The Hidden Costs of Toxic Media Culture
Earlier this week, I read pieces in The New York Times and The New Republic about upcoming memoirs from former Condé Nast editors, the details of which are enough to haunt me before ever cracking open the cover.
From falling asleep during a job interview to running away from a drug deal gone bad, I was amazed at how someone—in a country that routinely tests low-income people and people of color for drugs before employing them or providing them with other assistance—could hold a top-tier role at an influential media company without getting fired for substance abuse.
The revelations prompted other media peers to share their experiences at the legendary publishing company and elsewhere within the journalism industry.
What will your 90s/aughts dead-media memoir be about?
— Emily Nussbaum (@emilynussbaum) February 13, 2020
My Condé Nast memoir: “Dont leave we are making this place better for people like you in a few months.”
— John Jannuzzi (@johnjannuzzi) February 12, 2020
A few months later: “Your severance package does not include your time here as permalance.”
A Condé memoir, but it's told through the lens of my therapist's session notes
— Ella Cerón (@ellaceron) February 12, 2020
I've never had the pleasure of working at a major media company like Condé Nast or Hearst except within a freelance capacity, which has been mostly pleasant. What struck me about all of this is how these revelations are coming out at a time when diversity is an ongoing conversation among media professionals. Leaders within our field provide a lot of lip service espousing the idea that having people of different religious faiths, races, nationalities genders, sexuality and abilities should be welcomed in media. But reading these accounts of the forthcoming memoir took me back to the early days of my short career in journalism, during which I experienced or witnessed verbal abuse, classism, financial instability and an overall disregard for marginalized people.
Every industry has tough bosses, but what was clear from a brief scroll through the Twitter chatter following the coverage of the upcoming memoir is that there remains a disconnect between the leadership at media companies and the staffers who have to carry out the vision of said companies. It seems that the journalism industry places more emphasis on uplifting a handful of voices to the top of it rather than developing up-and-comers across the board. Many media professionals took to Twitter to discuss the low salaries they had to live off of while watching higher level staffers live lavishly during the Golden age of printed media. Imagine how many voices have been pushed out of journalism because they couldn't afford to survive off of meager wages. For all of its financial glory, the printed media era did not create as much space for diverse voices as the internet has.
But of course, the cost of valuing a handful of staffers over the rest comes at a significant cost in and out of the office. I can recall one of my first jobs being so bad that I was driven into much-needed therapy. I had experienced physical symptoms stemming from mental stress, including chest pains, shortness of breath and heart palpitations. These symptoms first showed up when I was stressed out in college, so I knew that they had to be addressed now that they were showing up again in my professional life. Thinking back on it, it was devastating. To work so hard academically only to discover that my job might play a role in severely damaging my health left me terrified and disillusioned.
Thankfully, my life as a freelancer is much calmer and I feel that I have more control over my mental health. I work with clients who value me. I have diverse dreams of income that buoy me through the ups and downs of work. Though I am skeptical of whether publications pay freelancers equally, I do feel I have more agency over my earnings, because they are tied to the work that I produce, not how likable I am or how long I've been at the company. I can work with clients without ever having to worry about how I dress or my accent or the wealth within my family or even where I went to college. All that matters are my skills and ability to execute the work. In a way, that's very freeing.
But what about people working in this industry who can't afford the therapy co-pays? With our healthcare system in disarray, many staffers and freelancers can ill afford a medical emergency let alone the long-term mental health care that will help them stay sane in a tense environment.
It's not just costly for employees to deal with toxic work cultures. Per a 2016 Society of Human Resources survey, it costs companies on average $4,129 per hire to find and onboard new employees.
Though some of the glossy magazines of the early aughts are gone, it is true that the internet has opened up opportunities for a broader range of voices to enter the industry. But as venture capitalists, publishers and editors-in-chief navigate the ever-changing media landscape, I hope they don’t forget to tend to their junior and senior staffers fighting to keep the best of the journalism alive.
How have problematic media workplaces affected you? Have you exited the industry or are you still working in journalism? Tell me in the comments or email me at contact@thefreelancebeat.com.
