Editing the Future: A Conversation with Medium's Jada Gomez

Philip McKenzie You have served as an editor across several media platforms In your mind what is the role and responsibility of an editor to a publication or media platformJada Gomez My role as an editor is to make sure that I am doing a service for both the audience and the writer Right now within our culture and the general media there are a lot of personal essays and stories where people share their deepest feelings They share in an attempt to connect with an audience who has felt the same way and perhaps were not represented I need to preserve the trust of the story and the sentiment of the writer This is especially important to me if the story has to do with trauma or identity I want to make sure that I39m not changing the meaning of something that is part of a community that is not my ownFor the audience I want to make sure I am serving them in a way that includes the broadest scope of representation being authentic and making sure they can trust us I am representing the wellbeing of the writer and audienceMcKenzie In a digital landscape dominated by a quest for clicks and attention how do you center trustGomez I39ve definitely been in editorial positions where traffic is king and you have to serve the beast which means the pursuit of traffic to get ad dollars Ultimately you want to cultivate traffic that will last over the long term For example you can tweet something crazy about Nicki Minaj she39s very social savvy she39s going to retweet it The Barbs will blast it and you39ll get a ton of traffic but most of it will be negative and your bounce rate will be high because people aren39t engaging with the contentThe need for immediacy has definitely been the push across a lot of media I think that is where a subscription model like Medium is advantageous because I don39t have the same rush to be in every culture conversation just for clicks I can digest and see if it is a proper angle for our audienceMcKenzie It sounds like the notion of time relative to the quality of the content you deliver is becoming more importantGomez Having more time and a longterm perspective built into the platform is definitely a luxury That longer runway makes it possible for me to make space for content that doesn39t existLast year during Black History Month I pioneered a package of stories for Bustle that focused on stories outside of socalled traditional black narratives I wanted to highlight a broader cultural context that had room in it for skating parties and the Boomerang soundtrack With Medium I produce fewer stories relative to previous publications so now I am really moving in lockstep with the various teams and writers to make sure we are creating the most extensive palette for our audienceMcKenzie What do you think about the broader media landscape and how it represents culture and gives power to who gets to tell storiesGomez Black Twitter has been incredibly crucial in exposing the gaps in mainstream media People are standing up and no longer accepting false inaccurate or noninclusive stories about particular groups Black and Latinx journalists have been doing this for a long time but black Twitter is a multiplier effect in many waysIf you want to tell inclusive stories you have to ask questions Not just about what is seen but what isn39t seen I think it is my role to use my voice to dispel myths and empower those who are best equipped to tell diverse storiesIt is not enough for a media company to claim they don39t know how to find access or connect to different voices You can be a quotfly on the wallquot in many spaces and as a result you gain knowledge of culture as it is being shaped Telling stories that are relatable and true require leaning into nuance and bringing your quotwhole selfquot to your role as an editor My upbringing and the diversity of my background allow me to navigate complex cultural spaces and deliver honest storiesMcKenzie Tell me about your new project LevelGomez The launch of Level is very exciting Coming off the success of a site like Zora amp8212 a site for women of color run by Vanessa Deluca who was previously editorinchief of Essence amp8212 Medium realized there is an opportunity to be a source for usergenerated content while also homing in on particular communities Medium wants to connect with smart people who can create trusted content within their laneLevel specifically is a site for black and brown men In my role which doesn39t exist everywhere I am discovering talent within our usergenerated base They could be writers who have never worked with an editor before or might not be specifically journalists but the ability is there Level wants to tap into that and help these writers get to the next stage of their evolution We have a highly connected and successful team that is poised to do just that A team like that helps us score something like our recent conversation with Tyler PerryMcKenzie What has you excited about the everchanging media landscapeGomez I39m really excited to see a new crop of brilliant black and AfroLatinx writers coming up the ranks One of my favorites is Taylor Crumpton who will be writing for Level Her work is so smart and has a level of nuance you rarely get in mainstream publications I believe she had one of the first interviews with Megan Thee Stallion Her access to the artist is so organic and vibrantWe have a wave of celebrities who are explicitly asking for black writers to write their stories which is very cool It39s a mutual understanding and benefit of the culture and it opens doors that were previously closed Again you see how trust is so relevant in these relationships They don39t want to be quotinfluencersquot they want to do the triedandtrue work I am excited and energized by this rich media realityDon39t stop now Stay in the know on industry influencers with more from Phil McKenzieClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Editing the Future: A Conversation with Medium's Jada Gomez

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Philip McKenzie

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Editing the Future: A Conversation with Medium's Jada Gomez

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