Not one for new year's resolutions
Well, so much for my big resolve from Wednesday. I didn't really accomplish much today in terms of job hunting, in fact, almost nothing.
I did get another local news assignment, which includes an audioslide (video combining audio and stills) which will be an interesting challenge. I emailed somebody at a national newsmagazine about freelancing, but I'm not even sure that's here real email.
While attending the copyright discussion at the W2 atrium, I got to meet Mark Hosler of Negativeland. There was a lot of interesting talk about copyright and related issues. For one thing, how do you copyright dance? For another, even though I've been a Creative Commons supporter since I heard about the concept, it hasn't really revolutionized the field. CC creates a portion of media that can be manipulated, but it doesn't address the issue of people who want to use copyrighted works in their works.
I picked up the contact information for a few local people about the issue, hopefully leading to an article about this, even though it is pretty abstract.
Also, by happenstance, I met a woman who works as an archivist/librarian for the local broadsheet/tabloid hybrid. She pretty much supported my view that newspapers are suffering badly in hiring, and everybody is scrambling to make money off the internet now that the advertising and classified budgets have dropped to a fraction of what they were.
One of the most discouraging things I ever saw about the newspaper business was when I looked at a reference book of businesses in Canada, organized by category. At the top of the hierarchy, "publishing" was lumped in with "pulp and paper." That means, from at least one perspective, the whole of publishing, fiction and non-fiction, art and science and journalism and everything else, is just an appendix to the business of moving bits of tree around. By that logic, it makes perfect sense to print, distribute and sell a bundle of wood product that the average purchaser will find only a small fraction of useful. People paid for a tiny three-line ad in the back, so small you'd need a jeweler's loupe to read it.
If you're reading this, you're probably not reading it on paper. The medium has changed, and if Papa McLuhan told us anthing, the medium changes the message. The archivist/librariain has to change her job too, with people sending in cell phone video and images of the hockey riot, and thinking of the business less as a "newspaper" as a "news room."
This jibes with what other people have been telling me, that I need to develope web, image, audio and video skills. The audioslide production for Openfile will be at least a start.
However, none of this addresses the problem of my immediate survival. I can probably squeak into October, but after that I need steady employment, temporary or permanent. I have one day of temp work on Monday, but nothing else so far.
Once again, I kept procrastinating. At times I felt like I was having a panic attack, a combination of the desperate need to do something but having no idea what to do. Grinding through more subsistence jobs seems pointless, but networking is also an intimidating prospect too. I don't relate well to people in authority. I tend to assume a callous indifference combined with unpredictable judgement. Better to avoid notice entirely. Obviously, this is not a helpful attitude to have when you are trying to get somebody's attention and positive judgement.
I did get another local news assignment, which includes an audioslide (video combining audio and stills) which will be an interesting challenge. I emailed somebody at a national newsmagazine about freelancing, but I'm not even sure that's here real email.
While attending the copyright discussion at the W2 atrium, I got to meet Mark Hosler of Negativeland. There was a lot of interesting talk about copyright and related issues. For one thing, how do you copyright dance? For another, even though I've been a Creative Commons supporter since I heard about the concept, it hasn't really revolutionized the field. CC creates a portion of media that can be manipulated, but it doesn't address the issue of people who want to use copyrighted works in their works.
I picked up the contact information for a few local people about the issue, hopefully leading to an article about this, even though it is pretty abstract.
Also, by happenstance, I met a woman who works as an archivist/librarian for the local broadsheet/tabloid hybrid. She pretty much supported my view that newspapers are suffering badly in hiring, and everybody is scrambling to make money off the internet now that the advertising and classified budgets have dropped to a fraction of what they were.
One of the most discouraging things I ever saw about the newspaper business was when I looked at a reference book of businesses in Canada, organized by category. At the top of the hierarchy, "publishing" was lumped in with "pulp and paper." That means, from at least one perspective, the whole of publishing, fiction and non-fiction, art and science and journalism and everything else, is just an appendix to the business of moving bits of tree around. By that logic, it makes perfect sense to print, distribute and sell a bundle of wood product that the average purchaser will find only a small fraction of useful. People paid for a tiny three-line ad in the back, so small you'd need a jeweler's loupe to read it.
If you're reading this, you're probably not reading it on paper. The medium has changed, and if Papa McLuhan told us anthing, the medium changes the message. The archivist/librariain has to change her job too, with people sending in cell phone video and images of the hockey riot, and thinking of the business less as a "newspaper" as a "news room."
This jibes with what other people have been telling me, that I need to develope web, image, audio and video skills. The audioslide production for Openfile will be at least a start.
However, none of this addresses the problem of my immediate survival. I can probably squeak into October, but after that I need steady employment, temporary or permanent. I have one day of temp work on Monday, but nothing else so far.
Once again, I kept procrastinating. At times I felt like I was having a panic attack, a combination of the desperate need to do something but having no idea what to do. Grinding through more subsistence jobs seems pointless, but networking is also an intimidating prospect too. I don't relate well to people in authority. I tend to assume a callous indifference combined with unpredictable judgement. Better to avoid notice entirely. Obviously, this is not a helpful attitude to have when you are trying to get somebody's attention and positive judgement.