Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
Welcome to this week’s edition of Confider, the media newsletter that pulls back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on inside the world’s most powerful navel-gazing industry. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
EXCLUSIVE — HOW THE MEDIA GRINCHES STEAL XMAS: Seasons greetings! And by “season,” we mean that surreal time of year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day when media giants scramble to clear their books and pink-slip a bunch of employees. As 2023 nears its end, the media grinches are about to steal Christmas for many, as several key outlets are poised to suffer through a final wave of layoffs. The bloodbath began Thursday at Condé Nast, where about a dozen New Yorker staffers exited the famed magazine… Read the full Confider scoop here.
EXCLUSIVE — BEGRUDGING BENNET: Former New York Times opinions editor James Bennet apparently can’t move on from the scandal that derailed his career at the paper. For those with some memory loss, Bennet resigned in 2020 after publishing an op-ed in which Republican Sen. Tom Cotton called upon President Donald Trump to “send in the troops” to quell nationwide protests against police brutality. It was a truly dark period for the Times newsroom, with an internal revolt they’ve long hoped to forget. But Bennet hasn’t forgotten. Confider has learned that he’s been calling around to former Times colleagues, peppering them with questions about that fateful incident for a piece he intends to write for The Economist, where he now serves as a senior editor. No word yet on the specifics of the article or when it will run. Bennett and a rep for The New York Times both declined to comment. Read the full Confider scoop here.