I have an amazing job for a food writer who is at the beginning of her/his career. Here are the details:— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
So far, so good. But here's where it begins to get ... depressing:. @epicurious is looking for a sharp, organized, cooking-obsessed Editorial Assistant to join our small corner of @CondeNast. The right candidate will thrive while performing both creative editorial tasks and detail-oriented production tasks.— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
This is a full-time freelance position based in New York City. Candidates should ideally already live in the NYC area. Relocation funds are not available for this position.— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
A rough outline of the job’s various duties:— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
Newsletter Production (Roughly 20% of the job)
Newsletters are a vital source of traffic for Epicurious, and the EA will be tasked with writing and building our daily send, as well as other one-off sends throughout the week.
Recipe Production (Roughly 15% of the job)— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
The EA will build roughly 30 recipes (our most important editorial resource) every month.
SEO Maintenance (Roughly 15% of the job)— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
Several articles and galleries will be updated every week by the EA, so we can stay competitive on search.
Writing (Roughly 40% of the job)— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
A core part of the EA’s job: pitching and writing 2-3 articles and 2-3 galleries every week.
Various Administrative Tasks (Roughly 10% of the job)— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
Such as calling in books/products, shopping for taste tests, helping with mailings, etc.
...So, this is three jobs, then? Maybe four.
"Links to published work" ... for someone "who is at the beginning of her/his career"?Interested candidates should send an email to me (david_tamarkin@condenast.com) that includes a resumé, a few paragraphs about yourself, and links to published work.— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 11, 2019
At this point, this poor un-self-aware gentleman and his "amazing job" began to receive severe blowback.
Paid hourly at 40 hrs/week, no benefits.— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 12, 2019
This tweet was particularly blunt:No, it's a full-time freelance gig.— David Tamarkin (@DavidTamarkin) March 12, 2019
And then... things got serious:This is a monstrously exploitative job posting. pic.twitter.com/BTeeyo4fgb— Steve Mullis (@stevemullis) March 13, 2019
We've seen the tweets and have shared the situation with our Worker Protection team. They are now looking into it. Thanks for helping to bring it to our attention!— NYS Dept of Labor (@NYSLabor) March 13, 2019
There's an old saying: "Never go inside a sausage factory, you might see how the sausage is made." Well, major food media is sausage--and now we've had a good long look at exactly how it's made: on the backs of people working "amazing jobs" like this.
This ought to shatter any serious reader's interest in Epicurious as a site, and perhaps also shatter any reader's interest in any of Conde Nast's publications.
Footnotes:
A list of Conde Nast publications:
Allure
Architectural Digest
Ars Technica
Backchannel
Bon Appétit
Brides
Condé Nast Traveler
Epicurious
Glamour
Golf Digest
GQ
Pitchfork
Self
Teen Vogue
The New Yorker
Vanity Fair
Vogue
W
Wired
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2 comments:
Oh boy, I have a lot that I could say about this. For one thing...it's not just him.
I wish, I WISH I had saved this job posting on Craigslist that I read several years ago. It was ... amazing. Very very similar to this one.
They were looking for someone fantastic. Energetic. "Can Do Attitude." Willing to give 120%. It was in a planning/ admin assistant role. They would have multiple responsibilities. ONLY THE BEST is good enough for this company. Someone who is UBER efficient and can multi-task like a BOSS.
...for 20 hours a week. Um, ok. You want someone to get a full 40 hours of work done in 20 hours, and only pay them for 20.
The other thing is print media, and how it has fallen. People have to be willing to pay for it, have to be willing to pay for news and newspapers (if you want to get actual quality). It's like buying a book from an author that you like, in that sense.
So I feel like print media has been on a downward spiral forever.
Onto Conde Nast. Decades ago now, I discovered this amazing magazine called "Women's Health and Fitness" (or something like that). It was hard to find, and I loved the few that I had. It came out 4-6x a year. The articles were amazing - very inspirational, and included things like women doing amazing climbing, hiking, or whatever.
Then Conde Nast bought them and RUINED them. I never renewed after that. They basically turned it into another women's fashion type magazine/ Shape/ Self, or whatever.
Interesting Marcia, and thanks for the extra context on Conde Nast. It's a difficult business obviously, the market is disappearing, so hopefully today's young employees can smell the desperation in job "opportunities" like these and take a pass.
DK
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