In the news: Apps such as Slack and Zoom have become staples in the Covid era, but are they allowing managers to exploit and surveil their telecommuting teams?

The culture of “presenteeism” is creating new headaches for editors and other publishing professionals. Writes Lucinda Southern of Digiday.com: “The pandemic workday is 48 minutes longer, we have more meetings and we send more emails, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.” Employees working from home feel pressured to be endlessly available to show up for Zoom meetings and “happy hours,” answer work emails, and field phone calls.

It’s creating a toxic work culture in some cases. “Management has been asked to replicate and office-level style regularity of communication, rather than promote the flexibility that remote working can offer. Aside from being a drain on energy and productivity, this does little for mutual trust,” comments Southern. Junior employees in particular feel pressured to remain “visible” throughout the workday, and beyond, to prove their worth. Read more here.

Also Notable

Folio: Stops Regular Reporting on Magazines

Several weeks ago, Folio: announced that it would stop daily reporting on the magazine industry. It’s a major shakeup for publishing professionals who have long turned to Folio: for updates on industry developments as they occur. Bill Amstutz writes in his letter to the Folio: community: “Our decision to eliminate regular industry reporting via FOLIO: doesn’t mean we are abandoning the FOLIO: community. It only means that we will be serving it in new ways.” Read the full letter here.

Bon Appétit Names New Editor-in-Chief

After a long summer of turmoil, Bon Appétit magazine has named book publishing veteran Dawn Davis as its new editor-in-chief. Kerry Flynn of CNN Business reports: “Davis is among the few influential Black executives at major publishing houses. During her more than 25 years in the industry, she has overseen the publishing of stories from marginalized voices.” Former editor-in-chief Adam Rappaport left the magazine earlier this summer after allegations of discriminatory behavior surfaced. Soon thereafter, key video talent quit producing videos en masse in protest against glaring pay discrepancies between white and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) on-air talent. The magazine has not posted new content to its popular YouTube channel in over two months. Read more here.

Newsletter Economy Booming

“As Facebook, Google, and private equity have laid waste to print media nationwide, these platforms have given rise to a new publishing economy, in which any writer with a dedicated following might be able to make a living,” writes James D. Walsh in a piece this week for NYMag.com. Newsletters, he says, are that new economy. He focuses much of his discussion on newsletter publishing platform Substack, one of the more popular options for prospective newsletter publishers. “The newsletter trend is bigger than independent journalists,” he writes. “Print veterans like Graydon Carter and Jonah Goldberg have styled their new publications -- staffed with editors and funded by investments from private equity -- as newsletters.” Read more about the rising newsletter economy here.

Duke Reporters’ Lab Fine-Tunes Automatic Fact Checker

Duke Reporters’ Lab has capitalized upon the DNC and RNC to perfect its automated fact-checking program, Squash. Harrison Mantas of Poynter.org summarizes the program’s capabilities: “Squash is an artificial intelligence program that makes real-time matches between existing fact-checks in ClaimReview, the Reporters’ Lab’s fact-check tagging system, and a live speaker’s statements. It uses a combination of Google’s Speech-to-Text; ClaimBuster, which was developed at the University of Texas at Arlington; and Duke’s own coding to match words spoken to ones written in a fact-check. These fact-checks pop up on screen to give viewers more context about whatever issues are being discussed.” The recent political party conventions provided the lab with a valuable opportunity to tweak Squash for improved accuracy. Read more here.

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Comments:

"Supposedly I know a lot about editorial performance measurement, but this is the first i have heard about presenteeism. Maybe that's true because those who claim to be experts in the concept have found a way to waste time claiming to be experts in a needless practice. Nevertheless -- especially where editorial performance by full-time editors working at home is concerned -- measuring presenteeism apparently has assumed full-time worry proportions. For those determined to agonize about how many hours allegedly working at home are occupied by personal activity, my approach to the solution is one I've been trying to convince more editorial managers to use in the first place. That is . . . know how long it should take -- realistically speaking -- to complete most editorial tasks. Knowing that, you can create quantitative job descriptions.. If you then find that editor X is completing each task -- even if too much "time" seems to be required -- was the workload delivered in an acceptable condition? Isn't that what presenteeism really is all about?" --Howard Rauch, Editorial Solutions, Inc., www.editsol.com>

"If the boss is worried that her workers are not on the job when she can not see them, how does she know they are working when she can see them? If the job gets done accurately and well before deadline, what does she care?" --Curt Harler, freelance writer, Strongsville, Ohio