This week america’ largest newspaper chain posted to its website two uncommon job listings: a Taylor Swift reporter and a Beyoncé Knowles-Carter reporter.
Gannett, which owns greater than 200 every day papers, will make use of these new hires by USA As we speak and The Tennessean, the corporate’s Nashville-based newspaper. The chain is searching for “fashionable storytellers” adept in print, audio and visible journalism, stated Michael Anastasi, the Tennessean’s editor and Gannett’s vp for native information.
“Seeing each the details and the fury, the Taylor Swift reporter will establish why the pop star’s affect solely expands, what her fan base stands for in popular culture, and the impact she has throughout the music and enterprise worlds,” the corporate stated in its job description.
Equally, the corporate needs a journalist who can seize Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s impact on society and the industries by which she operates.
Anastasi stated the Tennessean already has a three-person music staff and “I put our subtle protection up in opposition to anyone.” Gannett is all the time searching for alternatives to make itself important for paying prospects, he stated.
Criticism after cuts
On-line criticism of those new roles come partly due to main layoffs at Gannett, the place the workforce has shrunk 47 per cent within the final three years as a consequence of layoffs and attrition, in accordance with the NewsGuild.
At some newspapers, the union stated the headcount has fallen by as a lot as 90 per cent. Final yr alone, Gannett reduce about six per cent of its roughly 3,440-person U.S. media division.
Some journalists identified that whereas hiring these massively fashionable artist-specific roles mirror their affect in popular culture, it comes with failing to put money into native journalism at an organization recognized for its native dailies.
“At a time when a lot critical information and native reporting is being reduce, it is a determination to boost some questions on,” Rick Edmonds, a media enterprise analyst on the journalism think-tank Poynter Institute, stated of the brand new positions.
Some journalists criticized the listings for presenting super-fan behaviour as a full-time journalism job. Music author Jeremy Gordon stated on social media that it “would not really feel nice to see ‘full-time stan’ exit as an precise journalism job.” Stan is slang for “superfan.”
If the rent acts extra like a fan than a journalist, the choice might backfire on Gannett. But when the job is finished nicely, and the reporters can penetrate tightly-controlled operations to glean insights, they’ll set up themselves as nationwide authorities on essential cultural figures.
Omise’eke Tinsley, educational and writer of Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism, says such a function makes house for extra optimistic tales about Black ladies.
But additionally, she provides, the existence of each jobs instantly displays Beyoncé and Swift’s financial energy. “If there wasn’t that element to it, there would not be a Beyoncé reporter,” Tinsley stated.
It’s not unusual for journalists to develop a beat on a selected determine, significantly in politics — as evidenced by Amy Chozick, who the New York Occasions employed in 2013 to cowl Hilary Clinton completely. However most leisure journalists are chargeable for reporting on a variety of expertise — even when they’re subject material specialists on a selected artist.
That was the case for Los Angeles Occasions reporter Suzy Exposito, who referred to as herself an “unofficial” beat reporter on fashionable reggaetonero Dangerous Bunny as a result of she spent a disproportionate period of time in a earlier job masking him in comparison with different priorities.
“His near-weekly output turned actually overwhelming, and it took away focus from a variety of different artists who had been additionally making compelling work,” Exposito stated. “He is so prolific that I feel I actually ran out of recent phrases to explain him in some unspecified time in the future. He might use his personal reporter, too.”
‘A numbers sport’
She stated a serious problem for leisure journalists is the sheer quantity of releases from pop artists. “The enterprise of music is a numbers sport,” Exposito stated. “Hit information develop into deluxe editions develop into sold-out world excursions, and it may be dizzying for a normal music journalist to maintain up with when the market is flooded with extra releases than ever earlier than.”
So, are artist-specific jobs the way forward for music journalism?
“It’s a bit odd, however Taylor Swift Inc., I suppose you’d name it, is an enormous financial driver proper now,” stated Eric Grode, director of the Goldring Arts Journalism and Communications program at Syracuse College. “Taylor Swift is doing a variety of newsworthy issues past simply promoting live performance tickets.”
If a reporter takes the job significantly and offers greater than breathless live performance protection, their established experience might be helpful for a information group, Grode stated. Nonetheless, there are only a few musicians who’ve such a large cultural attain.
The probability of followers to click on on tales about Swift or Beyoncé makes it an apparent motivating think about designing the brand new jobs, Exposito stated.
“Digital media is now competing with fan accounts on social media — not on the subject of accuracy, however on the subject of being the primary supply to report on pop stars’ developments,” she stated.
High artists draw the eye and work of professional reporters, resulting in what critic Soraya Roberts has referred to as a “tradition of sameness” — one more barrier to native arts protection.
Tinsley believes that posts on social media criticizing the main focus of those new roles might mirror a tradition of sexism.
“Including to the pantheon of what figures and representatives matter has the potential to do one thing essential,” she stated. “I imagine among the dismissals (of those roles) must do with what we worth and do not worth as a society — and I feel there’s an implicit misogyny in it.”
Representatives for Swift and Beyoncé didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.