Friday, April 24, 2009
News / Chicagoland Advice to unemployed journalists
Posted by Whet Moser on 04.24.09 at 01:14 PM
Blog. Seriously. That's about it. But allow me to address your questions.
1. That's easy for you to say, you have a job, and are somewhat young and don't have any kids.
Well, for now, yes, those things are true. But it wasn't always so, or at least I didn't have a job in my preferred field, or a job I liked. One of the reasons I had the technical skills to get this job was that my first job out of college was pretty unsatisfying, and I had a lot of undirected energy. So, among other things, I taught myself CSS and fooled around with Web design and Javascript. I didn't pick up enough to be an IT pro, but I learned enough to be useful in my current job.
When I was in college, and immediately afterwards, my friends and I did a short-lived online magazine. Not many people read it, and it didn't last long, but at the bare minimum it was good practice. And I enjoyed it, and we scored some good things, including a photo essay from Iraq.
2. Could I make money blogging? If not, only a fool ever wrote for no money etc.
Contra Mark Penn, no. I mean, you could, but you probably won't, and definitely not from the get-go. But that doesn't mean you can't do satisfying and important work. My favorite blogger in the world is a guy who goes by the handle Billmon. He used to run a blog called the Whiskey Bar, which he killed off because of adult responsibilities, but he still stops by at DailyKos, where he started and made his reputation.
The funny thing about Billmon is that he used to be a reporter, and from some of the stories he told, a pretty high-flying one (now he's in the financial industry, I think). Basically he cashed in, which is fine, but never lost the itch. So he started blogging semi-anonymously, and it turned out he was really good at it. If you don't know him, poke around; he's beloved on the Internets, and for my money his output during the Bush administration was more important than any full-time columnist at any big paper. Better written, better researched, more moving, just jaw-dropping.
And he didn't make much or any money off of it, or make a name for himself (he made a pseudonym for himself, I guess). But for readers like me, he was enormously important, absolutely essential during a dark time in American history. I'll be forever grateful for his hobby.
And there are more people out there like that. Doghouse Riley, an idiosyncratic, pseudonymous Indianapolis blogger, who I discovered in the comments section at Roy Edroso's marvelous blog, which I also love; Edroso recently got picked up by the Village Voice, much to their credit. Digby. The guy who runs T.R.O.Y. blog. The academics at Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Hilzoy. All these people are as or more important to me than the employed writers whom you've heard of.
3. That seems lonely. And futureless.
It doesn't have to be. Bloggers all over the Web have banded together and formed interesting, vital communities. I've been reading Firedoglake since it was an unfortunate-looking Blogger blog stone-obsessed with the Plame/Wilson/Libby affair (and one of the few outlets really making sense of it) run by a West Virginia lawyer and a Hollywood producer. Now it's a network of blogs - they drew in Tbogg (another popular, anonymous former Blogger resident), the tenacious, gifted young reporter Spencer Ackerman, and perhaps most importantly, a Michigander named Marcy Wheeler who goes by the handle emptywheel.
I don't know that much about her, either - she's an English PhD, a Feuilleton expert, and I think was in business of some kind. She's nails, has an incredible gift for sorting through government documents and making sense of them, and has been competing with the NYT in recent weeks on the torture memos. Dunno where she found the time, but FDL is doing a fundraising drive so that she can go full-time with help, and in a few days they've raised, as of today, about $45k. By just asking (give a bit if you can, she's deserving).
4. No, really, I like working with actual people.
In that case, there are plenty of places in Chicago - or wherever you may be - that I'm sure would love to have your contributions. There's Gapers Block, the Windy Citizen, Chi-Town Daily News, the Beachwood Reporter, and that's just on the Web. Lumpen is an outstanding magazine, as is their sister publication Proximity. They'd all be better off with whatever time and energy you can spare, especially if it's an infusion of veteran experience.
5. Seriously, it's really easy for you to say, since you still have a job.
Fair enough; I was hesitant to write this at all for fear of sounding condescending. But I know from experience how difficult it is not to be in the field, and I would have handled myself better - like, not being so depressed that my fianceé forced me to get cats for the same reasons they give prisoners seeing-eye dogs to train - if I'd had a better idea of the communities and opportunities out there.
All I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of people out there who don't have jobs in journalism whose work is as important to me, often more, than people who do. Some of them are freelance journalists whose names I know; some of them are anonymous people on the Internet with full-time jobs and a desire to write.
I can already see names popping up. Emily Nunn, who got laid off in an earlier round of cuts, is blogging, and Lou Carlozo, one of the more recent victims, has already weighed in on the Internet. And there are people still in the game who want to see the foundation laid for what's next. (For not entirely unselfish reasons - I worry every day about being next.) There are a lot of people whose contributions will be missed; not, I hope, for long.
Comments (20)
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Trying again... Former Trib sports columnist Bernie Lincicome started a blog after the Rocky Mountain News went under, and keeps doing the equivalent of full columns that way.
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A strong second to your praise for Billmon. His output was absolutely essential during the worst of the Bush years, unmatched by any other source. I still miss him and was so glad he started writing on occasion again.
Nice piece Whet. www.hungrymag.com would also love to have you if you write food. Rest assured we don't make any money as Whet points out, but we're well fed.
Right on, Whet. And the more help those of us out here have, the faster we can get to profitability. As far as money goes, you'll need to make some anyway, but why not help build something exciting and new - what you've always wanted to do, make your own paper! - instead of trying to hang on with the dinosaurs. If you have to give up the trappings of a yuppie lifestyle, so be it. That's not how a journalist oughta live anyway.
With all due respect, what unemployed journalists need is training and support to help them a) learn web design and whatever other new media skills they need to stay competitive* or b) repurpose their existing skill set should they, perhaps wisely, decide that they no longer want to play this game and would rather seek gainful, meaningful employment in another field. That way, they can get a shiny new job that will pay the rent/mortgage/college tuition/health insurance so that they can blog for free on the side and help build the foundation for whatever comes next. But, hey, what do I know. I'm just worried about maintaining my yuppie lifestyle. *And I'm not convinced that this is a terribly useful or desireable course for many. Do you really think John Conroy's time (to use a popular example) would be best spent learning html?
Gapers Block is always looking for new writers, and we'd be happy to help train journos who need some new media skills.
"With all due respect, what unemployed journalists need is training and support to help them..." As Andrew points out, there are plenty of places that would love love love trained journalists who would be willing to engage in a little information/training exchange. But yes: I think it would be a very useful and desirable course of action for anyone - including, and especially, the John Conroys of the world - to learn the skills that will allow them to have a future in their industry and us to have a better, more informed world.
John Conroy actually has a hot little website: http://www.john-conroy.com/ Why shouldn't he be learning HTML? He already knows the other stuff down pat. It's professional development. And, secret: HTML is not that hard. Really. I promise. There are a lot of good step-by-step books and tutorials out there.
My point is simply that people need jobs that pay money. In order to live. I think starting a blog is a great idea for anyone who wants to keep their name out there. I have two of them. But I'm not counting on them to pay the COBRA bill. (And they're sort of moribund lately because for that very reason.) Discussions of the gloomy state of journalism focus on the writers. That makes sense. They're the visible ones; they have bylines. But not everyone feeling the blunt force of this industrywide collapse is a writer or wants to be one; many of them are copyeditors, proofreaders, fact checkers, researchers, etc. (And that's just on the editorial end.) And many of those who are *are* writers are (understandably) so embittered by the whole crappy situation that they've decided to hack out another career path -- which is not an easy project for a midcareer professional with years invested in developing a now-totally-devalued sklll set, even in a healthy economy. It's certainly not impossible but, again -- with respect -- it's less of a blue sky possibility than it is for a recent college graduate stuck in a unsatisfying first job. I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of network of support services evolved, fairly quickly, to help people figure out how to do all this. But right now most everyone I know in this situation is fumbling around in the dark and starting to get kinda scared. In this context an exhortation to start a blog that sloughs off financial concerns by assuring the freshly unemployed that they’ll still be able to still do "satisfying and important work" is, and I do mean this without malice, a little frustrating. That's all.
Brava, Martha! I'm not convinced that learning HTML is really going to help, either. There are a lot of us out here fumbling in the dark who already know HTML (and CSS, podcasting, Twitter, etc.). However, help in figuring out how to rework one's skills into something that'll pay the rent is sorely needed.
I'd be happy to bring on copyeditors, fact checkers, etc. -- and if some of those people on the business side want to help, I'd be excited to have them, particularly advertising sales people. Because trust me, it is not lost on us online folks that without the business, we're not going to keep anyone afloat. I'm curious whether actors or artists ever have this sort of conversation. I mean, there aren't a whole lot of actors who make their sole living acting, or artists without day jobs. Certainly, most journalists claim to have a "calling" to the work, just like those other avocations -- if it's just a job, it shouldn't be that big a deal walking away and doing something else. But if it's really in your blood, maybe it's best to find ways to practice it where you can, until the opportunity to do it full time returns. Gapers Block has had many past, present and future journalists on its staff, starting with me. I don't believe that journalists' skillset has been devalued. Number one on the list is the ability to communicate ideas and information clearly and effectively -- there are lots of jobs in which that is a highly valued and well-paid skill. They're not always in the media (or around the media, although public relations can be very lucrative if you can get over the taste in your mouth) but that doesn't mean you have to leave it behind forever.
I'm sure it's not intended, Andrew, but your invitation to contribute to Gapers Block is off-putting ignorance at best and insulting grave-dancing at worst. It's not like these journalists are young grads starving for clips. Are you honestly expecting gants like Pat Reardon or Jim Miller to pour Starbucks by day and scribble for you by night? Amateur, non-paying blogs and aggregators like GB and Huffington Post, however well-meaning, are part of the reason these people are out of work. And now they should come to you and donate their 30 years of experience -- in exchange for learning how to write a tag? Please. Hit up the high schools if you want free labor.
Actually, I don't expect them to find a job at Starbucks. If that's the only place they can find a job, it's a sadder day for journalism than I thought. Talented journalists defect to PR all the time. They go write books and speeches and ad copy. They work for pharmaceutical companies to write up research. And despite the "death of journalism," quite a few people I know are doing quite well on the freelancer circuit. While I can't speak to the well-meaningness of the Huffington Post, Gapers Block hopes to be able to pay its writers eventually. That's obviously going to take awhile, since we don't have the dozens of salespeople the Trib has, and it's probably never going to be a living wage. But we're trying. Rather than whining about the paucity of our attempt, how about you try, too? And by the way, we've been around for six years and had more than 200 people contribute their "free labor." High and mighty Tribune reporters may consider it beneath them to write for us, but there are plenty of others who are happy to do it -- some of them perhaps for the clips, but most because they want to share news about what's going on in the city. If you see my offer of a place to continue to have a voice in Chicago's media as grave-dancing, it says more about you than me.
Martha: To clarify, I would never exhort anyone to start a blog with the idea that they can make a living off it - though some folks certainly do that. That's one reason why my site isn't a one-man blog, but a wide-ranging site with dozens of contributors. I don't want to speak for Andrew Huff, but my guess is that that is Andrew's idea too. In fact, I advise the opposite of starting a blog - why do your own blog with virtually no hope of making a dime from it when you can join up with others and aggregate readers and resources and try to turn it into a business (paging Cara Jepsen!)? If all the Chicago journalists who have been laid off in the last year joined together (maybe even at The Beachwood Reporter!) there would be an instant, sizable audience and probably immediate investors. And I bet they'd have a lot more fun than they were having at the Tribune. (And don't cry for the longtime vets, who made plenty of money from Tribune stock options that were part of a system that helped kill their own jobs in the long-run . . . )
Whet and everyone, Please don't leave Chicagotalks.org out of the list of blogs/news websites which are open to new contributors -- http://chicagotalks.org is a news website in Chicago, too. We want to expand our arts and entertainment coverage, and we'd love to people write about what their aldermen are doing (or not.) Just join the site, and submit your stories.
I second Martha's comments. In terms of checking your facts: Proximity and Lumpen aren't blogs. In fact, Edmar's work is sort of non-blog in order to promote the value of the print version. Proximity's blog is self promotion and they only offer excerpts online. They also show the side effects of being a labor of love: Lumpen's quality varies, relies on reprints and copy-editing is at times sub-par. Proximity is high quality, but they have a long production schedule to accomodate people who are writing in their limited spare time. Gaper's Block and Chicagoist have been around for years and have mostly unpaid staff. No disrespect to Mr. Huff - love the site - but as paying blogs like Gawker implode eventually paying writers seems unlikely. I assume the owners of GP make at least enough to pay for the bandwidth, but that's cold comfort for people who need to eat. The majority of blogs are commenting upon or reviewing the paid work of others. Original reporting requires an amount of time and resources which is difficult to do for free while holding down a job. People can produce excellent content for free, but the ability to do so is limited save the rare few who have decent income and spare time. The best work out there is being done by Pro Publica which relies on a foundation to pay reporters for their work. Whet's point #2 is evasive - his prime example, Hilzoy, is a former journalist who eventually gave up hobby blogging for other concerns. Also, Hilzoy wasn't reporting, just commenting on news generated by others. I'd like to see Whet's take on these things if he lost his job and couldn't find another one - and I don't mean another journalism job, I mean another job period.
In terms of hmmphing:
> In terms of checking your facts: Proximity and Lumpen
> aren't blogs.
Let me help you check.
"and that's just on the Web. [Previous clause's implied transition: 'Apart from the Web,'] Lumpen is an outstanding magazine [i.e., 'other than blog'], as is their sister publication Proximity."
Facts seem fine. But you could blue-pencil some subject-verb agreement trouble there if you need something to complain about.
> They also show the side effects of being a labor of
> love: Lumpen's quality varies, relies on reprints and
Hence "They'd all be better off with whatever time and energy you can spare, especially if it's an infusion of veteran experience."
> Whet's point #2 is evasive - his prime example,
> Hilzoy, is a former journalist who eventually gave up
> hobby blogging for other concerns. Also, Hilzoy wasn't
> reporting, just commenting on news generated by
> others.
Whet's prime example was Billmon. (There's a fact! Check it!) Whet's point #2 is that you don't make money from blogging but you get other rewards.* That Billmon semiretired from blogging makes Whet's point "evasive"? What?
*Rewards including perhaps a path to your next--nonblogging--gig. Like Billmon.
> I'd like to see Whet's take on these things if he lost
> his job and couldn't find another one - and I don't
> mean another journalism job, I mean another job
> period.
We can safely assume that Whet's take is going to be "Blog. Seriously. That's about it." And he wouldn't be alone in that:
[Finishing that thought:] http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/05/23/blogging-essential-for-a-good-career/
>Gaper's Block and Chicagoist have been around for >years and have mostly unpaid staff. No disrespect to > Mr. Huff - love the site - but as paying blogs like > Gawker implode eventually paying writers seems > unlikely. I assume the owners of GP make at least > enough to pay for the bandwidth, but that's cold > comfort for people who need to eat. Guess what? I eat thanks to Gapers Block. Our "bandwidth" costs (which may show how little you know about online economics -- bandwidth is not a serious outlay in most instances) are around $50 a month. We make significantly more than that. Maybe not, as I said, enough yet to pay the 75+ people writing for us, but we could survive for quite awhile as we are now. (By the way, as long as we're "fact checking," the word Block starts with a 'b' -- so we're GB, not GP.) Gawker's financial troubles are far from proof that blogging doesn't work as a business. Gawker expanded aggressively to cover multiple categories/topics and working slavishly to capture eyeballs -- endlessly chasing impressions. See Merlin Mann's excellent post explaining why that's a losing proposition for so many reasons: http://www.43folders.com/2009/04/10/free-me Gawker loves to make a big splash when it launches publications -- but there are still some that are going to flop, just like in the print world. And others aren't going to make enough in advertising to stay afloat, just like in the print world. But hey, if you think Gawker is a prime example why blogging isn't a viable business, I don't think I can convince you otherwise. You're not seeing enough of the internet to believe me.
