The New Yorker Union, along with the unions of Pitchfork and Ars Technica, have agreed to ratify a new contract. The unions operated through the NewsGuild of New York and negotiated with Conde Nast management for more than two years. The new agreement includes substantial victories for the unions, including wage increases, a salary floor, a diversity committee, and a ban on nondisclosure agreements, among other provisions.
Nieman Lab reports on a new guide from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma advising journalists on how to write about traumatic events. As Joshua Benton writes, “The advice isn’t particularly didactic (‘You must write it exactly this way!’); it’s more about raising some of the issues and concerns that can come up when you’re looking into lives that may not be like your own.”
At the New Yorker, Rachel Syme presents some of her favorite Hollywood memoirs, “a perfect genre for summertime, when your mind is as gooey and malleable as a slice of American cheese.” Syme’s list includes the autobiographies of Gloria Swanson, Eartha Kitt, Bette Davis, and Carrie Fisher, among others. Introducing these books as “eccentric performances,” Syme notes that while they are rife with embellishments and invented quotes, many are also truly revealing: “For women and minority stars, especially, a memoir could help bridge the gap between what was experienced and what could be said. The list compiled here is by no means exhaustive; it’s not a best-of but a starter pack of sorts.”
This week, the Paris Review has lifted the paywall on an “Art of Fiction” interview with Kenzaburō Ōe, a Sigrid Nunez story, a Lydia Davis essay about revising one sentence, and more.
Jewish Currents offers their weekly book recommendations, with picks from the magazine’s staff including Library of America volumes of O. Henry and Donald Barthelme (as well as the LOA catalogue as a whole), Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon, The Bachelorette franchise, and Ester Reiter’s A Future Without Hate or Need: The Promise of the Jewish Left in Canada.