As we have witnessed, this week was a tough one for leftist digital journalism. Following a weekend when multiple media reports turned into a mushroom cloud we got the news of significant layoffs taking place at The Huffington Post, and then also at BuzzFeed.
Gloating over these job loses is not really in order. It is not enjoyable to see writers and journalists losing their vocation — even those who worked on and wrote pieces excoriating the right and conservatism. But at the same time looking at the results you can see some of the factors contributing to the issue.
Chloe Angyal was one of the editors from Huff Po’s Opinion section. She announced that she had been included among the staff that lost their jobs.
Like so many talented and lovely journalists, I was laid off today.
If you're in the market for an opinion editor with a huge and diverse rolodex, or a columnist with 10 years of writing about gender politics (and a literal PhD in romantic comedies) under her belt, talk to me.
— Chloe Angyal (@ChloeAngyal) January 24, 2019
It was not only a matter of selected writers being let go. Huff Po has done away entirely with that portion of its outlet.
For those who are wondering, @HuffPost Opinion — the entire section — is being eliminated. The beautiful, diverse, inclusive baby we built from scratch is gone.
— Chloe Angyal (@ChloeAngyal) January 24, 2019
What needs to be keyed on here are the words “diverse”, and “inclusive”, as those are a telling detail behind what has played out at Huff Po. The opinion desk editors about one year ago strove to hit benchmarks in the demographics of the contributors to the op-ed pages. That is, applying identity politics as a form of affirmative action.
In some tweets that Chloe may have deleted from last March she showed the goals they had for their construct of the staff of contributing writers.
When it comes to editorial output this attention on demographics of the staff has always been a curiosity. Instead of being focused on the content quality and being sure you are providing what a customer base would consume you begin instead by anlyzing the percentages. Chloe seemed to think everything was going swimmingly only a week ago.
https://twitter.com/ChloeAngyal/status/1086825048713773056
Of course, at this time, it would be appropriate to include the now-infamous pic of the (ahem) diverse HuffPo editorial meeting.
Looks extremely diverse. pic.twitter.com/zomfCpOE00
— Nathan Hale (@CulperRing1776) January 25, 2019
This entire thread by Chloe from one week ago shows where their focus was — on making sure all the proper boxes were checked off.
https://twitter.com/ChloeAngyal/status/1086822942422425600
It led to a number of pieces which, coming as no surprise, were not only decidedly left-leaning but left-wing-ish in nature.
“Far from radical, the Gillette commercial is actually deeply traditional, even conservative, in its depiction of masculinity.” Great piece by @theopedproject leader @NeilJYoung17 https://t.co/6E2hTPJCRf
— The OpEd Project (@TheOpEdProject) January 19, 2019
New: Karen Pence got a job this week at a private school.
But her school makes job applicants sign a pledge against homosexuality, "transgender identity," and any "violation of the unique roles of male and female"https://t.co/p9453D5l9s
— Rebecca Klein (@rklein90) January 15, 2019
"We clap and call them 'job creators,' even when the only jobs involved are for lawyers and the kind of accountants who know the differential tax-sheltering benefits between the Cayman Islands and Cyprus." — @chick_in_kiev https://t.co/KJ4b2E6ROk
— Bryan Maygers (@bmaygers) January 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/ChloeAngyal/status/1081320116527288320
https://twitter.com/ChloeAngyal/status/1087737924475486213
If the challenging content of identity politics and Harry Potter resistence memes was not enough to hinder HuffPo’s bottom line health, there was this nugget from Chloe, just one day ahead of the layoffs.
https://twitter.com/ChloeAngyal/status/1088160429975658496
Maybe it is delusion, or possibly pure naivete about business, but to think everything was at HuffPo was going great just before the chopping block was rolled in and the entirety of the Op-Ed division was shuttered is quite the juxtaposition.
It is worth asking if many have learned the lesson from this, or if they will ssimply lay all of the blame at the feet of Google and FaceBook. One thing we do know is the journalism market is currently flush with editors experienced in gender politics and generating resistence clickbait.
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