Paper Trail

Wired staff unionize; Barton Gellman joins The Atlantic


Barton Gellman. Photo: Robin Davis Miller

The staff of Wired has unionized with NewsGuild of New York, the Daily Beast reports. Employees had been organizing for over a year and decided to move forward with the union after parent company Condé Nast announced cuts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “If we can preempt the inevitable cuts by even a matter of days and help get laid off workers better severances, or turn some of these layoffs into cuts that are spread across high paid workers’ salaries, or turn them into furloughs, or at least be able to talk about those options, we have a responsibility to do that for the most vulnerable people in the organization,” senior writer Andy Greenberg explained.

Dark Mirror author and longtime Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer.

Former Bustle editors Kate Ward and Lindsay Mannering are starting a new website. The Dipp, which offers subscription-only content about reality television, will launch this fall.

Bustle Digital Group has relaunched Nylon, but is delaying its print issue until next year.

Axios and the Seattle Times have both qualified for Payroll Protection Program loans.

At the New York Times Book Review, Tina Jordan and Elisabeth Egan offer suggestions for books you can read in one day. If “your family is getting a little too close for comfort,” try Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation or Weather. Other recommendations include Lorrie Moore’s short stories, obscure Agatha Christie novels, and Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. And “if you want to take your mind off what’s happening in our world,” try Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation.