of the best music critics in the world. His six attempts to find Noah Kahan interesting is the best piece of writing about the upstart folk-pop artist I’ve ever seen, and I also love his point about ultra-literal songwriting and how it’s come to dominate the industry.
Here’s what happened when one Massachusetts school banned smartphones. Everyone’s lives got a million times better, more social, happier. It’s a policy that could never be adopted nationwide, but it should be.
One week after suggesting to you all that LinkedIn was the hottest new dating app, the plot thickens: Bustle suggests that all of the traditional dating apps are flopping right now, both from a business standpoint and in the perception of Gen Z. “If you met your partner on a dating app two years ago,” one TikTok user said, “you caught the last chopper out of ‘Nam.”
Oscars are won by campaign, not by merit. That’s something I’ve said many times, but never fully explained in this newsletter (at a social gathering after the slightest prompting…well that’s a different story). Anyway, my favorite movie podcasters — Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins of “The Big Picture” — explain how Oscars are won, not earned, while guesting on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
“SIT DOWN LITTLE BOY. LET THE MAN FLY!” This hilarious student broadcast of a dunk in a college basketball game may be my new favorite call of all time.
We’ve talked about the Stanley Cup craze a couple of times before, but this explanation of how Stanley Cups got popular, and how anything gets popular, from Derek Thompson’s “Plain English” podcast is awesome. Meanwhile, some woman in Sacramento got arrested with $2,500 worth of stolen Stanleys.
What would you do to help your son/daughter get into their dream school? For one-percenters in New York, it’s spending $120,000 per year on an “independent education consultant,” who claims to be able to turn any student into Ivy bait. This New York Mag cover story, our Long Read Of The Week, dives into the absurd subculture.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would be proud — train robbery is back in fashion. Union Pacific says more than 90 boxes are being opened each day on its trains, especially in the Los Angeles area. The operations are often coordinated and little is being done to stop them, according to this New York Times story.
Thanks for reading and sharing! We’re talking movies again on Friday, focusing on Netflix’s Society of the Snow. Watch it then come back and let’s discuss!