The Cold World of Web Journalism

Forget glamour. Forget riches or in some cases even a paycheck. It is cold out there when it comes to jobs and pay in the Web world. Especially when your company is sold, merged or bought out. In the case of Huffington Post- AOL merger, nearly all the AOL staff was dumped. Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post are darlings of the Web world. Some say she is a "genius." But much of her success is attributed to her employees. They are a talented bunch who helped build the company with little or no pay. Such is the world of the Web - low pay, no benefits and often terrible working conditions. Why would anyone want to do these jobs? Good question. This is not what they often teach you in journalism school. - MT

This comes from Ad Age's Matthew Creamer:
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/jeff-jarvis-channels-mamet-week-s-media-writing/226895/

The piss-poor manner in which AOL's army of regular freelancers were treated after the Huffington Post purchase is captured by Carter Maness writing for The Awl. After leaving a corporate job in 2008 to, possibly quixotically, start a music journalism career, he latched on with AOL. All seemed OK until Arianna rolled up, her presence unleashing a depressing torrent of corporate lethargy, indecision and miscommunication that ultimately resulted in him getting canned. He was notified in a letter than began with an almost flirty "Hi there." I wonder if we expect more humanity from media companies than we do other corporations. Perhaps it's time to stop that. Anyway, here's the kicker:

Hi there! Over my two-year tenure at AOL, I published over 350,000 words in approximately 900 posts -- at least three novels worth of words. This was met with a blanket termination, with zero notice, in the form of an email that didn't even include my actual name. Freelancers know they are just a number, but AOL really went out of their way to demonstrate that. Rest assured!

The toughest part is that it's now near impossible for us to gain satisfaction from the merger's probable failure. Tim Armstrong is already rich. Arianna Huffington is already rich. Those that treated the Mighty AOL Freelance Army like so much trash to be taken out have already gotten paid on our backs. At least we were "greatly appreciated" for helping them out.

Well, I suppose Mr. Maness could write for Forbes. Now there's even a manual for how to get a blogging job there. It was penned by Susannah Breslin, who after being downsized herself was hired by Forbes to write "Pink Slipped," a blog whose subject matter should relatively obvious. The second tip of five tips served up by Ms. Breslin encourages one to "be a hustler":

At my last job, I was an editor, but I was also part of the marketing team. I generated multiple blog posts daily, did a brief stretch as a copy editor, and worked with freelance contributors. I was also tasked with increasing site traffic. I used a variety of means to drive traffic to the site. The site had very, very ambitious traffic goals. We met those goals in a variety of ways, from social media to relationships with blogger influencers to partner sites. That means I am familiar with how to drive traffic to a blog or site. This is what it means to be an online writer today. If you think that is sad, corrupting, or indicates the demise of journalism, I suppose you are a more moral person than I am. These days, it's not enough to be a good writer online. You have to be a smart marketer, your own content factory, your own publicist. If you can do it all, you are golden. If you cannot, you are screwed.

A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives

Technology is clearly altering the way we communicate - in both good and bad ways. The changes have big implications for journalists and society. Ten years ago - who thought cell phones would have cameras? Or that people would be using them take pictures in locker rooms or to distribute naked photos of themselves? - MT

Elizabeth Colón and Jon Reid gave a presentation about the consequences of sending risqué photos and text messages after three students were charged in a sexting case at their school. Neither was involved in the case.

NYT - LACEY, Wash. — One day last winter Margarite posed naked before her bathroom mirror, held up her cellphone and took a picture. Then she sent the full-length frontal photo to Isaiah, her new boyfriend.

Both were in eighth grade.

They broke up soon after. A few weeks later, Isaiah forwarded the photo to another eighth-grade girl, once a friend of Margarite’s. Around 11 o’clock at night, that girl slapped a text message on it.

“Ho Alert!” she typed. “If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends.” Then she clicked open the long list of contacts on her phone and pressed “send.”

In less than 24 hours, the effect was as if Margarite, 14, had sauntered naked down the hallways of the four middle schools in this racially and economically diverse suburb of the state capital, Olympia. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of students had received her photo and forwarded it.

In short order, students would be handcuffed and humiliated, parents mortified and lessons learned at a harsh cost. Only then would the community try to turn the fiasco into an opportunity to educate.

Around the country, law enforcement officials and educators are struggling with how to confront minors who “sext,” an imprecise term that refers to sending sexual photos, videos or texts from one cellphone to another.

But adults face a hard truth. For teenagers, who have ready access to technology and are growing up in a culture that celebrates body flaunting, sexting is laughably easy, unremarkable and even compelling: the primary reason teenagers sext is to look cool and sexy to someone they find attractive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sexting.html

A Wiki Takes Aim at Obama

Karl Rove helped conceive the political group Crossroads.

NYT - Steven J. Law, the president of Crossroads GPS, a well-financed conservative political group with ties to Karl Rove, had a revelation a few months ago while watching television news.

“WikiLeaks suddenly became a household name,” he said, and he thought, “Amid all of this bad behavior, there is a certain genius going on there.”

Last week, in an attempt to tap into that genius, Crossroads began Wikicountability.org, a collaborative Web site intended to create a database of freedom of information requests that scrutinize the actions of the Obama administration.

Many companies and organizations, including the United States Army, have seized on the Wikipedia model to encourage their members to build up information collaboratively. This seems to be an early effort to use the idea behind WikiLeaks, a repository of secretive or difficult-to-obtain documents, for a specific political end.

In much the same way news outlets have tried to harness social networking tools to improve their reports and then popularize them, Crossroads GPS is experimenting with a system of distributed accountability (or distributed opposition research, if you prefer).

“One of the advantages of the wiki platform that led us to want to develop the site,” Mr. Law said, is that you can “crowd-source both the information and analysis of the information.”

Crossroads GPS, or Grassroots Policy Strategies, is a political group conceived in part by Mr. Rove after he left the Bush White House in 2007. Because of its tax designation it is supposed to focus primarily on issues rather than candidates, and Mr. Law described how Wikicountability was concentrating on topics like health care and high speed rail. The organization was the vehicle for millions of dollars of ads during the 2010 Congressional campaign.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/business/media/04link.html