The Taste of Dirt

Daisy Alioto, a 33-year-old writer, editor and media executive, was looking at the 140 tons of dirt in the Earth Room, a permanent installation created by the conceptual artist Walter de Maria on the second floor of a loft in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan.

“It feels like a metaphor for what’s happening in media and culture right now,” she said. “Insisting on the value of something that the wealthiest people see as worthless or disposable.”

Ms. Alioto had suggested we meet there on a summer afternoon to discuss Dirt, the newsletter she has been running for the last few years. Operating largely outside the news cycle and social media discourse, Dirt has published essays on everything from broken heart valves to bad waitressing, from “yearning” to millennial gray.

There are also book reviews and interviews — anything, in other words, that Ms. Alioto and her small staff deem part of the “Dirtyverse,” their tongue-in-cheek name for the constellation of interests that fall within the company’s ambit.

Ms. Alioto’s sojourn to the De Maria sculpture had a winking air about it: the digital was paying tribute to a physical ancestor; Dirt was beholding dirt. And as it happened, Ms. Alioto was pulling double duty that afternoon, collecting material for an essay that included her thoughts on the Earth Room and the low-grade internet content known as “filler” or “slop.”

Multitasking is an everyday thing for Ms. Alioto. In her role as chief executive of Dirt Media, she edits stories, fields freelance pitches, talks to investors, and plans her new podcast, “Tasteland.”