Digital publishing and journalism
So quite a few folks pointed me to this screed from Alexis Madrigal, an online editor at the Atlantic, written in response to this annoyed post by Nate Thayer. Both the original post and the response have garnered a lot of attention, although I agree with the commentators on the post that the response is less about current pay rates at the Atlantic and more about "What the hell is going on at the Atlantic?"
Oh well. At least they don't employ David Brooks.
Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway, what caught my attention was not so much the discussion of financial issues, but something pretty much buried deep down in the article: "Any time I imagine the glamorous world of writing for The Atlantic or The New Yorker or Harper's in 1968 or 1978, I remember that most journalists were going to homecoming football games and writing about the king and queen."
Not many people know this, but I started out as a sports writer.
Truth.
My first paid, professional pieces were for the local paper, reporting on the the high school soocer team. It was pretty cool -- I got to go around on the bus with the team and say that I wrote for the paper AND I got paid. My mother still has the articles somewhere.
Here's what the Atlantic's article missed entirely: I wasn't a journalist. I did exactly no investigation of the high school soccer team (not that I had much to investigate) or anything else. The later occasional (very occasional) articles I did for the Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel weren't much different: short fluff pieces describing some places around South Florida. I never entered a journalism program, and although I certainly applied for multiple positions at various magazines in my senior year of college, these were all for editing positions, not staff writing experiences.
Because I was fully aware that what I was doing wasn't journalism. It barely counted as reporting. It was a cheap way for the local paper to get some local things covered while giving all of us writing creds to help us get into college. Any actual investigation of our school was done by the New York Times (the daughter of the education editor for The New York Times attended our school, so we got a bit more national attention than probably justified, and no, this has nothing to do with my current occasional screeds against the publication; I didn't know her at all although Facebook continues to insist that I did. I hate Facebook. Moving on.)
And here's the dirty little secret: contrary to what the Atlantic's editor is suggesting, this is exactly how many local papers got those homecoming king/queen articles going. Sure, sometimes they hired people (and high school students) hoping to start the fast track to journalism. And sometimes they hired people just thrilled to get their names in the paper for whatever reason, or who wanted to say, "Well, I occasionally write for the Y" or who were told by their high school counselors to get their acts together and have something besides "piano" on their college applications -- preferably something involving an organization.
Am I saying I got nothing out of that? Not at all. I learned how to type up my little articles and send them in and learn early on that even local editors can be ruthless with your limited copy if they think a nice ad about a furniture store will look better there. I learned early on that often, other things -- like my job at the library -- will pay better than writing gigs, but you have to pay taxes anyway. I learned the very basics of writing pitches, which later helped me write a few things for newspapers later. Listing that on my college applications probably helped me skip my senior year of high school (a definite plus) and was later of considerable use in my first query letters to larger newspapers and magazines and led to some decently paid freelance work which helped pay the bills. (And some very irritating freelance work, but we'll skip that for now.) And I could always tell myself that yes, I'd been published -- when I was fourteen. (Well, technically when I was seven, but very, very few people apart from my grandfather really counted that one.)
And I got paid.
I don't claim to know where U.S. journalism is going. It's got its decidedly weak spots (pretty much all of the coverage of Hugo Chavez' death has been just awful), though longer magazine articles can still provide something worth reading. (Also from the New Yorker: coverage of a Congo literary festival -- much shorter than the piece I linked to above and The Borowitz Report. Also, no David Brooks.) The Tribune Company is reportedly trying to sell off its newspapers to focus on television. So who knows? But as a writer, I am perhaps not surprisingly hoping that pay continues to be a part of real journalism, at least.
Oh well. At least they don't employ David Brooks.
Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway, what caught my attention was not so much the discussion of financial issues, but something pretty much buried deep down in the article: "Any time I imagine the glamorous world of writing for The Atlantic or The New Yorker or Harper's in 1968 or 1978, I remember that most journalists were going to homecoming football games and writing about the king and queen."
Not many people know this, but I started out as a sports writer.
Truth.
My first paid, professional pieces were for the local paper, reporting on the the high school soocer team. It was pretty cool -- I got to go around on the bus with the team and say that I wrote for the paper AND I got paid. My mother still has the articles somewhere.
Here's what the Atlantic's article missed entirely: I wasn't a journalist. I did exactly no investigation of the high school soccer team (not that I had much to investigate) or anything else. The later occasional (very occasional) articles I did for the Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel weren't much different: short fluff pieces describing some places around South Florida. I never entered a journalism program, and although I certainly applied for multiple positions at various magazines in my senior year of college, these were all for editing positions, not staff writing experiences.
Because I was fully aware that what I was doing wasn't journalism. It barely counted as reporting. It was a cheap way for the local paper to get some local things covered while giving all of us writing creds to help us get into college. Any actual investigation of our school was done by the New York Times (the daughter of the education editor for The New York Times attended our school, so we got a bit more national attention than probably justified, and no, this has nothing to do with my current occasional screeds against the publication; I didn't know her at all although Facebook continues to insist that I did. I hate Facebook. Moving on.)
And here's the dirty little secret: contrary to what the Atlantic's editor is suggesting, this is exactly how many local papers got those homecoming king/queen articles going. Sure, sometimes they hired people (and high school students) hoping to start the fast track to journalism. And sometimes they hired people just thrilled to get their names in the paper for whatever reason, or who wanted to say, "Well, I occasionally write for the Y" or who were told by their high school counselors to get their acts together and have something besides "piano" on their college applications -- preferably something involving an organization.
Am I saying I got nothing out of that? Not at all. I learned how to type up my little articles and send them in and learn early on that even local editors can be ruthless with your limited copy if they think a nice ad about a furniture store will look better there. I learned early on that often, other things -- like my job at the library -- will pay better than writing gigs, but you have to pay taxes anyway. I learned the very basics of writing pitches, which later helped me write a few things for newspapers later. Listing that on my college applications probably helped me skip my senior year of high school (a definite plus) and was later of considerable use in my first query letters to larger newspapers and magazines and led to some decently paid freelance work which helped pay the bills. (And some very irritating freelance work, but we'll skip that for now.) And I could always tell myself that yes, I'd been published -- when I was fourteen. (Well, technically when I was seven, but very, very few people apart from my grandfather really counted that one.)
And I got paid.
I don't claim to know where U.S. journalism is going. It's got its decidedly weak spots (pretty much all of the coverage of Hugo Chavez' death has been just awful), though longer magazine articles can still provide something worth reading. (Also from the New Yorker: coverage of a Congo literary festival -- much shorter than the piece I linked to above and The Borowitz Report. Also, no David Brooks.) The Tribune Company is reportedly trying to sell off its newspapers to focus on television. So who knows? But as a writer, I am perhaps not surprisingly hoping that pay continues to be a part of real journalism, at least.