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Freelancing as a career

April 21, 2008 by Michael Boyle

My friend Craig Silverman has written a post with some great advice for freelance journalists trying to develop their career in difficult economic times: Freelancing the future. He came to this in response to a post by Adrian Monck, who has been making the case recently that journalism is not at fault for the decline in newspapers.

Monck is almost certainly right, and Craig’s advice is really good advice – not just for freelance journalists but for any independent consultant-type person trying to get things going. But it’s the business side of the news media business that has and continues to screw everything up, IMO. When the net came along, they said, “look, blogs are great, everyone wants more opinion and context” and went ahead and gutted their news reporting function in favour of more opinion, more columnists, more of what the blogosphere was doing very well from it’s inception.

The problem is – that was the exact opposite of the bet they should have made. Opinions are like noses – everyone has one – and no one gives a damn if it’s some “journalist” (whose publisher likely sold him/her out long ago) who has written the opinion piece. On any conceivable subject, I can go out into the blogs and find at least one if not a dozen writers with more experience, more context, and more knowledge about a subject than any journalist has.

What we need – and by “we” I mean society at large – is honest, exhaustive, factual reporting. Newspapers should have (and should be) increasing their reporting budgets and decreasing their spend on columnists and opinions. I do want more opinion and context – but the last place I want to go to get it is a newspaper.

Tags: Blogging, Business, Journalist, Media, Newspapers, Writers

How Shocking!

January 7, 2005 by Michael Boyle

How Shocking!

A journalist (but trained as a computer scientist) who hates the WWW: Dump the World Wide Web! by Bill Thompson. Ironic to see that on a site called “OpenDemocracy” though.

Tags: Journalist, Web

Dave Winer

June 6, 2002 by Michael Boyle

Dave Winer

has published an interesting DaveNet today, “Is it marketing or journalism?” Of course this question has been central to journalism for years, going back at least to the days of Hearst and Pulitzer’s yellow journalism. But though the question seems to have been sleeping for a while, it has definitely revived in the past couple of years.

As far as I’m concerned, Winer is pretty directly taking on the Telecom Reform Act in a piece like that. At least that’s my interpretation. By concentrating ownership of the media, the Act led directly (though it wasn’t the only thing that led us here) to the point where there is a lack of competition in the marketplace: competition that would (and traditionally did) keep journalists honest. Think of baseball. The owners always scream about keeping free agent salaries down, about controlling their environment. But with 30 teams, someone (usually Steinbrenner, it seems) always defects and refuses to toe the line and signs the big contract. That competition no longer exists in journalism. There aren’t very many players left (at the money end of things), so it’s less likely that someone will defect from current practice (i.e., not questioning the boss or money) and thus in effect keep them all honest.

Again, with feeling: the CDA was a smokescreen! It was the rest of the 1996 Telecom Reform Act that was really offensive. It vacated accountability in the media through the removal of competition. The effect this has had (with other influences) is undeniable.

Tags: ALA, EFF, Environment, Journalist, Marketing, Media, Scripting News, Wine

There’s a mysterious

April 25, 2001 by Michael Boyle

story by Declan McCullagh at Wired News today: Journalists Protest Gag Order. Evidently it has something to do with a piece published on the Montreal indymedia site – but a gag order was served in Seattle. It’s all very confused now, but I’m curious to see what happens, if anything.

Tags: Journalist, Media, Montreal, Protest, Test, Wired

It’s odd to read about

January 11, 2001 by Michael Boyle

a party I was at in the paper: “…a dear friend of mine threw a martini-drenched surprise B-day bash for his (biological) girlfriend just last weekend. Now, I knew all the mainly straight partygoers there quite well, of course (a few number among my most fabulous friends and drinking buddies), a cast of this city’s finest dancers, musicians, journalists and divine rogues, including the owners of two of the hottest and hippest nightspots in the city.”
I guess I’m a divine rogue, which suits me just fine.

Tags: Friend, IRL, Journalist, Music, Test

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