Oops, hit Reply All

Reply All’s four-part series on the workplace problems at Bon Apetit magazine is now an unfinished two-part series:

Popular podcast 'Reply All' discontinues controversial miniseries 'The Test Kitchen'

Turns out Gimlet Media may have been throwing bricks from a glass house. The main reporter and producer on the story were accused of creating a classist/racist/toxic work environment, opposing unionization to hog power and resources, et al., by colleagues. The story did try to address this, and reached out to at least one former colleague weeks ago to interview him seemingly to add his voice to that part of the story.

So, story spiked, reporter and producer gone, apology made with the note that publishing the story was a “systemic editorial failure.”

And that last part caught my attention. As far as I know the stories haven’t been changed, and the two that went live have not and will not be taken down. The editorial problem seems to be that the journalists involved didn’t have the moral high ground.

Where does the line fall, to you, in terms of who should be disqualified from covering a story?

Beyond standard conflicts of interest, like owning stock in companies you cover or reporting on a crime where your sister is the accused ... to me, editorial failures are about what does and doesn’t get published. The quality of the people who collect and write the information is (mostly, not always) an HR issue if it doesn’t affect your service to your readers/viewers/listeners. It should be taken seriously, for sure, and dealt with, if necessary, but it seems like a vague and weird standard for who should be able to cover a story.

 

jlee, not sure if you listened to the two episodes, but one of them has a really "cringy in hindsight" aspect, where Sruthi is kind of lecturing one woman about "soft power." In that same episode, which is the second one, she mentions in passing that at Gimlet, she was also anti-union for a long time, but it didn't really come off as a serious reckoning with the effect her actions might have had on co-workers. It also soft plays that by "anti-union," it meant that she and P.J. (management) were apparently openly mocking their co-workers. Eric Eddings, the ex-coworker who kind of blew the whistle on this, also noted that Sruthi only contacted him a couple weeks before the episodes started airing, and it wasn't to apologize, it was to ask him if he wanted to contribute. To me, there's a pretty clear conflict and optics problem with them being the primary employees on the story.

 

Thanks for that insight. I listened, as I regularly do, to the podcast. Reply All sometimes gets out of its depth. A lot of it struck me as that, before Eddings’ thread.

I guess my confusion is about ... if the reporter isn’t qualified to report on the story to the point that you admit to systemic editorial failure... why leave a misleading or inaccurate story live?

Let’s take the accusations as gospel. I’m not trying to defend Sruthi or PJ. Would you take the same actions? Leave the story live without any detailed correction of their inaccuracies? Cut the soft power lecture?

 

I don’t want to rehash the “cancel culture” conversation, so what I meant to ask was: How would you have handled it?

If the story was to stay live, I would have had Goldman re-edit the first two and edit/finish the rest (or a producer approved by the union). Or if it’s too tainted, take it down. Don’t repeat errors in print and don’t leave them live online.

That’s my approach, but would like to hear others’.

 

What are the inaccuracies? The only issue I gathered from the article was that the Gimlet team was guilty of acts similar to what the team was accusing Bon Appetit of.

 

Ah, gotcha. From Reddit and other places, I've heard they've added a disclaimer to the front of the episode and left it up. From how Alex explained things, the episodes weren't finished, and they were the primary employees on it, so I'm not sure if you could clean-up that mess, or even demand that they hand over their notes so that you could finish the story.

Taking the two existing episodes down... With all of these scandals, I feel like it is kind of similar to trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, with how the Internet works. If people want the episodes, they can get them. The Internet doesn't forget. You might as well try to fight the Streisand effect, and just leave them up with a disclaimer.

 

From a journalistic standpoint, how they chose to present the story - by interviewing Rapport, for example, and saying that they interviewed him, but that they weren't going to include his voice, just summarize his counter arguments - struck me as incredibly questionable.

 

What you described isn't an inaccuracy, but, as you stated, poor journalism.

The original article wasn't about poor journalism or inaccuracies. I didn't see a mention of Rapport.

The issue raised in the article is whether Reply All should be considered credible accusing other outlets when it acts in the same manner.

I believe Gimlet's and Bon Appetit's issues are separate and Gimlet should post what it has.