The Drum Awards for Online Media celebrate the original, clever and thought-provoking work of editorial teams and media owners whose skill and commitment keep the public informed. Spriha Srivastava, the UK bureau chief and executive editor of Insider, chaired the jury for our 2023 awards and was joined in the judging room by experts from NBCUniversal, HuffPost, The New York Times Magazine, Channel 4 and many other major media organizations.
However, this year, the pendulum has swung violently in the opposite direction. Essentially, leadership told many of us to "reword or avoid any mention of DEI," be leery of explicitly mentioning the communities most harmed by inequality or inequity in our work, and avoid citing who is committing the harm out of fear of retribution. Many of us knew the backlash to the media industry's embrace of DEI during the pandemic was brewing.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
The video-which Tranter later took down-seemed like yet another sign that the art of reviewing the arts was in a strange state. This year has been grim for criticism: The Associated Press stopped reviewing books; Vanity Fair winnowed its critical staff; The New York Times reassigned veteran critics to other jobs; and Chicago-the city of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel-lost its only remaining full-time print-media movie reviewer when the Chicago Tribune 's Michael Phillips took a buyout.
Here at Mediaite, we spend our days and nights chronicling what truly has become a fractured media environment. There are, of course, the many conflicts you see on air. And there are also the ones happening behind-the-scenes as networks, digital outlets, and big-ticket independent personalities all do battle to secure their place in an uncertain landscape.
The Guild has transformed itself in recent years, thanks to rising rank-and-file militancy and innovative organizing tactics. Since 2020, the Guild has organized 210 workplaces, including some of the largest media organizations in the U.S. That includes 600 tech workers at the New York Times (the largest unionized tech unit in the country), 226 workers at Politico, and 180 workers at The Atlantic magazine, as well as smaller operations like 20 workers at the Anchorage Daily News.
There is no doubt that the Post will play a crucial role in engaging and enlightening readers, who are starved of serious reporting and puckish wit. Robert Thomson portrayed California as plagued by jaundiced, jaded journalism.
Hussain won GBBO in 2015 and for the past ten years has been putting out cooking shows on BBC. She revealed its decision in a June 6 Instagram video. "The BBC have decided that they didn't want to commission a show," she said, per The Independent. "And for me, that was a huge turning point because it's something I've done for the past ten years."
