thoughtsignals

Online Journalism Review has a Q&A with Baristanet co-founder Debbie Galant, a former New York Times Columnist.

On the site’s approach to journalism: “We are much more … shooting from the hip and smart-alecky. We’re more like the front of the book in Newsweek or like those sly Entertainment Weekly-type magazines.”

On earning a living: “We’re now after two years really starting to make some decent money. It took at least that long to build up the readership so we could become a viable competitor in the local advertising market. It certainly helped that during that time Liz and I both have husbands who were bringing in the health insurance and the steady income.”

On the competition: “Our shining hours have been during fires and this microburst last summer that was just like a tornado and that’s when we utilized the medium really well. … And the local newspaper surprisingly enough, even though they were out reporting it and even though they have a website, they didn’t use that material and saved everything for their newspaper on Thursday–which was two-and-a-half days after everything happened. And so we just really felt like we completely kicked their butts.”

This is fascinating stuff, well worth a read if you’re interested in the future of local journalism and in the idea of hyperlocal journalism especially.

Link.

Fast Company has a short piece on “how to launch a career with a blog.”

Blogging can be transformative –- placing you on a new career path, earning you a book deal, or catapulting you into the field of your dreams. Just ask some of the folks we spoke with.

Actually, it’s more like a few examples of people who have gotten new gigs — book deals, consulting work, etc. — with their blogs. The “how-to” component isn’t there so much. There is, however, a slideshow about how to grow readership on your blog.

Underneath all the very real concern about the future of daily newspapers and other “mainstream” media are questions about what will happen to the expensive, time-consuming journalism such organizations have traditionally done. Washington Post media writer Howie Kurtz raises the issue:

Newspapers and networks face the same dilemma: too many people doing other things with their time, from Web-surfing to podcast listening, or simply losing interest in news altogether. Some of these customers are consuming the companies’ wares online, which is great for exposure but doesn’t produce the revenue needed to support long-form reporting. If this erosion continues, it would be bad news for serious journalism, and good news for corrupt politicians.

Link.

There’s also an online discussion where Kurtz and some of his readers get into it a little more.

BusinessWeek has a piece on how to have your dream job (sort of) and still make a decent living:

When it comes to your life’s work, you can take one of two paths: You could be sure you’re doing what you love and deal with the risks and low pay that could accompany it. Or you can work a day job that’s tolerable and frees you up—and pays—enough to allow you to do what you want after work. Following your passion can mean taking a chance, but for purists, unfulfilling day jobs aren’t an option. What counts for them is practicing their craft, whether it’s acting, basketball, singing, or designing.

Link.

The News & Observer has a big Sunday package that asks “Should bloggers have a code of ethics to follow?”

It includes essays by Anton Zuiker and Ruby Sinreich as well as brief profiles of some Triangle bloggers.

Anton writes:

… we haven’t agreed on a blogger code of ethics, and we never will. That’s because anyone can be a blogger, and a blogger can be anyone. In America, we don’t require artists or novelists or songwriters or talk show hosts or cell phone conversationalists to swear on a code of ethics for their chosen medium of expression. Don’t think that bloggers will be the first.

I think Anton’s got it right: Blogging by itself is a form of expression. Use it for journalism and maybe you should follow something like a journalist’s code of ethics. Or maybe you could adopt some basic principles, as Jeff Jarvis has.

One of David Pogue’s readers appears to have coined a new word: contextotomy. That’s when a company selectively quotes from a review (of a product, movie, etc.), in effect changing the meaning by omitting the context that appeared around the original meaning. In this case, the offender was a Microsoft executive, quoting from Pogue’s review of Internet Explorer 7 in an internal company email.

Link.

Part 5 of the New York Times series on how faith-based organizations have carved out exemptions for themselves from conventional government regulation and taxation:

It looks like a business and, in many ways, acts like one. But it is beyond the reach of most of the rules and government oversight that apply to businesses — because it is a church mission.

This is the “medical bill sharing ministry” known as Christian Care Ministry, based in Melbourne, Fla., the largest of a handful of similar ministries around the country.

Link.

My previous posts on this series are here, here, here and here.

The issue here is not whether or not religious organizations should have constitutional protection against government interference. The issue is when are those protections taken so far that they end up giving the religious organizations an economic advantage over organizations — when do protections from government interference morph into government subsidies. At that point, the government is aiding the establishment of a religion. And that’s unconstitutional.

Jeff Jarvis has a great post on credibility, integrity and blogging:

It is fine for a blogger or newspaper or vlogger or TV show to take advertising, clearly labeled. It is wonderful for a blogger to get paid to write, editorially. But when you write what a commercial interest tells you and pays you to write, then you are no longer speaking as yourself but in the service of that marketer. That’s fine, too, but it isn’t content. It is advertising (or advertorial, same difference). See Rules 2 and 3.

This all seems simple and obvious to me. But it’s not obvious to others, who think they can buy bloggers’ opinions and with it that buzz. They don’t understand that buzz, too, is earned. And they don’t understand that once a blogger — or journalist or publication or friend, for that matter — is bought and paid for, the credibility and value of their voice is reduced or ruined.

Credibility is the cake you can’t have and eat, too.

Jarvis’ post includes his four-point pledge of credibility and transparency, which any blogger could adopt as a kind of “blogger code of ethics.” It’s important to remember that this is not simply about doing the right thing or behaving ethically, this is about retaining your audience. If people are confused about what’s paid for on your blog and what represents your true opinions, they get less value from your blog. Less value means less reason to read, less reason to subscribe. That means lower traffic. And if you’re trying to earn money from advertising, that means less revenue.

Link.

Online Journalism Review has a great Q&A with John Battelle (the guy behind Federated Media and Searchblog) about online journalism, blogging, and (most interesting to me) the business model for online journalism.

There’s no doubt that traditional media can and will continue, but it has a hard hump to get over. Traditional media is in the business of sort of corralling talent. [As a newspaper reporter], you don’t talk to readers. Your job is to talk to your sources. Institutionally, these organizations have grown up managing reporters, not talent. When I was editing at Wired, my job was to produce writers and manage 50-150 talented, half-crazy freelance writers, and I think it really got me ready to do what I’m doing now. People with influential blogs are talent and they don’t want to be told what to write about.

There’s an interesting dynamic going on in new media right now.

The big old media companies (newspapers, TV stations, etc.) are losing their audiences and their share of advertising money; they’re trying to figure out how to integrate new media (Internet, mobile, etc.) into a new business model to make up for the business they’re losing. If they’re not successful at this, then we’ll have a lot of big companies that will eventually go out of business — with all the attendent economic and social chaos that causes.

At the same time, we have scads of small new online media companies, like Federated Media and Gawker Media, trying to figure out an online-only (or online-mostly) business model. (For example, consider the issues PodTech is facing trying to balance production and bandwidth costs with advertising revenue.) The small new media companies don’t have much to lose, in a way — it’s not an industry with hundreds of thousands, or millions, of employees, investors counting on their success for their retirement investment, etc. But they have a lot to gain, obviously. (The individuals working in those small media companies are risking a lot, but it’s mostly their individual risk.)

Will the big media and little media meet in the middle? Maybe.

Will all the little new media startups get bought out by Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc. and essentially become small pieces of giant media/tech companies? Maybe. (And if that happens, do we risk losing the valuable diversity that lots of small companies bring to the ‘Net?)

Will the big media companies eventually wake up and figure it out and win the battle for the fast-growing online advertising pie? Maybe.

Will the little companies outmaneuver the big companies and make lots of individual bloggers and techies, if not rich, at least as well off as they would have been if they’d worked for a big traditional company? Maybe.

Will several of the above choices happen simultaneously? Are there other possibilities?

I don’t know the answer, but I think that making a living in the media right now is, existentially speaking, both scary and exciting because of the transition we’re seeing. And I think John Battelle and Robert Scoble, among others, are both likely to be among the first people to figure all this stuff out.

As I usually do after a blogging-type conference, I have lots of ideas post-ConvergeSouth. I also have at least 72 things in my “to blog” que, not to mention various half-formed ideas in my head. But I also have several deadlines crashing down around me this week, so all those will have to wait. Please stay tuned, your regular programming will return Friday (or thereabouts).

In the meantime, check out this very cool database-driven web site by a group in California. It shows the links between state legislators, campaign contributions, industry interests and legislators’ votes. Link.