I still remember an email I got 20 years ago, from a prominent editor at a well-known magazine, asking me if I had a minute to talk about a potential job. We hopped on the phone and he described a dream: working on features, maybe front-of-the-book too, bringing in new writers, etc. I was a junior editor on the books section of The Nation. This was a big deal!
The next step was: Write a memo. But not just a memo: a front-to-back critique of the magazine, in addition to 10 story ideas with freelance writers attached and 10 story ideas for specific staff writers.
Reader: This memo took more than two full weekends to put together. I took time off work. And you know what? Not only did I not hear from the person who requested this work from me for six months — there wasn’t even an actual job, which I only learned after badgering! It was a fishing expedition. Perhaps I’d have been reeled in if my memo and ideas had been better. But perhaps not!
The dumbest thing is when they approached me again six years later, I did it all over again. For the second time, it was not a job that was ever actually filled, to my knowledge.
More recently, I know of a search for a top job where after a single conversation, 10 (ten!) people were asked to do a memo, answering a series of questions provided by the publication. That’s 10 people doing a lot of work they aren’t being compensated for!
As you can tell, I’m against both of these things: the overly long job memo, wherein candidates are asked to spend countless hours sharing analysis and ideas, as well as the wide-casting of questions to a large group just to see what comes back.
I declare: These practices must die in 2023.
Let me be clear: It’s not that the memo as a whole should go away. Memos can be incredibly useful for the hiring manager and the potential hire to ensure there’s alignment over the expectations of the role, whether to get a sense of ideas, of editing taste and skill, or quick thoughts about coverage.
At Slate, the leadership has focused on streamlining what we ask for and from how many people. While our requests look slightly different depending on the role, we have landed on the following guidelines:
We acknowledge that memos are labor, but for many roles, there’s value in asking for written work to help make a decision. (I can’t imagine hiring a copy editor without administering an editing test, for example.)
But as a whole, as newsroom leaders address equity, fairness, and labor concerns, they should extend their consideration to prospective hires as well as to employees. Our asks for special work to land a role should be useful and limited, and something we look forward to receiving to make our best hire — not to peruse at our leisure, or just in case.
Hillary Frey is editor-in-chief of Slate.
I still remember an email I got 20 years ago, from a prominent editor at a well-known magazine, asking me if I had a minute to talk about a potential job. We hopped on the phone and he described a dream: working on features, maybe front-of-the-book too, bringing in new writers, etc. I was a junior editor on the books section of The Nation. This was a big deal!
The next step was: Write a memo. But not just a memo: a front-to-back critique of the magazine, in addition to 10 story ideas with freelance writers attached and 10 story ideas for specific staff writers.
Reader: This memo took more than two full weekends to put together. I took time off work. And you know what? Not only did I not hear from the person who requested this work from me for six months — there wasn’t even an actual job, which I only learned after badgering! It was a fishing expedition. Perhaps I’d have been reeled in if my memo and ideas had been better. But perhaps not!
The dumbest thing is when they approached me again six years later, I did it all over again. For the second time, it was not a job that was ever actually filled, to my knowledge.
More recently, I know of a search for a top job where after a single conversation, 10 (ten!) people were asked to do a memo, answering a series of questions provided by the publication. That’s 10 people doing a lot of work they aren’t being compensated for!
As you can tell, I’m against both of these things: the overly long job memo, wherein candidates are asked to spend countless hours sharing analysis and ideas, as well as the wide-casting of questions to a large group just to see what comes back.
I declare: These practices must die in 2023.
Let me be clear: It’s not that the memo as a whole should go away. Memos can be incredibly useful for the hiring manager and the potential hire to ensure there’s alignment over the expectations of the role, whether to get a sense of ideas, of editing taste and skill, or quick thoughts about coverage.
At Slate, the leadership has focused on streamlining what we ask for and from how many people. While our requests look slightly different depending on the role, we have landed on the following guidelines:
We acknowledge that memos are labor, but for many roles, there’s value in asking for written work to help make a decision. (I can’t imagine hiring a copy editor without administering an editing test, for example.)
But as a whole, as newsroom leaders address equity, fairness, and labor concerns, they should extend their consideration to prospective hires as well as to employees. Our asks for special work to land a role should be useful and limited, and something we look forward to receiving to make our best hire — not to peruse at our leisure, or just in case.
Hillary Frey is editor-in-chief of Slate.
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Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
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Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
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Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
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Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
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Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
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Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
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Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
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Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
David Cohn AI made this prediction
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Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
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Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
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Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
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Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
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Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
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Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
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Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
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Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
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Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
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Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
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A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
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