Starting a worker-owned co-op publishing entity is an uphill learning marathon. All of us at Ravenous have had to take on jobs we never imagined and become knowledgeable about things that are uncomfortably out of our wheelhouse. Luckily, we got by with a little help from our friends (and some strangers) who’d already done the same thing and were willing to give us advice, share resources, and, sometimes, cheat codes.
One of those people was Jill Mapes at Hearing Things. Mapes and I worked together just over a decade ago at Radio.com, which everyone thought was a great URL at the time, inside CBS Radio. It no longer exists, and all our work was deleted from the internet after another company bought the assets. Love when that happens. Anyway, Mapes left for a job at Pitchfork before the rest of us were laid off, and we’ve stayed in touch. I watched when she was laid off by Condé Nast and, with a group of former co-workers, launched Hearing Things. Mapes was one of the first people I reached out to when we started figuring out how Ravenous might work.
Today’s newsletter features: A conversation with Jill Mapes at Hearing Things on getting scrappy in building a worker-owned publication, New York-centric food sites, and a rant about music and food influencers.
Plus, new stories from Ravenous this week about the genius of the sip and snack cup and why grocery stores suck now.
