This Site Reveals The One Brutal Truth About Mic

This Outline piece, “Mic’s Drop,” gives a perfecto accounting on how one of the most promising millennial news sites in the past few years ended up feeling just so unequivocally... greasy, despite many dece stories and, at first, a kind of cute college freshmany earnestness for social justice.

I recommend reading it as a blueprint for exactly how NOT to appeal to millennial audiences or build a genuine and sustainable (see: this month’s shudder-inducing pivot) media business off it.

Two parts particularly stuck out: The first, on how Mic polished the art of headline writing down to a science. Not necessarily an original sin — BuzzFeed being the poster child of this kind of approach — but evidence that the story itself had to have come secondary a few too many times:

“Every time Mic had a hit, it would distill that success into a formula and then replicate it until it was dead. Successful “frameworks,” or headlines, that went through this process included “Science Proves TK,” “In One Perfect Tweet TK,” “TK Reveals the One Brutal Truth About TK,” and “TK Celebrity Just Said TK Thing About TK Issue. Here’s why that’s important.” At one point, according to an early staffer who has since left, news writers had to follow a formula with bolded sections, which ensured their stories didn’t leave readers with any questions: The intro. The problem. The context. The takeaway.”

And this example, of how that kind of thinking led to some pretty ghastly logical conclusions:

“Cahill’s suggestions belied his ignorance of reporting and lack of sensitivity to social issues, according to former staffers. Cahill wanted to replicate the success of New York magazine’s cover story with photos of women who had accused Bill Cosby of rape, said the staffer who covered social justice issues, and suggested they “do a similar roundup” with survivors of sexual assault. “‘Maybe campus rape, maybe not...whatever! Just find rape victims and get them to share their stories!’” the staffer recalled in an email, mocking the tone. “I know it wasn't intended to be so… gross … It showed me he didn't get how any of the work the reporters were doing was done, or that the reason NYMag's story did well had nothing to do with that ‘story template’ playing well.”

Oof. TBD whether Mic’s video reinvention magically erases these problems — or just makes them all the more expensive.

Like Deez Links? Forward to freshmany earnestness.