Extremely Online: Choire Sicha

The Mainstream Media Lost the Depp-Heard Trial - And the lifestyle influencers turned court correspondents won.

- By Choire Sicha

THE LATEST ERA FOR THE elite mainstream media—that is, the heavily paywalled, rule-bound, college-educated-reader-focused American news media—has been marked by a rolling journalistic reassessment of how women are covered. This began with the investigations into Harvey Weinstein five years ago. More recently, readers have followed along as writers (and their editors) explore how journalism has historically treated women as sex objects and punch lines. Most notably: Britney Spears became the subject of esteemed investigative projects and mournful personal essays; Justin Timberlake was shamed into apologizing to Spears and Janet Jackson; Paris Hilton took to the Washington Post and Congress to crusade against the cruel “troubled teen” industry and was treated with respect for the first time; Kim Kardashian, future Esq., was no longer to be blamed for the horrible things her ex-husband might say. And as the media has begun to reckon with its misogynistic recent history, its business model has changed in ways that reward this kind of interrogation. Publications from the New York Times to The Atlantic to this magazine have doubled down on serving paying subscribers. Our paywalls have become tighter; our quest for elite readers more thirsty.