Pay Me What You Owe Me

On April 12, 2022, at 2:55 p.m., the entire world stopped, or at least it felt as if it had. The text message from Bitch Media’s former publisher, Kate Lesniak, simply read: “Evette, did you see the news about Bitch?” I took a deep breath before I responded. “No, I didn’t. What’s going on?” Her next text message confirmed a nightmare reality I’d thought about many times, but I also hoped it never would come to pass. “Bitch is closing in June. I’m sorry to break the news to you.” 

By the time Bitch’s team announced the publication’s shuttering, I had been gone from the magazine for more than six months. The devastating news still brought me to a halt. Memories flooded me: traveling to Portland, Oregon, for the first time to visit Bitch’s scrappy headquarters and being amazed by how much the community embraced our team and our mission; spending an entire summer in meeting after meeting, rebranding and reimagining who and what Bitch could be; belly laughing with my coworkers and our board members over delicious bowls of spicy miso ramen and chicken pad thai; and spending hours in spreadsheets attempting to balance a budget that constantly increased in expenses while not simultaneously increasing in revenue. 

Have you ever attempted to conjure funding that simply didn’t exist? Have you ever taken on two roles in a single organization to save money in the budget so other members of your team could be properly compensated for their work? I have, and I barely survived. Bitch’s team – full of eager geniuses willing to sacrifice everything, including ourselves – worked and toiled and weaved miracles and bawled and celebrated to uphold and spread the organization’s mission. We collectively recognized that Bitch was bigger than any single person, and we approached our work with that level of care and consideration.

It was the honor of my life and career to helm Bitch for nearly five years, to put people from marginalized communities at the center of our editorial approach to feminisms. And then, with a simple tweet, it was gone, as if it never existed at all. I couldn’t believe everything our small but mighty team of mostly people of color had worked so hard for over so many years was simply, in an instant, dead. I always knew this outcome was possible; after all, Bitch, like many other independent publications, had been living precariously for years, barely raising enough to keep the doors open while relying on the brilliance and grit of our staff to spin miracles out of fragile thread. 

But there’s a gut-wrenching difference between imagining a possibility and experiencing it, living it, and trying to make sense of it. 

The announcement had an immediate impact. “RIP Bitch Media” tweets began flooding my timeline, followed by an array of emojis expressing each person’s heartbreak. We’d collectively loved this publication and we’d collectively lost it. There were so many people offering tributes about how much Bitch meant to them, how formative it was to their understanding of feminisms, how it deepened their thinking about pop culture and enabled them to build community. There was so much sorrow expressed about the loss of yet another independent publication, a fate that has befallen so many, and bemoaning about what this meant for the feminist media landscape.

As the tributes flooded social media, a recurring thought kept running through my mind: Why wasn’t this support enough to materially sustain such a beloved publication? If Bitch is as cherished as its memory seems to be, then why did our staff spend so much time toiling over how to keep the publication running?

I was 27, wide-eyed, and relatively green when I came to Bitch as its newest senior editor in 2017. I’d been familiar with Bitch, having been introduced to the publication in college, but I’d always associated it with an unfamiliar white feminism that considered the world through a cisgender, heterosexual, and middle-class lens. None of that necessarily appealed to me, but I was desperate to escape a micro aggressive work environment that often left me feeling othered – so desperate, in fact, that I agreed to take a $30,000 pay cut to accept the senior editor job. 

Even then, Bitch was struggling financially. Our editorial team was small compared to the newsroom I’d left. We offered below-market rates to our freelance writers, and we were often coasting on our name and reputation instead of living up to it. But what we were lacking in funds, we made up for in commitment, curiosity, and a hunger for the work we were producing. We kept our finger on the pulse of pop culture, producing rigorous cultural criticism that pushed our readers to question everything and expand their own curiosity about what they see onscreen, what they read, and what they listen to. 

When I became editor-in-chief in 2018, I dreamed about doing our work on a grander scale and evolving into creators of culture rather than only critiquing it. I could see us producing documentaries about pop culture, establishing a book club, creating a pipeline for emerging journalists to gain their footing in this hellish industry, and using our print magazine to spark conversation. At first, I thought every one of those dreams was not only possible but relatively feasible. But I was quickly hemmed in by the reality: Bitch did not have the funding to do much more than rebrand and cover our bases – publish a quarterly magazine, produce daily digital stories, enhance our social media presence, and publish two biweekly podcasts – at a high level. 

Quickly, those grandeur dreams were tossed aside to ensure Bitch’s continued survival while also ethically raising rates for our freelance writers and putting the humanity of our staff above productivity. And yet, even as our team nimbly maneuvered a tiny editorial budget, it wasn’t enough. We were still often facing a deficit, forced to make urgent asks of donors to keep the doors open. 

There were many reasons for this state of operations. Bitch was primarily funded through a recurring membership program, so members paid an average of $8/month to sustain the organization. While a membership program is a viable revenue stream, there are also downsides, including the cultural and political headwinds that might impact a person’s ability to continue their monthly membership. During the presidential campaign season, for instance, a person might want to give their $8/month to their preferred candidate rather than to a publication. At the same time, foundations that can supplement membership programs by offering an influx of cash on a quarterly or annual basis can sometimes be resistant to funding explicitly feminist or progressive publications. Or, when they do agree to funding, there are strings attached that can directly conflict with an organization’s mission. It’s a no-win situation.

On a quarterly basis, Bitch’s development team would consider a host of factors, including the organization’s operating budget, expenses, and any potential financial deficits, then run a fundraising campaign tailored to our needs. Sometimes our development team hit their goals and sometimes they didn’t. But even the best-case scenario was often just enough to keep the organization going for a short interval. Sometimes, a donor who was feeling generous would offer a significant sum of money, but it didn’t happen enough to be a reliable source of funding. And, given Bitch’s ethics, we were also opposed to taking money from advertisers whose work might be in conflict with the organization’s mission.

In 2019, when the financial outlook was especially dire, the development team launched the “Keep Bitch in Print” campaign to raise $150,000 to continue distributing the quarterly print magazine. While we met that ambitious goal, it would not be enough to sustain Bitch in the long-term when it cost the organization more than $200,000 to produce and distribute each print magazine. When that is the constant reality – fundraising all the time and still not earning enough – it becomes nearly impossible to imagine something beyond the next fundraising goal. Existing in a constant state of precarity drained us of our ability to imagine, to envision, to thrive. 

Now, that doesn’t mean our staff didn’t create incredible work that moved the cultural needle. Of course we did. And those were often heroic feats pulled off amid nearly impossible financial adversity. Over time, spinning miracles takes an emotional and mental toll – and, for me, a physical one as well – and breeds resentment as boundaries and balance are sacrificed to preserve a publication’s existence. Spending time attempting to balance budgets that we simply couldn’t raise enough money to sustain is soul-draining and makes the work feel more like a burden than the joy it should be.

And, unfortunately, my story is as common as they come. I’ve intentionally built a career in independent feminist and movement journalism because I knew I would never be forced to compromise who I am and the values that shape my worldview and approach to work. I’ve also intentionally come into this work knowing that most of my staff will be unable to be paid what they’re worth and that the thing that keeps us going is our commitment to the mission.

When I decided to leave Bitch in September 2021, I was exhausted. I was burned out. I couldn’t find even an ounce of pleasure in the work I had once loved. There was nothing left but resentment and exhaustion, pouring ash over what was once vibrant.

Bitch is not alone in its fate. During the “Keep Bitch in Print” campaign, the organization’s creative team crafted a now-haunting graphic of all the other publications that had folded by that time, including Rookie, ThinkProgress, Pacific Standard, Into, The Establishment, The Toast, and The Nib. In the time since, a number of other publications have died, including Wear Your Voice and The Hairpin, and unsurprisingly, many of them are feminist-leaning or attempt to inject some nuance into cultural and political conversations. 

As we prepare to navigate Trump’s second authoritarian regime, billionaire tech owners, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, are willing to sacrifice everything, including their dignity and their values – if they have any – to kiss the ring of the dictator. They’re controlling how we disseminate and receive information, making a landscape devoid of independent publications even more dangerous. Given that this administration is targeting immigrants, trans and gender-nonconforming folks, impoverished people, and those seeking autonomy over everything from their bodies to what their children read, we need less two-dimensional reporting and more nuanced contextualization from publications unashamed of their progressiveness and their feminism.

I know this to be true because on a nearly weekly basis, I still receive messages and emails from readers lamenting the loss of Bitch and how much its approach to cultural criticism is needed in this time. And, often, it takes exceptional self-control to stop myself from saying: Well, we didn’t appreciate it enough when it was alive; let’s save our tears now that it’s gone. Living our values is expensive. It is draining. And it deserves to be properly funded, not only for the sake of the people who create it but also to preserve the existence of these vital media institutions.

I’m now the executive editor at YES! Media, a movement publication focused on radical solutions, where I’ve been navigating many of the same financial issues that plagued Bitch. YES! is always one misstep from shuttering, and yet, if it were to close tomorrow, I imagine I would continue to field similar conversations about how important YES! is and why it would be a perfect antidote to the time we’re in. It’s emotionally painful to watch mainstream legacy publications erode civil rights, amplify the authoritarian messages being spread by billionaires, and still receive widespread support even as independent publications that live up to their values struggle year after year to simply keep publishing. 

So, here’s my offering: If you want independent media to survive, then you’re going to have to pay for it. If you’re working at a foundation with discretionary funds, encourage that program officer to donate to feminist and progressive media on a recurring basis. Put your money where your mouth is and give on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis to the outlets shaping your thinking. When a publication you love is running a fundraising campaign, share that campaign and donate rather than saying “I’ll wait for the next one.” If we continue approaching publications with that level of complacency, then there will come a day where there isn’t a next fundraiser because that publication is gone, too. 

While I appreciate the in-memoriam tributes that abound when another indie outlet shutters, what I would appreciate more is supporting them while they exist.

This piece was edited by Nicole Froio and copy edited by Christine Grimaldi.