Wired ‘fraying’ as 2 top staffers quit
TWO top Wired.com employees announced Thursday they’re stepping down from the Condé Nast title, with one of them citing “burnout” and the other saying he’s “exhausted.”
“Hi, some big news: I’m leaving @Wired next week,” editor Megan Greenwell tweeted Thursday.
Greenwell, who recently wrote a Wired story about “how to cope when your company lays off all its support staff and you no longer have time to do your actual job,” cited “burnout.”
Scott Rosenfield, Wired’s site director for digital strategy, also tweeted Thursday that he is leaving the company, effective immediately, claiming “exhaustion.”
“In all seriousness, today is my last day at WIRED,” Rosenfield wrote. “I’m exhausted and proud. I’ve decided that now is the right time for me to figure out what comes next. And I’m confident that the wonderful WIRED team is ready to chart a brave path forward.”
Greenwell in her goodbye post tagged journalist Millie Tran, who on March 30 revealed she was leaving her job as the chief product officer at the Texas Tribune, which she joined in March 2020 after leaving her job as deputy off-platform editor at The New York Times.
“Several journalists I admire, most recently @millie and @s_m_i, have been open about leaving their jobs because of burnout. Like them, I am totally drained, and I’ve realized I cannot do my best work without a break,” Greenwell said.
Tran didn’t return a request for comment, but on March 30 she tweeted: “Crises also clarify. I realized it’s essential to give as much care to the entirety of my life as I do my work. So I’m leaving @texastribune & will stay in New York.”
Like many news organizations, Condé Nast laid off 100 people last year, including staffers at Wired, amid company-wide layoffs as a result of the pandemic ad slump.
Condé’s unionized editorial workers at that time blasted CEO Roger Lynch over “meager or nonexistent” severance packages doled out to laid-off staffers.
Wired in late December also lost editor-in-chief Nicholas Thompson, who jumped to Atlantic Media as its new CEO. Gideon Lichfield was recruited from MIT Technology Review to the newly created post of global editorial director in charge of Wired’s five worldwide editions, but he did not start until March 22.
Neither Condé nor Rosenfield nor Greenwell returned calls seeking further comment.
About 70 editorial workers at three Ziff Davis publications — Mashable, PCMag and AskMen — are staging a 24-hour strike amid complaints of “paltry” wages.
The online strike, which began at 9 a.m. Thursday, comes as the union representing the staffers, the NewsGuild of New York, attempts to negotiate their first contract since being named the employees’ bargaining agent.
The union was voluntarily recognized by Ziff Davis’ parent company, J2 Global, two years ago, but now claims management is dragging its feet on wage increases.
“Wages have become a critical issue at Ziff Davis,” the union said in a statement. “Recently, some staff members appealed to company leaders, telling personal stories about what their life is like living on paltry wages. One employee described relying on the company pantry for breakfast and dinner because they could not afford food between paying rent and other necessary expenses.”
Ziff Davis said it is “very disappointed” that the union “has taken this action and decided to negotiate publicly vs. at the bargaining table.”
The company insisted it is negotiating in good faith and that the union did not provide its set of proposals including wage demands until late January. “We have and continue to make enormous progress and have reached tentative agreements on a wide range of issues.” “Our next bargaining session is scheduled for Wednesday, April 21, and we expect to make meaningful progress then,” it said. The NewsGuild has been employing one-day walkouts with increasing frequency as a way to signal discontent with stalled contract talks. Already this year, the union has staged similar strikes at Fortune and at three Condé Nast titles, including The New Yorker, Ars Technica and Pitchfork. The union this week also sought recognition as the bargaining agent for 650 tech workers at The New York Times, where it already represents 1,300 journalists and business-side employees. The union accused Ziff Davis of “ignoring critical requests for information and circumventing the union by illegal ‘direct dealing’ with employees” in an attempt to thwart contract talks. The NewsGuild says it has filed unfair labor practices complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.