“They’re Here to Save Indie Media,” a New York Times headline announced on June 8. “Save” is debatable: the new digital magazine Byline aims to fill a widening gap in the publishing landscape, stepping in for a vanishing stratum of outlets where new writers can cut their teeth and start to build career momentum. What Byline doesn’t do is pay people. “We are currently a non-funded, for-fun project,” says the FAQ page on their bright, kinetic website. “We will begin paying writers as soon as we have revenue from either paid partnerships or paid subscriptions.”
The disclosure—“For now, contributors to Byline will be unpaid”—comes about two-thirds of the way through the Times profile. Tucked among details about a co-founder’s “Gucci slides” and a Soylent-sponsored trip she took to Art Basel Miami Beach, the reveal gives a sour twist to the headline—as was, perhaps, intended. “Saving indie media” was never Byline’s stated goal. They’re just here to have fun: “It’s like we’re walking into a graveyard and building a bar,” co-founder Gutes Guterman told the Times. But the combination of business model and inflammatory headline touched an industry nerve. “I guess it’s called byline because that’s all you get if you write for it?” tweeted Bloomberg writer Rachel Metz. The response was one of many in a similar tenor. People’s reactions seemed split between lamenting the decline of publications not dissimilar to Byline, those that offer young writers an entry point into the industry, and outrage that removing payment was this splashy new magazine’s proposed means of doing so.
