Layoffs and Job Reductions

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    Pitchfork, the Early Years

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    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLast week, Condé Nast announced that Pitchfork, the taste-making music news and criticism website it had acquired in 2015 — which had entranced and sometimes infuriated fans for more than two decades — would be brought under the editorial umbrella of GQ. Many staffers were laid off.The announcement felt like a death knell for a certain kind of critical posture — progressive but not inaccessible, knowledgeable but also curious — that feels increasingly remote in the current media landscape. Some version of the site will continue, but online, the news was received with dismay and frustration.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation with two of the people responsible for building the site’s editorial and business operations about what it took to develop the company from a one-person organization to a cross-platform publication and festival business, and the challenges that led to its sale to Condé Nast.Guests:Ryan Schreiber, the founder of Pitchfork and its editor in chief for approximately two decadesChris Kaskie, Pitchfork’s first employee and first CEOConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Off Broadway, a Vital Part of New York Theater, Feels the Squeeze

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      The small theaters that help make the city a theater capital are cutting back as they struggle to recover from the pandemic.New York’s nonprofit Signature Theater has three modern performance spaces designed by the starchitect Frank Gehry, a long history of cultivating and championing major playwrights like Edward Albee and Lynn Nottage, and a board chaired by the Hollywood star Edward Norton.What Signature doesn’t have this fall are plays. The company, a mainstay of the Off Broadway scene, closed its most recent production in July and is not set to start its next show until the end of January.Even as Broadway claws its way back from the coronavirus pandemic, New York’s sprawling network of smaller theaters, many of them noncommercial in both tax status and taste, is struggling.“This is the hardest season yet,” said Casey York, the president of the Off-Broadway League, citing the combined effects of smaller audiences, shifting philanthropic patterns, rising wages and costs, and labor shortages at a time when the emergency government assistance that helped many theaters stay afloat through the lengthy pandemic shutdown has largely run out. “There is an incredible squeeze.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Hollywood Strikes Send a Chill Through Britain’s Film Industry

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      Many U.S. studios’ blockbusters are filmed in Britain, so the walkouts by actors and screenwriters have caused thousands of U.K. film crews to lose work.What do “Barbie,” “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” have in common? Besides being the summer’s big-budget movies, they were made in Britain, filmed in part at some of the country’s most esteemed studios.Big Hollywood productions are a critical part of Britain’s film and television industry. For years, they have brought in money, jobs and prestige, and helped make the sector a bright spot in Britain’s economy. But now, that special relationship has brought difficulty.The strikes by actors and screenwriters in the United States, which have ground much of Hollywood to a standstill, are also being strongly felt in Britain, where productions including “Deadpool 3,” “Wicked” and Part 2 of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning” stopped filming. Throughout the late summer months, when the industry would be at its busiest to take advantage of the long days, soundstages at Pinewood, Britain’s largest studios, were instead nearly empty.Film crews, like camera workers and costume designers, are out of work after productions abruptly stopped. Bectu, the British union for workers in behind-the-scenes roles in creative industries, surveyed nearly 4,000 of its film and TV members and 80 percent said their jobs had been affected, with three-quarters not working.The British impact from the Hollywood strikes is mostly on productions using members of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, which was picketing Universal Studios in August.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times“Irrespective of whether you think the studios are right or whether the unions are right, there are people who are suffering in the U.K.,” said Marcus Ryder, the incoming chief executive of the Film and TV Charity, which supports workers who are struggling financially.In August, the charity received more than 320 applications for hardship grants, compared with 37 a year earlier.Since the first “Star Wars” movie was filmed partly in a studio in England in the mid-1970s, British film studios have been a top destination for American productions, and that impetus gathered pace in the past decade thanks to generous tax incentives and moviemakers’ demand for experienced crews. More recently, Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming services have snapped up studio space so quickly they set off a boom in studio building.These big-budget productions employ thousands of local workers, and pour billions into the economy. Last year, a record 6.3 billion pounds ($7.8 billion) was spent on film and high-end TV productions in Britain, according to the British Film Institute. Nearly 90 percent came from American studios or other foreign productions.The number of films or television shows delayed in Britain since mid-July, when Hollywood actors joined the writers’ strike, is relatively small, maybe about a dozen, but they are the big productions that require lots of crew and support an ecosystem of visual effects companies, catering and other services. More

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      The Metropolitan Opera Guild Will Wind Down Amid Financial Woes

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      The organization, founded in 1935 to support the opera house, will lay off 20 employees and stop publishing Opera News as a stand-alone monthly magazine.The Metropolitan Opera Guild, a nonprofit that supports the storied opera house and publishes the magazine Opera News, will wind down its operations and lay off its staff this fall in the face of financial troubles, the organization announced on Tuesday.The guild, which was founded by Eleanor Robson Belmont in 1935 to help the Met survive a funding shortfall caused by the Great Depression, has supported the company and its education programs ever since, bringing thousands of schoolchildren to dress rehearsals each year and working to promote interest in opera through the publication of Opera News, which became one of the leading classical music publications in the United States.Opera News will end its run as a stand-alone monthly magazine. The Met and the guild said it would continue in a different format, under new editorial direction, as part of a new section in Opera magazine, a British publication, focused on the United States that will bear the Opera News logo. The magazine will be sent to guild members and Opera News subscribers in the United States.Opera News, which became one of the leading classical music magazines in the United States, will cease publication as a stand-alone magazine. The British publication Opera magazine will increase its coverage of the Met and opera in the United States, and will be sent to Guild members and Opera News subscribers.Opera News“We greatly appreciate the valuable efforts of our employees over the years, but it is no longer economically viable for us to continue in our current form,” Winthrop Rutherfurd Jr., the Guild’s chairman, and Richard J. Miller Jr., its president, said in a statement.The guild will be reclassified as a supporting organization under the Met; it will no longer operate as an independent nonprofit. The guild said that it would provide severance to its 20 employees, and that it expects the Met to hire some of them. Its board members will be offered positions on the Met’s board.Under the guild’s membership program, patrons pay $85 or more per year for benefits including subscriptions to Opera News, access to dress rehearsals and advance ticket sales.The guild, like the broader opera industry, has faced serious financial pressures in recent years. It draws much of its revenue from its roughly 28,000 members. But contributions and grants have fallen in recent years: they totaled $8.1 million in 2021, compared with $9.1 million a decade earlier. And to some extent the Met and the guild found themselves competing for support from the same opera lovers.The Met, grappling with its own financial woes as it works to recover from the pandemic, said it would continue some of the guild’s offerings, including the program that brings schoolchildren into the opera house to watch dress rehearsals.Guild events including the annual Opera News awards and luncheons at the Waldorf Astoria, such as this one in 2006, will be discontinued. Fred R. Conrad/The New York TimesUnder Peter Gelb, who became the Met’s general manager in 2006, the company has expanded its oversight of the guild. Gelb said in an interview that the changes came after several months of discussions. He said the problems facing the guild reflected the “difficulties for nonprofit performing arts companies,” including the Met.“It’s the same pressure that, on a large scale, the Met feels,” he said. “We tried to find a way forward that would enable some of the programs of the guild to continue, even if the guild in its current structure would not continue.”The partnership with Opera magazine that will replace Opera News — which began publication in 1936 and has a circulation of about 43,000 — will start in December. The Met will not have editorial input but will provide a share of fees paid by guild members to help offset the magazine’s production costs, as it did with Opera News. Opera magazine named Rebecca Paller its U.S. editor; since 2003, Opera News has been led by F. Paul Driscoll.John Allison, the editor and publisher of Opera, vowed in a statement to preserve the “rich editorial history” of Opera News. He said in an interview that he hoped to engage former Opera News writers when possible.“Coverage of opera at the Met and throughout the United States will continue to be just as comprehensive as guild members and Opera News subscribers have grown accustomed to over the years,” he said.Opera fans reacted with concern to news of the guild’s demise on Tuesday, saying that it was another sign that the art form was struggling.Posy Ryan, a guild member, said that she was “very surprised and deeply saddened” by the changes, including the end of the stand-alone Opera News.“It’s an institution that will be missed,” she said. “For me, it was an introduction to so many young American singers. I’d see a feature, a review and then research them on YouTube. I’ll miss that.” More

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      Nonprofit Theaters Are in Crisis. A Times Reporter Spoke With 72 of Them

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      Michael Paulson spoke with producers and artistic directors at nonprofit theaters across the country about the crisis their industry is facing.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Michael Paulson, who has covered theater for The New York Times for eight years, knew the situation was bad at the country’s nonprofit regional theaters, which had yet to regain their prepandemic audiences.But in recent months, the shock waves have gotten bigger: One of the nation’s largest companies, Center Theater Group in Los Angeles, said it would pause production on one of its three stages and lay off 10 percent of its staff. The Lookingglass, an anchor of Chicago’s theater scene, halted production for the rest of the year. Then this month, New York’s prestigious Public Theater cut nearly one in five of its jobs.“We’ve seen an increase in the number of closings, and it felt like this is real and serious and important for readers to know about,” Mr. Paulson said in an interview.That observation formed the basis for an article by Mr. Paulson that appeared on the front page of Monday’s newspaper. To document the crisis at America’s regional theaters, he spoke with the leaders of 72 top-tier companies across the country.Here, Mr. Paulson reflects on the reasons for the upheaval, on the most promising solutions being proposed and on the balancing act he juggles between the demands of daily news reporting and investigative projects. This conversation has been edited.How many of the issues that challenge nonprofit theaters stem from the pandemic?The pandemic was an accelerant. But the issues at the heart of this crisis — the aging of the audience, the growing role of streaming media in people’s entertainment diets, the decline in subscriptions as the way consumers plan their theatergoing — were underway before it. The economic situation combined with this inflationary moment proved unsurvivable for a number of theaters and damaging for many more.Are these challenges unique to theaters, or are they true of the nonprofit arts sector in general?Theater has some particular vulnerabilities — it’s a niche art form, and a lot of nonprofits pride themselves on developing new work, which means a show sometimes has a title or is by an artist that audiences don’t yet know. A bunch of people told me audiences want to be sure they’re going to have a good time before they set aside the time and the money, and that often means going to something that’s already established, versus something that is just being introduced to the world.Seventy-two interviews is a lot for one article. Do you envision this piece being the first in a series?I do have a tendency to be an overreporter, but I wanted to be confident that what we were reporting reflected a national pattern and wasn’t just an extrapolation from a handful of worst-case scenarios. I expect that a lot of my time this year is going to be spent thinking and writing about the economic challenges facing theaters in America.How do you balance the demands of daily news reporting with bigger-picture projects?I’m probably going to be doing fewer features about individual shows, while I focus on more of these stories about the health of the field, but I still want to write occasional pieces about artists and works of art. I think a mix of stories is what keeps a reporter sane.Do you anticipate doing a lot of that reporting in person?I hope so. A couple of days ago, I went to see “Evita” at American Repertory Theater outside of Boston, and over the weekend I went to see a play called “tiny father” at Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires. On Thursday, I saw a production of “Fun Home” at the Studio Theater in Washington, D.C. I’m trying, to the extent I can, to see things outside New York. We need to pay more attention to nonprofit theaters and theaters outside New York — because there are real challenges in those places we need to be telling our readers about.What was the most surprising thing you learned while reporting this article?I was struck by how many theaters are now doing coproductions. It’s pretty dramatic: The Shakespeare Theater Company in D.C. had one coproduction out of six shows before the pandemic, and now at least five out of six will be coproductions this coming season. There’s also a lot of experimentation with collaboration, which is heartening. Theaters that once saw themselves either as competitors or just strangers are much more interested in finding ways to help one another.Your article touches on a number of potential solutions. Which seem most promising?There’s a coalition forming of theaters in Connecticut that is talking about whether the theaters might be able to share set-building functions. Those kinds of approaches might have promise. A lot of theaters are talking about the possibility of either more government assistance or for more foundations to take seriously the challenges facing this field. There’s a shared sense that box-office revenue, which has never been enough to sustain these organizations, is not going to be a primary part of the solution.How will we see an effect on Broadway, which depends on nonprofit theaters to develop material and support artists?The situation means less work for artists, actors, writers, directors and designers. Fewer shows are being staged, and those shows are often smaller and have shorter runs, which is a challenge both for the people who are already established in the field and the people who are seeking to enter it. There’s just less work to go around. More

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      Brooklyn Academy of Music Lays Off 13 Percent of Its Staff

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      The organization, which made Brooklyn a destination for pathbreaking performances, is reducing programming next season as it seeks to rebound from the pandemic.The Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of the most important cultural organizations in New York, has laid off 13 percent of its staff members and reduced its programming as it seeks to plug a “sizable structural deficit” during a challenging time for the arts, officials confirmed on Monday.BAM moved last week to eliminate 26 positions, according to a letter sent to staff members by the organization’s president, Gina Duncan.In the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times, Ms. Duncan said that the changes were necessary in part to help BAM to “weather the downturn in charitable giving for the arts, and address an outdated business model that heavily relies on a shrinking donor base.” She said that the organization faced a “sizable structural deficit” each year.“This is us putting on our oxygen mask so that we can continue to fulfill our promise to be a home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas,” she wrote in the email.Ms. Duncan noted that the academy had already pared down its Next Wave Festival scheduled for this fall and added that programming for next season as a whole would be reduced. (The festival, often a highlight of the city’s cultural year, will feature seven programs this year, down from 13 last year.)“These difficult decisions were made after a rigorous organizational review process,” Ms. Duncan wrote in the memo.“We cannot spend our way out of a deficit, and we cannot present programming beyond what we can afford,” she added.The year before the pandemic, in April 2019, BAM obtained a $2.8 million loan from Bank of America, according to its financial papers. The papers said that the balance, more than $2.4 million, would come due next June.Megan Grann, a union representative of Local 2110, which represents technical, office and professional workers, said that 17 of the people who lost jobs had been in the union. She said that at least three had been offered “possible new positions” within the arts institution.“We are really just not happy with this development, to say the least,” she said. “Our primary goal right now is to try to mitigate the damage as much as possible.”The layoffs come as BAM, which began presenting work in 1861, finds itself having to navigate the post-pandemic challenges that many arts organizations around the country are facing. Earlier this month the Center Theater Group, a flagship of the Los Angeles theater world, laid off 10 percent of its work force and halted productions at one of its three stages, the Mark Taper Forum.But BAM is facing those difficulties while also experiencing significant leadership turnover after many years of relative stability.David Binder, the institution’s artistic director, is expected to step down next month after roughly four years at the helm. His two predecessors, Joseph V. Melillo and Harvey Lichtenstein, each spent more than three decades at the institution.On the executive side, Ms. Duncan took over as president in 2022, after the departure of Katy Clark, who held the job for five years (and was permitted to keep an apartment that BAM helped her purchase). Clark had succeeded Karen Brooks Hopkins, who spent 36 years at the institution, including 16 as president.Nora Ann Wallace took over as chair of BAM’s board in 2020, after the death of its previous board chair, Adam Max.Like other arts organizations, BAM has also had to contend with headwinds generated by the pandemic, which shuttered live performance for months. While many organizations survived the shutdown with the help of federal aid, once they reopened many found that it had become more difficult to attract audiences and donors alike.When Mr. Binder announced this year that he was leaving, the institution had 222 full-time staff positions, down from 256 before the pandemic. Most recently, the number of such positions had dwindled to around 200, and the latest round of cuts are expected to move the number below that threshold. More

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      Plot Twist at Turner Classic Movies Upsets Film Fans

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      The network’s owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, promised there would be little to no change for viewers despite budget cuts behind the scenes.For many people in Hollywood, including lions like Steven Spielberg, Turner Classic Movies is not a cable channel. It is an extension of their identity.And it took a beating this week.On Tuesday, the network, known as TCM, jettisoned its five most senior executives through a mix of buyouts and pink slips. The departed were Pola Chagnon, the general manager; Charlie Tabesh, the channel’s lead programmer; Genevieve McGillicuddy, who ran the annual TCM film festival; Anne Wilson, a production executive; and Dexter Fedor, a marketer.Warner Bros. Discovery, the network’s owner, promised that viewers would see little to no change on TCM. The channel will remain free of ads. “We remain fully committed to this business, the TCM brand and its purpose to protect and celebrate culture-defining movies,” Kathleen Finch, chairman and chief content officer for the company’s domestic networks group, wrote in a memo that was shared with news outlets.But the channel’s loyalists responded to the cuts with hellfire, interpreting them as a further marginalization of an art form and a personal attack.Our cinemas have been overrun by superheroes. Our film studios have fallen victim to corporate consolidation. FilmStruck, our streaming service for silent-era gems and noir classics, was shut down. And now you are gutting TCM, our last happy place, where Orson Welles is mercifully alive and well and “Key Largo” (1948) still counts as a summer blockbuster?Using an expletive, Ryan Reynolds sounded an alarm on Twitter, telling his 21 million followers that TCM was a fixture in his life and calling the channel “a holy corner of film history — and a living, breathing library for an entire art form.” Mark Harris, a journalist and film historian, called the cuts “a catastrophic talent purge.” Patton Oswalt, an actor and writer, took direct aim at David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, cursing him on Twitter and saying, “You couldn’t just leave this one alone?”Mr. Zaslav routinely describes himself as a colossal fan of classic cinema. He keeps TCM playing in his office, where he proudly works from the same desk used by Jack Warner, one of the studio’s founders. In recent months, Mr. Zaslav, who took over Warner Bros. last year, has been celebrating the studio’s 100th anniversary.Is it just an act?By late Wednesday, three Hollywood titans — Mr. Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson — had issued an unusual joint statement saying they had spoken to Mr. Zaslav and were “heartened and encouraged.”“We are committed to working together to ensure the continuation of this cultural touchstone that we all treasure,” the statement said. “Turner Classic Movies has always been more than just a channel. It is truly a precious resource of cinema, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And while it has never been a financial juggernaut, it has always been a profitable endeavor since its inception.”The directors added, “We have each spent time talking to David, separately and together, and it’s clear that TCM and classic cinema are very important to him.”The filmmakers said Mr. Zaslav, in fact, had privately reached out to them earlier in the week to discuss the restructuring of TCM. “We understand the pressures and realities of a corporation as large as WBD, of which TCM is one moving part,” the directors said. “Our primary aim is to ensure that TCM’s programming is untouched and protected.”Michael Ouweleen, the president of Cartoon Network and Discovery Family, will now oversee TCM.Bryan Bedder/Getty ImagesIn a business sense, TCM is a financial footnote for Warner Bros. Discovery, an entertainment conglomerate with roughly 37,000 employees worldwide and $34 billion in annual revenue. But like every other media mogul, Mr. Zaslav is wrestling with a no-win situation: Cable television, which has long powered media conglomerates, is in terminal decline, meaning that operational costs must also go down. Budget cuts have affected all of the company’s many divisions.Fewer than 50 million homes will pay for cable or satellite service by 2027, down from 64 million today and 100 million seven years ago, according to a recent PwC report.So the belt tightening at TCM was more about preservation than annihilation, at least in Warner Bros. Discovery’s view. Ben Mankiewicz, Jacqueline Stewart and the other TCM hosts will continue in their roles, according to a spokeswoman. TCM will continue to pay for access to classic films from all studios; there is no plan to restrict the channel to Warner Bros. movies. TCM will also continue to be featured as a “brand hub” on Max, the company’s streaming service.Michael Ouweleen, the president of Cartoon Network, among other channels, will oversee TCM going forward. He is based in Atlanta. TCM was previously part of his portfolio on an interim basis.“Michael shares our passion for classic films and believes strongly in TCM’s essential role in preserving and spotlighting iconic movies for the next generation of cinephiles,” Ms. Finch said in her memo.Mr. Ouweleen might be smart to remember that, for TCM’s devotees, the network’s programming is less entertainment and more “the stuff that dreams are made of.” More

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      L.A.’s Center Theater Group Lays Off Staff and Halts Work on One Stage

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      With box office revenues, subscriptions and donations all down since the pandemic, the theater said it would pause production on one of its three stages, the Mark Taper Forum.In the face of what is described as a “crisis unlike any other in our 56-year history,” the Center Theater Group, a flagship of the Los Angeles theater world, announced a series of sharp cutbacks Thursday to deal with drops in revenue and attendance and said that it would suspend productions at one of its three stages, the Mark Taper Forum.The theater said it would lay off 10 percent of its 200-person work force.In a note to patrons, the theater said it “continues to feel the aftereffects of the pandemic and has been struggling to balance ever-increasing production costs with significantly reduced ticket revenue and donations that remain behind 2019 levels.” Theater officials said the organization posted an $8 million shortfall for the 2022-23 fiscal year and a $7 million shortfall the year before, much of which had been covered by federal pandemic assistance that is now ending.The 736-seat Taper, a semicircular amphitheater that has been a showpiece for innovative productions — “Slave Play” recently enjoyed a mostly sold-out run here — will suspend productions beginning this July and at least through the 2023-2024 season.And the theater is postponing a world premiere that had been set to open there this August, “Fake It Until You Make It” by Larissa FastHorse. As a result, the final production at the Taper for this season will be “A Transparent Musical,” a world premiere based on the television show “Transparent,” about the patriarch of a Los Angeles family coming out as transgender.The Los Angeles organization becomes the latest arts organization in the country — from regional theaters to symphony orchestras to opera houses — to grapple with a drop-off in attendance in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.The center, which has a long record of championing new and innovative work, has been struggling to redefine its mission and regain its financial footing since reopening after the pandemic. The group is made up of three theaters: the Taper, the Ahmanson, and the Kirk Douglas Theater. The Ahmanson and the Taper are part of the Music Center complex in downtown Los Angeles; the Kirk Douglas is in Culver City.Season subscriptions at the Taper are 35 percent below what they were before the pandemic shutdown began; subscriptions at the group’s main theater, the Ahmanson, are down 42 percent. Its longtime artistic director, Michael Ritchie, stepped down in December 2021, six months before the expiration of his contract. He was replaced by Snehal Desai, the producing artistic director of East West Players, who will step into his new role this summer. He will take the helm at a reduced institution.“We didn’t think that it would happen this fast or this dramatically — before he got in the door,” said Brett Webster, a spokesman for the center. “He did go in knowing this was a possibility.”The Taper is particularly admired here because of its relatively intimate feel and its willingness to take on new productions, sometimes to acclaim, and sometimes not.“Pausing season programming at the Taper is a difficult but necessary decision that will impact artists and audiences; and is particularly painful for the talented and committed CTG staff who have dedicated so much to bringing great theater to L.A.,” the theater said.The Center Theater Group has a long and distinguished history here, the site of such pathbreaking productions as “Angels in America” and “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” the Anna Deavere Smith play. More

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      How MTV Broke News for a Generation

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      MTV News bridged a gap between news and pop culture without talking down to its young audience. As it prepares to shut down, Kurt Loder, Tabitha Soren, Sway Calloway and others reflect on its legacy.A little over a year into his first term, President Bill Clinton made good on a promise to return to MTV if young voters sent him to the White House. The town hall-style program in 1994 was meant to focus on violence in America, but it was a question of personal preference that made headlines and helped put MTV News on the media map.Boxers or briefs?“Usually briefs,” Mr. Clinton responded to a room full of giggles.Now, a generation after MTV News bridged the gap between news and pop culture, Paramount, the network’s parent company, announced this week that it was shuttering the news service.The end of MTV’s news operation is part of a 25 percent reduction in Paramount’s staff, Chris McCarthy, president and chief executive of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, said in an email to staff that was shared with The New York Times.MTV News and its cadre of anchors and video journalists were the ones to tell young people about the suicide of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, and the killings of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. They brought viewers on the presidential campaign trail and face to face with world leaders like Yasir Arafat, and took them into college dorms in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They also embraced the messy chaos of 1990s and early 2000s celebrity, as when Courtney Love interrupted an interview with Madonna. They always put music first.Through it all, MTV News never strayed from its core mission of centering the conversation around young people.“There were no comparisons, it was one of one,” said SuChin Pak, a former MTV News correspondent. “We were the kids elbowing in. There just wasn’t anything out there for young people.”SuChin Pak, left, an MTV News correspondent, with Fergie, of the rap group the Black Eyed Peas, and Snoop Dogg. Ms. Pak said of MTV News, “We were the kids elbowing in.”Jason Merritt/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesMTV News broke up the television news environment “in terms of young versus old, hip versus square” rather than the conservative-versus-liberal approach of many cable news networks today, said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University. Its influence can be seen in the work of Vice News, the brash digital-media disrupter that is preparing to file for bankruptcy, and in the hand-held camcorder style of reporting that some CNN journalists have embraced.MTV was able to corner a young audience who could name the entire catalog of the band Flock of Seagulls but also had a curiosity about current events, he said.The Music Television network debuted in 1981 like a “fuse that lit the cable revolution,” Mr. Thompson said. Six years later, MTV News came on air under the deep, sure-footed voice of Kurt Loder, a former Rolling Stone editor, who co-hosted a weekly news program called “The Week in Rock.” But it was his interrupting-regular-programming announcement of Cobain’s death in 1994 that cemented Mr. Loder as “the poet laureate of Gen X,” Mr. Thompson said.“It was live TV at its best, I suppose, for an awful event,” Mr. Loder, who now reviews films for Reason magazine, said in an interview.MTV News tried to set itself apart from other cable news operations in a number of ways, Mr. Loder said.For starters, its anchors and correspondents did not wear suits. They also weren’t “self-righteous” and tried “not to talk down to the audience,” he said. That became especially important as rap and hip-hop seeped into every fiber of American culture.“We didn’t jump on rap at all as being a threat to the republic; we covered that stuff pretty evenhandedly,” Mr. Loder said. MTV then started adding more hip-hop to its music programing “and suddenly there’s a whole new audience.”Sway Calloway was brought into the MTV News fold to “elevate the conversation” around hip-hop and pop culture, and to do so with credibility.“MTV News took news very seriously,” he said. “We all wanted to make sure that we kept integrity in what we did.”Mr. Calloway, who now hosts a morning radio program on SiriusXM, said he knew respect for hip-hop culture had reached a new level when he was sitting in the Blue Room of the White House with President Barack Obama.“When Biggie said, ‘Did you ever think hip-hop would take it this far?’ I never thought that the culture would be aligned with the most powerful man in the free world, that we would be able to have a discussion through hip-hop culture that resonates on a global basis,” Mr. Calloway said. “That’s because of MTV News.”From its inception, MTV News saw itself as a critical connector for young voters. Tabitha Soren, an MTV News correspondent in the 1990s, saw that first hand on the campaign trail with MTV’s “Choose or Lose” get-out-the-vote campaign, and in the White House.“People were very earnest and sincere in wanting young people to be educated voters, not just willy-nilly, get anybody to the ballot box,” she said. “I felt like we were trying to make sure they were informed.”For Ms. Soren, who was 23 when she first appeared on air for MTV News in 1991, being able to connect with a younger audience was made easier because she was their age, she said. That meant asking Arafat about the role of young people in the intifada and going to Bosnia to follow American troops, many of whom were the same age as MTV’s viewers.“I was empathetic because I was their age,” said Ms. Soren, who is now a visual artist in the Bay Area. “My natural curiosity most of the time lined up with what the audience wanted to hear about.”During a town hall-style forum on MTV in 1994, President Bill Clinton was famously asked about his preference in underwear.Diana Walker/Getty ImagesThat rang especially true for Ms. Pak, who was born in South Korea and filmed a docu-series for MTV News about growing up in America with immigrant parents.“It was a culture shift for me personally, but with an audience that suddenly was like, wait, are we going to talk about this version of what it means to be American that is never shown and never talked about, and do it in the most real way possible?” said Ms. Pak, who was with MTV for a decade and now co-hosts a podcast. “Where else would you have seen that but MTV?”Just as Mr. Loder and Ms. Soren became cultural touchstones for Generation X, Ms. Pak, Mr. Calloway and others filled that role for millennials. Racing home after school to catch Total Request Live, they watched video journalists report the day’s headlines at 10 minutes to the hour during the network’s afternoon blocks and between Britney Spears and Green Day videos.“A lot of people were getting their news from us, and we understood that and knew it,” Ms. Pak said. “For all of us it was, OK, what is the audience, what’s our way in here that feels true? You do that by sitting down with them versus standing over them.” More