Opting Out of Journalism's Race to the Bottom

How do you properly complain about sorta going viral, especially when you're sorta going viral because of a complaint in the first place?

It's tough to know how public to be when critiquing your own profession and its labor dynamics. It's harder still for journalists. We pride ourselves on our objectivity (often to a fault, especially when we equate objectivity with mythical middle grounds rather than fairness and transparency) and thus tend to avoid or limit publicly expressing ourselves for fear of tarnishing the credibility of our work. Speaking openly about problems in the profession feels especially fraught for me because I'm currently looking for jobs and freelance opportunities (ahem, please buy my books or hire me).

Last week, I saw a job posting from The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, Washington seeking a reporter specializing in housing and homelessness. I was excited at first. News organizations need more specialized reporting in general. Complex stories about urgent issues like housing or the lack thereof require time, focus, and attention. Writing The Golden Fortress I saw how those broken and uprooted by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl environmental catastrophe were vilified as criminal and pestilent and thought of the dehumanizing ways we still cover homelessness and poverty, so I was encouraged that a local news organization seemed to value surfacing deeper, richer stories about the populations experiencing these challenges. Then I saw the investment they were willing to make: the Columbian (or more clearly, a community-funded initiative) planned to pay the new housing and homelessness reporter $37,440 a year, or about $3,100 a month, before tax and other withholdings. That's in a metro area where the median rent for a one bedroom apartment is around $1,700, and rising (to say nothing of other expenses).

Instead of signal boosting the job posting by resharing it, I commented on Columbian editor Craig Brown's LinkedIn post announcing the opportunity. I followed up my comment with a post of my own explaining why I couldn't share the opportunity in good faith. I'd hesitated to comment or write the ensuing post because I served with Craig on the board of the Oregon/Southwest Washington chapterof the Society of Professional Journalists in 2017-2018. He is a good person and a good journalist, and I didn't want my critique to read as a personal attack. I also understood that Craig is limited by what his organization and its community funding initiative budgeted for the position. 

None of that changes the reality of the situation. We can't keep buying into journalism's race to the bottom in pay. As I wrote on LinkedIn, those of us who recognize that have to speak out publicly.

My LinkedIn post elaborates why I felt I needed to speak, so I'm not going to further repeat my arguments. Instead, I thought I'd use this space to sort out how I feel about how a Twitter discussion of the Columbian's ensued.

How can a reporter covering housing and homelessness in the Vancouver, WA area survive on less than $38,000 a year, as @thecolumbian plans to pay for a newly-created gig?

At the risk of alienating fellow journalists, I couldn't stay silent on this: https://t.co/6HDYBBMjft

— Bill Lascher (@billlascher) October 20, 2022

After I wrote my LinkedIn post I tweeted about it. That tweet had a few likes and retweets from colleagues and friends. I assumed that was that. Then I started receiving a flurry of notifications on my phone alerting me to mentions of my Twitter handle. These were for more frequent mentions than I typically get in a week, let alone an afternoon.

It turned out that New York Times national correspondent Michael Baker had tweeted a screenshot of the Journalismjobs.com job posting listing the Columbian position's salary. Baker also neatly summarized (without commentary) the economic realities of Vancouver any reporter hired for that position would face. Baker ended the tweet with a "h/t" ("hat tip" for the online-abbrievation-uncertain among us) of my handle for calling his attention to the post.

Median monthly rent for apartment in Vancouver, Wash.: $1,700.

Annual salary for a new "Homelessness and Affordable Housing Reporter" at local newspaper: $37,440.

Preferred qualifications:
• Bachelor's degree
• 2+ years experience
• Proven digital skills

h/t @billlascher pic.twitter.com/XABrrBFjUy

— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) October 20, 2022

Am I just selfish? 

As my phone lit up for the rest of the day with notifications of these mentions, through the second half of the week, and into the weekend, I mostly felt comforted. More people than I expected were talking about the job's inadequate salary and the broader topic of low pay for journalists. Baker's position at the Times makes his a far more visible platform than mine, and his tweet quickly went viral. The notifications I received mostly announced retweets of Baker's original tweet or responses to that tweet that kept my handle intact. They meant I was included in the discussion and could add an additional comment or two when one seemed appropriate. Having had my head down for so long on book research, writing, and promotion (to say nothing of child-rearing during a pandemic) it has been quite some time since I had been so engaged in any social media. I appreciated the chance to offer what I think was a useful contribution to conversations about media and society.

Still, each time I saw Baker's tweet retweeted — salient and concise as it was — I grew increasingly irked that he had only mentioned my handle and hadn't linked either my LinkedIn post discussing the Columbian's job advertisement or my tweet linking to that post. Perhaps I'm being selfish to care about how the discussion that did happen caught fire, but that irked feeling never went away. If Baker had linked one of my initial posts could I have been even further engaged? If someone in Baker's position amplified something I originally wrote could its underlying subject of how unsustainable salaries for journalists harms the communities we serve get greater visibility? Or did Baker's brief but detailed summary provide a digestible snapshot of the economic context surrounding the advertised position's proposed salary that nurtured discussion. He all but certainly has a better understanding of current socio-econo-political dynamics in the Pacific Northwest given his years reporting on the region. I'm not being self critical; the reality of the past decade is that I've focused my journalistic energy writing two books, researching one that didn't (yet) pan out, curating a collection of historic photography, and ghostwriting another multi-year, multi-volume project instead of focusing on daily news reporting. 

Baker's tweets (and to be clear this isn't about Baker. It's about the New York Times and institutions, just as the Columbian job's salary isn't about Craig Brown) rightfully command more engagement than mine, but sourcing matters in reporting, even if one's sourcing just a tweet or two. Is a hat tip enough? Wouldn't the "paper of record" want to have the record it produces cited fully in a similar situation? Ultimately, I suspect this issue comes down to how Times social media conventions and practices play out. That would explain its individual reporters' actions, though it wouldn't excuse its institutional oversights.

Pillars of Content Creation

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

A related example arose late Wednesday night (a day before I first posted anything about the Columbian job). Just before I put my phone away and went to bed I saw a tweet sharing a New York Times tweet about breathtaking new images of the so-called "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula. The pictures were the latest jaw-dropping captures by the James Webb Space Telescope released by NASA.

Like everyone else, I was duly impressed (even if I joked that they looked to me like a praying mantis). Curious if there were more pictures and eager to see how others were talking about them I opened the Times's tweet and soon saw this response. It noted the Times's watermark on the image and questioned its placement. The Times hadn't captured the images and the news organization shouldn't be credited for them, nor does it own the rights to the image. The credit goes to NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), and STScI's Joseph DePasquale, Anton M. Koekemoer, and Alyssa Pagan and the images' rights are in the public domain.

We can't really put a price on the spectacular discoveries and observations these missions are generating, but any value produced belongs to all of us whose taxes funded this remarkable image. Why was the Times claiming credit for an image it had no role in producing? It's so easy to complain about boondoggles and misguided government spending, but just as journalists need to speak out when their contributions aren't properly valued, the public deserves to celebrate where its investments have strengthened society instead of ceding those investments to private entities that wouldn't hesitate to charge the public for benefits they had no hand in funding.

By no means do I think Baker was trying to exploit my tweet to go viral. He can go viral far more easily without me having anything to do with it. I don't even think the Times was trying to profit off the latest images from the Webb (I smell a content management system plunking that iconic "T" on every jpg passing through its digital cogs). I guess I just want to know how people outside of institutions like the Times can make a similar impact. If we're discussing issues like what it costs to inform the public about housing and homelessness, or awe-inspiring scientific discoveries, does it matter who makes the impact, when what matters most is whether as many people as possible hear it?

On Protest and Reporting

Today, Poynter ran a piece titled "Should journalists protest in Trump's America?" This is a question I've been wrestling with as a freelancer. It was mostly focused on newsroom journalists. I posted to Facebook and tweeted, wondering how it applies to freelancers like myself. The piece's author, Katie Hawkins-Gaar, asked me to elaborate. At first I responded in tweets, but then realized I had more to say. Here's what I ended up writing.

Why is it important that I be on top of current affairs? Partially, so as I reach out to editors I can be prepared to jump into my reporting and do it well. I need to have a clear idea of what current issues are to make an effective contribution. On a more selfish level, I need to have a clearer idea of what kind of stories will more easily get an editor’s attention, not to mention that of the public.

In the meantime, I also need to report potential stories, pitch them, and wait on editors understandably harried by current circumstances to reply. How do I survive doing so with such uncertainty? How do I make a living doing that? And how do I do that if the world is changing very rapidly. If a crisis emerges, how does my more evergreen work matter?

That’s reporting. What about protest and politics? Do I let the world go by when people I care about are affected, concerned, scared, etc.? What about when I am affected? Am I affected? Probably not as much, because I’m white, straight, cis-male, college- and graduate school- educated and born in the United States. I am Jewish, but not practicing, and that’s still not (yet) as much a target. My best strength is my dedication to the craft, my skepticism, and my courage to tell stories even if people don’t want to hear them. But, again, I have to be able to survive telling them. It, sadly, often comes to economics, which are often made shakier by political uncertainty. So do I then work on more anodyne material while watching the world go by? Isn’t that just shutting my ears? Wouldn’t that just be isolationism in a different form?

After all, my first book is all about reporters who risked their lives and livelihoods in a troubled time to bring stories to the public that were being inadequately covered. My central subject — Melville Jacoby — was writing about devastating, daily air raids in China that were killing thousands. He was writing about brutal conditions in Shanghai and about the march toward war in what was then French Indochina. His master’s thesis was all about how the U.S. public wasn’t paying attention the war between China and Japan and what that portended for them. He knew what happened there mattered here, and vice versa, so he was driven to tell such stories. Then he reported on the totally under-resourced defense of the Philippines, and sent home the first photos the U.S. saw of the absolutely savage conditions U.S. and Filipino troops endured in Bataan.

I mention all this not because I want to raise heads about my book. I mention it because journalists are still doing this kind of work, still not being listened to, and still often dying because of their work. Seventy-five years later, journalists are telling us about civilians dying in military strikes, about coming conflicts and uncertainty, about corruption, about tone-deaf foreign policy. As a journalist, my form of protest, if I have one, is, in part, amplifying these reporters, and in part, joining them. Not letting the line go quiet.

And I do wonder, in this time, how do I do justice to the subject I spent so much time with? Mel, Annalee, and their friends and colleagues were people who had marks on their heads for their reporting, who fled besieged islands in the dead of night to get the story out. Me? I’m at home reading Twitter, trying to figure out where and how to jump in and contribute when my portfolio is, well, not stale, but, about such specific subjects it seems disconnected from what’s happening. What editor wants to take the risk on that at a time when they need to be very careful about the professionalism of their contributors, to know that they can trust the credibility of their reporting? 

I guess this doesn’t answer the question of what and how I protest as a freelancer, but the thing is, I can’t afford to not think them. I don’t know any other way to operate. How do I contribute now? Lately I’ve thought the ideal is joining a news organization, becoming a stringer for a few publications, or becoming a regular contributor to a few outlets, but with freelancing, even in a time of protest, it still comes back to how do I survive while doing so? I always think I can best help society by reporting well, but where do I turn to be able to do that? Normally, I’d say my community, but if some of my community — those who aren’t reporters — are out in the streets protesting or at home making calls to representatives, and the rest — those who are reporters — are pushed to the max doing their own reporting, what’s left as a backstop or a network for me?

The Best Freelancing Advice I've Seen

I just received read the best piece of advice I've ever ever seen for freelance writers and their careers. It's too bad that I read it today and not five and a half years ago when I finished graduate school. 

If you're just starting out as a freelance writer -- hell, if you're well-established as a freelancer -- I strongly urge you to read this piece by Scott Carney, a Colorado-based investigative journalist and anthropologist. In the piece Carney suggests freelancers abandon the long-held practice of "silo" pitching, wherein writers pitch articles to one outlet at a time and rather take their publications out to multiple editors simultaneously. The advice itself isn't new to me, but Carney makes the best case I've seen for so-called "market pitching." As an example, Carney points to Hollywood, where studios often have to pay writers significantly for the opportunity to exclusively consider their work. There's no reason journalists shouldn't value their work just as much and not worry they'll upset their editors.

"But any editor that doesn’t understand the pressures that freelancers face is probably not worth working with anyway," Carney writes. "Risking the ire of one person is not a reason to submit yourself to a life of poverty."

Indeed, I'll add that there may be a moral imperative: if we truly believe it's important to bring the public's attention to stories that might otherwise go unnoticed, then we should be doing everything we can to get those stories read, and that often means publishing quickly while the story we cover is still relevant.

After I completed my master's program at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Journalism and Communication, I thought it made the most sense to carve my own path into a freelance career. At the beginning, I shopped around my master's project, a magazine-style longform piece about Los Angeles's rapidly evolving transportation system. So I queried a few publications I thought would like the piece and kept it off of my web site. At the time, Mother Jones was interested in putting an issue together about transportation and senior editor Dave Gilson expressed an interest in the piece, but it ultimately never ran. A month after I pitched him Gilson, to his credit, told me he wouldn't be bothered if I continued to shop it around. Ultimately, though, I never found a home for the piece -- in part because other publications were bothered when I told them Gilson was considering it. By December, 2009, Gilson had stopped responding to my monthly follow-ups on the pitch and no one else bit. What had once been one of the first in-depth explorations of L.A.'s reinvention of its transportation identity amid a historic vote to increase sales taxes and raise $30 billion for transportation infrastructure was now stale. Still, it was interesting enough that I decided to post it myself on my web site. Other articles I'd worked on similarly floundered. Over the five and a half years that followed my graduation from USC, rather than aggressively try to market my work, I slowly pitched pieces from publication to publication, piecing together a career from a few successes and spending much of my time waiting, endlessly waiting, for responses. Even the pieces I did place took months to see the light of day. Over the past few years not only have I struggled to make ends meet because I have irrationally allowed myself to be so fearful of editors -- I say irrational because editors cannot exist without good content; even content aggregators need content to aggregate -- but I have also felt like a fraud among my peers who'd hear about the stories I was constantly working on but never see them in completion. 

Fortunately, I survived, and perhaps I wouldn't be working on a book under contract -- at least not this particular one -- had my career taken a different trajectory. Nevertheless, I wish I'd read something as cogently written as Carney's piece when I finished school.

Even better, I wished an essay like his had been required reading. 

Following a War Correspondent's Footsteps to the Oil Spill

Melville Jacoby sitting on the grounds of the Chungking (Chongqing) Press Hostel in July, 1941.

Two nights ago I tweeted the following: Dreaming of dropping everything to report on the oil spill like an old fashioned war correspondent. Anyone hiring experienced reporters? At first it was a bit of a whim. I've been working on a complex but often dry assignment. During breaks I've read these fascinating — if horrifying — stories about the spill. There are just so many pieces of this story that need to be covered. How could I contribute to that coverage, particularly when the story will have such far reaching impacts on our world?

Then I thought: why not just ask? Who needs help reporting on the spill? Why not offer my services as an experienced reporter who'd be willing to contribute his work, his time, and his energy?

So, who needs help?

Two years ago, when I applied to grad school, I described our shifting environment and its impact on society, politics, economics and culture — let alone life — as perhaps the only great global story. As I did, I had my grandmother's cousin, Melville Jacoby, on my mind.

As I've described before, Melville served as a correspondent in China and Southeast Asia in the 1930s and early 40s. His work appeared in places like Time, Life and the United Press Syndicate at the onset of World War II. Younger than I am now, he was so deeply immersed he reported from the midst of a narrow escape from the Philippines after the Japanese invasion and, during his travels through China, became close to Chiang Kai-Shek. Killed at 25 in an accident in Australia in 1942, he left behind rich accounts of his life in the form of letters, dispatches and photos now in my grandmother's possession.

As I learned from my grandmother about Melville, I realized he played a central role telling stories about one small part of another great, global crisis. Perhaps the war was more romantic than seemingly glacial environmental changes (though really, they aren't so glacial) but both crises are the defining milieus of a particular generation. "Like Melville," I wrote, "I want to chronicle my generation's response to its crisis."

I have some travel credits, some time, and a little cash saved up.

I even have Melville's typewriter.

If that could get me to the Gulf Coast, could there be a floor to sleep on for the minutes I'm not in the field? Who's in need of a collaborator? A researcher? An errand boy? A transcriptionist?

Let's talk. Even if it's not in the field, how can I help?

Making the most of making the media

I arrived in Los Angeles late Monday afternoon. As I landed, I watched the sunset turn the Santa Monica Mountains that golden hue they turn in late fall, caught glimpses of the skyscrapers along Wilshire Blvd., marveled at the sheer everywhereness of it all and traced a line from the Hollywood sign down to the corner of Hollywood and Vine, where, nearly a century ago, my great-great-grandfather's decision to rent a barn on his sprawling ranch to two young filmmakers for $250 a month might have made much of the city's role as a media mecca possible. The tableau pulled at my heart, one more landing in a city I've called home for only a year, but which has been in my blood for five generations.

For years, though, as I hinted in a post last Spring, I've danced with another city. Over the past week, the motions became more certain, thanks in part to the energy I tapped into at the We Make the Media Conference at the University of Oregon's Turnbull Portland Center.

Thoughts about the future raced through my mind as my plane descended. Some of these thoughts are familiar to the world at large. Some are personal. When it comes to Saturday's conference, I've had to take some time to digest, get back home, and prepare my next steps. They include returning to Portland very soon — and more permanently — in part to join the community of mediamakers who emerged at the conference.

Finding community

I want to reiterate this word “community.” For whatever it's worth, however hokey it might be dismissed as, I found community on Saturday. In a way I haven't been able to say for quite some time, I've found my people, at least my people for this moment. Perhaps I'm just famished, but I just haven't found these people in Los Angeles.

I'm emphasizing this for a reason. For all the critiques I have of We Make the Media, and all the many more already so eloquently articulated by other thinkers (Click here for a list of the reflections I've found, some of which I'm responding to here), I'm stunned by how, a few days later, I remain invigorated by the event. Like Abraham Hyatt and many others, I left the event quite drained, but now feel energized. Though the event may not have gone in the direction organizers hoped, perhaps it was a success anyhow.

A sort of “sub-organizer” of the event, Hyatt was the first to bring it to my attention. I know, as others do, that he put a great deal of work into both making it happen, as he does in other efforts cultivating Portland's media community. So I looked to him first for his dissection of what went right and what went wrong at the conference.

Despite my hopefulness, significant concerns emerged. As much as I felt I found community, I was as troubled as others about the limits to the pool from which I could derive that community. As Hyatt admitted, conference organizers may not have made enough of an effort to reach out to community media or to media that “reflected the racial diversity of Portland:”

“We were lucky to have KBOO come on as a sponsor a few days before the conference. But what if that had happened a few weeks before? Who else could we have invited? And how would that dialogue have shaped the planning of the event? If we’re going to create a media organization that breaks out of the old news models, we need to be including people from outside traditional media outlets.”

I don't think I'll write much more about this issue right now. Hyatt acknowledges the problem succinctly, and others have addressed racial diversity far more effectively than I may be able to. Please do continue to discuss the topic. I want to be part of a growing, inclusive media community and I want to know how I can work to enable that inclusiveness.

Stopping to breathe

What I do feel comfortable discussing is technology, connectivity, and other forms of inclusiveness. Many have discussed the “Twitter corner” that emerged — largely for reasons of proximity to power outlets and the wi-fi access-granting powers of Suzi Steffen — as if it was a breakaway counter-conference. That's not entirely true, and I'll get back to that point.

Early in the day, Steffen complained on Twitter about the lack of a projection of the live Twitter stream that emerged at the event. I agree that a common Twitter hashtag (which, of course, became #wmtm) and information about wi-fi access should have been announced before the event. The digital element of the conference felt like an afterthought, and it's rather astounding that an effort largely inspired by nonprofit journalism endeavors in Minnesota and San Diego, Web-only endeavors, did not have online elements that didn't feel like afterthoughts.

That said, I don't know if I agree with Steffen's concerns about the lack of a projected twitter stream. Yes, it may have kept the entire crowd informed about the discussion happening online, but I wonder whether this is a great example of how Twitter should be a platform people choose to participate in or not (During an early Twitter exchange about recording and documenting the online discussion and the event in general, Steffen convinced me of the importance of being able to opt-in to or out of the online discussion).

Could one opt out of a projected stream, though? I'm not certain that really would be possible. Perhaps some of my fellow tweeters might argue that's fine, that it just offers a different way of presenting what's taking place at the conference and eliminates the tenuous authority we place on anointed speakers. It would change the event's dynamic. I haven't been to an event with a live Twitter stream yet, so I'm speaking on conjecture, but I feel the conversation might get too disjointed and too distracted.

It was worrisome enough to me to see how caught up I got in the Twitter stream myself. What would happen if every participant was having fractured, interrupted conversations, if the speaker responded to every tweet, or some of them, or if she didn't respond to any? How would that affect the event's dynamic? I think it would become far more than a stream. And again, that's fine, but I think this is a point where we need to acknowledge that just because we have the ability to discuss and comment and report everything that happens, doesn't mean that we should.

Sometimes even if  we have tools available to us, tools that are incredibly useful in certain contexts, we don't always have to use them. I have a car. It's comfortable and it goes quite quickly from point A to B, even taking traffic into consideration. But I'm often much happier, much better served, by reaching my destination on foot, by bike, or via public transportation, specifically because each of those methods offers its own way to experience the journey. While I have the car (and no, not everyone has the luxury to choose), I don't have to use it every time I leave my house. Just because we have technology doesn't mean we must use it, and I think that point was missing from discussion at the event, and it's often missing from our discussion of the “future of journalism.”

During the event, Courtney Sherwood announced on twitter that she was “Not enough of a multitasker to keep up w/ #wmtm live tweets. I'd rather listen to speakers than read other folks' summaries and debates.”

I agreed in tweets here and here, in which I argued: “I think it's worthy to ask if we should examine this need to cover everything as quickly as possible,” and "Sometimes I think we need to stop and breathe, let the world happen, digest it, and report on it when we're ready, if we're ready.”

We really do need to breathe. I've expressed similar concerns over time in posts here, here, and here, at one point noting that

"As we fret and flail we risk forgetting about the words we’re stringing together, the information we’re reflecting upon and sharing, and the stories we’re telling. Whether breath on our lips, ink spread across a page, keys hammering into a ribbon or electrons running through a circuit, I’m concerned with how thoughts are captured, contained, altered and disseminated."

This perspective was even acknowledged by a tweet from Portland Phlush during our small network discussion, the same discussion that evolved into talk of an incubator (more on that very soon).

What's crucial, of course, is that Sherwood opted for herself to disconnect from Twitter, as I noticed many others did as they closed their laptops (for what it's worth, there were plenty of people on laptops not sitting in the “Twitter corner”).

T.A. Barnhart, decidedly not a journalist, may have said it even better than I could (friends from the Annenberg Specialized Journalism program will recognize this as a far more articulately-worded form of the “different colors of paper” argument I often made last year):

“In the end, my real work is no different than an opinion writer of a century ago: reading, thinking, writing, responding, and then more of the same. I get books from the library, bookstores — and Amazon. I read newspapers and magazines — online. I correspond with friends, politicals, colleagues, etc — via email, Twitter, websites and even by phone and in person. I write notes on paper, and I write notes on my laptop, which is not really functionally any different than typing up a few pages of notes and storing in a manilla folder. I use print-outs to proof longer drafts. And I publish online, although I have begun the process of creating an actual book."

Despite my reservations about the projection of a twitter stream, about the distraction they might cause, I know something else. These sorts of thoughts, these backchannels have existed in one form or another since as long as there have been conferences, really since as long as we've had the ability to communicate (see my article here about how scientists at USC are exploring the crucial role of backchannels in interpersonal communication).

Though i agree with Hyatt that the resistance to technology by some of the core organizers was disappointing, I differ with his claim that “technology is journalism.” I'm left wondering, “how so?” He mentions code and reporting tools and new ideas, but I don't see how at least the first two are anything more than tools. Yes, new technology does open up new opportunities, but those opportunities are absolutely dependent upon what one does with the technology, what stories one tells, what messages one delivers. New technology still requires vision, tenacity, creativity and curiosity.

False divisions

Unlike Hyatt, I don't agree that “the corner” had no outreach or communication with the rest of the groups offering proposals at the conference. One of the misconceptions about “the corner” that has now been widely challenged on other blogs was that we were participating in an us-vs-them mentality. I think the fact I delivered via Twitter and this very Web site my own statements above about resisting the need to constantly stream information suggests that technology can be used in many ways. Technology by its simple existence as technology does not necessarily alter what's told.

Anyhow, I grew to enjoy “the corner,” despite my dabbling with slow journalism, precisely because it was welcoming, inviting, and open to divergent perspectives and challenges. Though it didn't emerge from there, I don't think the idea of a content-neutral incubator that would serve as a physical and virtual space for journalists took off among this crowd because we saw it as a radical alternative to the other proposals. Instead, it succeeded because we perceive it as a space where journalists of all forms, in all mediums, with all opinions about where journalism should go and how it could be defined could find a place to work. It is by nature encompassing. Such a space would be what we make of it, not what it makes of us, and it would cater to the evolving, changing needs of independent freelancers (or, with a nod to Michelle Rafter, entrepreneurial journalists).

As Jen Willis — who participated in the same small group I did — put it

“Even in our break-out sessions — I was in one about smaller, online networking groups — the ideas and comments floated in Twitter were often better, more focused and more forward-thinking than what was happening 'verbally.'"

Indeed. We were so caught up with process and rules and confusion over what we were supposed to be doing in that room that those of us who had an idea of what should be done, or at least what we wanted to see, didn't wait for it to happen. We took to Twitter to begin developing our own future and to further articulate many of the ideas that would, eventually, form the basis for the incubator proposal.

There really has been a false dichotomy set up between an “old guard” and young technophiles in some of the responses to the event. Responding to (and defending) the event was Ron Buel, who, disappointingly perpetuated the idea that there were two camps at the event (Buel's commentary is also available on OurPDX):

"The Old White Guys who believe in traditional journalistic values – thinking, reporting, open-mindedness, ethics, that kind of old-fashioned thing – and technology-hip independent young journalists twittering away as the discussion ensued, even though it is they, not the Old White Guys, who will make the new reality of journalism happen in the digital age, or not.”

This statement saddened me. Before the conference I enjoyed engaging both Buel and Barry Johnson on the discussion papers they prepared. Though I was critical at times, I welcomed the effort they put into the event's preparation and wish more people had become involved in the pre-event discussion. Such involvement — which might have required better publicity and outreach before the event — might have prevented some of the aimlessness and confusion at the day's outset.

Nevertheless, Buel's statement highlights exactly the attitudes frustrating to many journalists and conference participants. Categorizing us as either protectors of “traditional journalistic values” or “technology-hip independent young journalists twittering away” illustrates the core misunderstanding of our own industry. We are not either/or. We weren't at the conference and we aren't in life. We are not either relics of the past or dreamers of the future. We are far more fluid than we have been cast, and I think Buel's doing so shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the very people he wanted to involve at this conference. Moreover, he takes far too many assumptions into his piece. Why does he continue to insist that we “are not worried about what will happen to our democracy?”

Again, the proposed incubator offers an example of just how concerned we are about democracy and the quality of our journalism. We are proposing a space where we can cultivate professional skills, nurture community, constantly improve and respect individual independence and diversity simultaneously.

Buel instead dismisses the incubator as a “neat” idea.  Actually, it's more than a neat idea. It's also not wholly unrelated to championing “traditional values” and it is not unworkable. What we are discussing is setting up a space to develop core strengths among journalists of all stripes. We have concrete plans for next steps, just as do the other two work groups Buel claims are filled with old folks (though I think each is more broadly supported than he characterizes, as the incubator is as well).

It wasn't just the old guard (to use a characterization I just rejected) who created this false dichotomy. Many of the tech savvy participants did as well, though I think there may be issues of muddled communication here (and perhaps with Buel and Steve Smith and others who were more resistant to the Twitter corner too). For example, Steve Woodward describes a “cultural gulf” in his discussion of the “futures – plural – of journalism.” I agree with Michael Andersen, who responded in Woodward's comments area, arguing that despite the overall quality of  Woodward's “we should all be cautious of the stiffening narrative that the Young Twittering Turks have some monolithic point of view as a group.”

Continuing the discussion

These sorts of discussions — not just the event itself, but the chatter in blogs reflecting on the event, and in their comments sections, and on impromptu listservs and in “the corner” — should be happening everywhere. They very well may be. As far as I can tell, they are not happening here in Los Angeles, despite the presence of countless, passionate, hungry journalistic minds. Sure, Annenberg hosts a number of speakers and events related to the future of journalism, and similar events take place across the city, especially thanks to the efforts of the Society of Professional Journalists' local chapter, the Los Angeles Press Club and other groups (JellyLA and, to a lesser extent, Blankspaces and WhereMMM are working to change the way professionals collaborate and work with one another).

Though I've certainly found passionate journalists here, I can't think of a consistent group, an energized core. Those events that do bring journalists together feel more like pits of desperate networking, reflecting an L.A. attitude I'd normally dismiss as mythology. I haven't felt a part of something more interested in promoting the community and the field of journalism than individual career fates perhaps since I was at Annenberg. Even there, those of us who cared had to fight against the passionless vapidity of marketing ourselves, of style over substance, of figuring out how to sell our product instead of cultivating the product we hoped to sell.

But I haven't found the core, creative passion that electrified the air at WMTM. Again, maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I can't feel it happening. Instead, we watch grudge matches (Though insightful, well-argued grudge matches) debating what happened to the LA Weekly and fret about the seemingly perpetual implosion of the Los Angeles Times. Perhaps I'm just heartbroken I can't get a foothold in a city that means so, so much to me. Nevertheless, as much as I worry about L.A., I'm so excited about the possibilities in Portland.

Again, I turn to Jen Willis:

“We came together as professionals interested not only in creating content, but in helping to craft and guide how that content is delivered. I'd like to think we showed up because we're proactive and optimistic, and because we honestly give a damn about what's happening (and not happening) in the media today.”

Really, there are possibilities. It's silly that some people were disappointed that the conference didn't reach concrete conclusions. No one should have expected the event to save journalism in Portland or elsewhere, though that seems to have been the attitude of some (though certainly not all) of those critiquing the conference. In any event, something was accomplished. Though there was a tremendous amount of wasted time and frustrating breakdowns in communication, the energy that emerged behind the concept of a news incubator is encouraging. I'm disappointed I can't make it right back to Portland next week for the Digital Journalism Portland/SPJ social hour to be part of the first next steps in making it happen.

Other reflections on We Make the Media

For more nuts and bolts breakdowns of the conference, different perspectives on its implications, and other thoughts about the direction of journalism and the media in Portland, please read these other blogs, listed in no particular order (my apologies to those I've left out, but this is what I've seen so far). I highly recommend reading the comments on these posts too, as they are incredibly insightful. Oh, and please comment on this piece too!

• Still A Newspaperman » Blog Archive » “We Make the Media” in Portland

• Still A Newspaperman » Blog Archive » Seeking a better term than ‘hobby journalist.’

• WMTM followup: A Portland journalism incubator, and more | WordCount

• My views on WeMakeTheMedia event – after the hangover | Joe Wilson

• We Made The Media: What went right — and wrong | abrahamhyatt.com

• 360 Convos: Building a new model may require listening

• Steve Woodward: The futures — plural — of journalism | Nozzl Media, Inc.

• Will the touch tablet save professional journalism? « Mastering Multimedia

• Transcript for #wmtm - What the Hashtag?!

• The Next Journalist: We Make the Media

• What I think happened at #wmtm (We Make the Media conference) « ran dum thots

• civics21.org: on cities and citizenship in the 21st century

• We Make the Media « Reporting 1 Blog

• Update: 'We Make The Media,' but who's 'we?' | Oregon Media Central

The eyesore, history and the untold story

The Ventura County Star reported Oct. 30 that Ventura County Superior Court Judge Glen Reiser halted the demoliton of the Wagon Wheel hotel. The stay came after what seemed like the end of a long fight between developer Vince Daly and the San Buenaventura Conservancy.

Many comments posted to the Star's Web site featured the theme of the Wagon Wheel as an eyesore, a blemish to the entrance of Oxnard, Ventura County's largest city. The building and its surroundings, they argue, should have been torn down long ago. Some commenters argue the conservancy should repay Daly for the costs of the delay, costs he claims mount by the thousands each day the construction is delayed. For his own part, Daly argues in the Star article that blocking the demolition permit further delays construction of the affordable housing element of his development. On the other hand, neither Star reporter Scott Hadly, his sources on either side of the story, nor any of the commenters pouncing on the article address one crucial question: why is Daly building this project now? Why is it so urgent?

Drive across the 101 from the Wagon Wheel, located here and one finds the massive development known as RiverPark. On the north side of the freeway, just outside of that development, stands a billboard declaring homes starting from "the 200s." That simple advertisement, that homes in RiverPark are selling for only 200 grand, tells the entire story. Homes aren't selling in Ventura County. Even with reports Oct. 29 of an unofficial end ot the "worst recession since World War II," our economy is sputtering. Should Daly, or anyone, be building new homes right now?

Let's argue for a moment that he should, that he has a right to, or that, simply, as the owner of the property upon which the Wagon Wheel Motel stands he should be allowed to finish the project he's started. Does that mean A) It's right if he does so or B) It's wise if he does? Daly seems to be gambling that by the time the project is completed we will be out of this gut-wrenching time, that consumers are going to return to the table unaffected by the misery of the past two years, give or take a quarter, that every American is going to want a condo or a townhouse across a freeway offramp from a cookie cutter mini-mall and down the block from a thousand other condos and townhouses just like their very own (though the possibility of a "transit center" at The Village raises some intriguing possibilities).

Are we so sure of that? Are we so sure that our behaviors are not going to change after this recession, that we're not going to think strategically, that we're not going to act differently, that we're not going to operate differently? Even if we get ourselves into some other economic mess — which is quite likely — some lessons, even if they're not the right ones, have surely been learned during this period.

Besides the possibility Daly is hoping for a boom by the time The Village is done, another reason one might want to see it started immediately directly relates to the current economy. Perhaps, one might argue, every day we hesitate to build is a day we cost ourselves valuable construction jobs, jobs that could earn money to feed families, jobs that could pay residents money they can use to spend on clothes and food and cars and gadgets and all the other everythings sold in the county's stores. Aren't we, by blocking those jobs, which provide that income, which allows that spending also preventing the economic growth that comes from that spending, preventing the jobs created by that growth, and preventing the income those jobs allow?

Perhaps.

What are we really protecting? We have a great deal of unsold housing stock. Oxnard has buildings that already exist. Ventura County has miles upon miles of substandard homes and poorly utilized space. What if we spent the same time, the same money, the same energy and investment and subsidies we would put into new projects on instead reconstructing the cities and communities and neighborhoods that already exist? What if we brought our county, and our country, back to life? We might accomplish multiple goals. We would still put our contractors and construction crews and architects and plumbers and electricians and welders back to work, but we would do so without turning our backs on our neighbors and on our past. We could engage our community. What if we integrated our history into our past, instead of throwing it out? What if, instead, we learned to reuse the materials that already exist across Ventura County and beyond, to really recycle the world in which we live, rather than throw it out like the 4.5 pounds of trash we still throw away each and every day?

The Untold Story

Meanwhile where is the Ventura County Reporter? The county's alternative newsweekly — which I edited from 2007-2008 — has the luxury as a weekly publication to dig deeply behind this story. Why hasn't it looked at the subject in more depth since Matt Singer's 2006 examination of the project, in which Singer took the time to speak with Daly? The Reporter barely touched on the topic since then. (including during my time at the helm, though I did mention it in this Nov., 2007 piece about a proposed traffic control initiative in Oxnard). In March, Staff Writer Paul Sisolak wrote a piece about the Conservancy's lawsuit against the city for allegedly violating state environmental rules by approving the project, but that's the only significant reference. Sisolak's piece introduced the story, but it paired extensive discussion of the conservancy's position with only a brief quote from a city councilman supporting Oxnard's official position.

The quote is, in fact, a doozy. Oxnard Mayor Pro Tem Andres Herrera told Sisolak "But I vividly recall … that the original plans the owner had never included preservation. I just don’t see the historical significance to a dilapidated hotel.”

What original planner of any building includes historic preservation its plans? Who sits down and says "this will be a historic space?" (actually I imagine there are many ego-driven builders who proclaim the significance of a building, but I believe you understand my point)? Again, isn't there an argument to be made that perhaps the reason the complex is dilapidated, perhaps the reason it looks so uninviting is because it has hung in limbo for so long?

More importantly, why did the Reporter stop there with that story? Granted, the Oct. 30 stay occurred after the most recent Reporter went to press, and Reiser's decision two days earlier not to halt construction may have missed the print deadline as well; however, where was the paper for the runup to the decision or any of the past seven months since it last covered this subject? Why hasn't it investigated the nuances of land use in Oxnard, the ways in which the city is cast again and again as the toilet of Ventura County, as the dump that must be saved from its past by some glorious new future, the city that, in order to be saved, must be destroyed? Perhaps it might even discover, or present a feature that allows its readers to discover, that Daly's proposal is a needed project. Yet the story remains untold.

As it turns out, the Reporter's most recent cover story focuses on "the top 10 stories not brought to you by the mainstream media in 2008 and 2009," an annual list of under-reported news stories compiled by Project Censored. While it's important to draw readers' attention to buried subjects, countless other online outlets make available the content the Reporter repackages here. In doing so, it misses opportunities to inform its readers and strengthen civic engagement by digging into subjects it has the ability to sink its teeth into. Instead of opening eyes, it's missing the opportunity to start a real discussion within the community about how Ventura County will move on from the recession and whether Oxnard can ever grow in a different fashion. Those are the sort of stories that can't be duplicated, and thus the sort of stories that make a publication indispensable. Like any business in any industry, any news outlet that wants to survive must make itself indispensable.

A life, a career, a world repurposed

What are you doing this Saturday?

Perhaps you're taking a stand to help slow climate change by participating in one of more than 4,000 actions in 170 countries being organized by 350.org. The number, as the organization will tell you, represents the parts per million of carbon dioxide thought to be the upper limit for avoiding runaway climate change (we are currently at 387 parts per million).

You can come to your own conclusions about whether or not to join these actions. As a journalist, perhaps I shouldn't attempt to sway you to action. However, it is also my responsibility to describe the world in which we live, to clearly present information and to sort through the distractions – both unintended and intended – that obscure the truth.

As my career has evolved, I have found myself increasingly drawn to exploring how society copes with the possibility of a changing environment from a political, scientific, sociological and cultural perspective. Many facets of contemporary life have an environmental component, including politics, the economy, culture and technology.

Much is made about the emergence of green technologies and there are great business stories to pursue revolving around sustainability, but there is so much more. Voters are making green issues a higher priority, cities are incorporating environmental standards and requirements in planning decisions, romantic partners are choosing to hold carbon-neutral weddings and environmental litigation and prosecutions are keeping many lawyers, and law enforcement personnel, busy.

There are many questions to be answered about the intersections of the environment and society. How do we as a society cope with the possibility of a changing climate and shifting availability of resources? How do environmental transitions affect society, politics, family and personal relationships? How do they affect our mythology and our beliefs? Humans tend to progress in crisis, or to change, to be at their best, and I would like to observe and document society's reaction to environmental shifts. How does a slow-moving crisis affect human behavior?

In recent years I've had discussions with my grandmother about her cousin, the journalist Melville Jacoby. Melville served as a correspondent in China and Southeast Asia in the 1930s and early 40s, eventually penning articles for outlets such as Time, Life and the United Press Syndicate at the onset of World War II. Melville was my age at the time — younger actually — yet he was so deeply immersed he reported from the midst of a narrow escape from the Philippines after the Japanese invasion and, earlier during his travels through China, became close to Chiang Kai-Shek. Killed at 25 in an accident in Australia in 1942, he left behind rich accounts of his life in the form of letters, dispatches and photos now in my grandmother's possession.

In exploring these accounts, I realize Melville played a central role telling stories about one small part of another great, global crisis. Perhaps the war was more romantic than the environmental movement's seemingly glacial pace, but both crises are the defining milieus of a particular generation. Like Melville, I want to chronicle my generation's response to its crisis.

When I applied to USC more than a year ago I wrote about how the shifting environment is fast becoming a global story, possibly the only global story, a point similar to one recently argued by Bill McKibben and other journalists. Back in the Spring of 2008 I argued that whether one accepts climate change as a preventable human crisis, or disagrees that it is a threat (or is caused by human activity), the mere discussion of the environment has global and local implications. If a shipping company invests in more efficient cargo jets because it expects to save money by stretching its fuel spending or does so because it perceives a public relations boost, that company is making a decision with tremendous impact on the environment. At a more local level, the city resident who uses a combination of bikes and mass transit to get to work because she realizes the reduction in her carbon footprint, or because she just cannot afford to purchase a car, will affect the environment either way. There is a difference in scale, but the outcome of either decision will impact many beyond the company and the young woman, altering the experiences and decisions of those additional parties.

Last night, I attended the monthly mixer of my local chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists. For the subway trip to the event, held in Downtown Los Angeles, I brought with me a copy of Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe. The book presents a stunning narrative of global climate change's impact. Rich with science, Field Notes remains a page-turner, as well-crafted as it is well-researched. “That,” I kept thinking as I read, “is the sort of work I should be doing.”

Yesterday, in a widely dissected event, the Yes Men satirized the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by pretending to represent the group at a press conference and announcing that the chamber had reversed its position on climate change. The event reminded me of the beauty of creative action. It also, coincidentally, sparked thoughts on the flaws in contemporary instant journalism, a subject that has been dissected in the Toronto Star and by Dana Milbank, as well as in a discussion I have been a part of on the SPJ's First Draft blog (and many other locations since I first drafted this post)

What all this reminds me is that I should be writing every day. I should be dissecting this problem and pouring my energy into it. I have the time. I have the preparation. I have the knowledge. I don't want to beat myself up too much, but I do have to acknowledge that if I want to chronicle my generation's great struggle as Melville did 70 years ago I can't wait for the story to come to me.

In recent months I've been applying to dozens of jobs. I've been trying to figure out my future. I've been pitching stories, writing cover letters and trying to identify myself, what I want and what I have to offer. I've been telling strangers why I matter to them and why only I can give them what they need. Meanwhile, I've been standing still, throwing things against the wall, rather than creating the world I want for myself. I don't say all this to draw attention to myself and my individual efforts. Instead, I say this because we cannot have the world we want unless we create it. It's that simple.

Trial by Blogger

[Updated: In response to my critique, Behrens changed his headline and, as noted below and in his comment, he did use the terms "allegedly" and "according to the LAPD," so I'd be remiss not to correct my own mistake here]

Sometimes it saddens me what other fellow members of the media — loosely defined — claim to believe is acceptable "journalism."

Yesterday, Zach Behrens, editor of LAist, the Los Angeles-focused child of the Gothamist network, posted a brief news piece announcing that, as his headline put it, "LAPD Arrests Sex Fiend Taxi Cab Driver." In the piece, he named the suspect, though at no point did he mention that he was only a suspect and had been alleged to have sexually assaulted a passenger on May 17. Instead, . He presented the suspect as already guilty, mentioned how police believed there had been more victims and posted information about how other crimes could be reported to police.  Behrens also posted a picture of what he described as the suspect's taxi, although there is no unique identifier in the picture besides the cab company's name, leaving the possibility of retaliation or lost business to the suspect's fellow drivers, regardless of their danger or safety.

I wrote a long comment on Behrens's piece that I will repost here after the jump. What I didn't mention in the comment is the fact that Behrens has been open in previous pieces about volunteering for the LAPD. He is also a neighborhood councilman in Sherman Oaks. Neither of those roles should preclude him from writing his blog, especially because his bio on LAist describes his writings as "observations" of L.A. Nonetheless, those facts should make Behrens additionally judicious about clarifying his motivations for his posts and he should make extra effort to disclose his influences when posting about the LAPD.

Still, this doesn't change the fact that the suspect in this case has not yet been convicted of any crime (in this instance — a previous record isn't mentioned either) nor has any information supporting the claim the accused is a "sex fiend" been presented. Behrens, his colleagues, and anyone with the public's attention has a responsibility to caution the public not to rush to judgment. That is what the courts are and should be for. Our legal system may be imperfect, but it's far more perfect in casting judgment than browsers of the Web presented with selected bits of information can be.

My original analysis posted in the comments section of Behrens' LAist post gets to the point more articulately and directly. Continue reading to see it:

"While I believe it's important to share important information with the public, I'm rather troubled by the presentation of this post from both a journalistic perspective and as a supporter of the American legal system's assurance of innocence until proving guilty.

The ability to provide information to society about possible risks effectively is diminished by posts like this. The headline of this post condemns Ayvazian before a trial ever occurs. Claiming publicly he is a "sex fiend" not only alarms the public without the full facts available, your inclusion of a picture of "his cab" endangers anyone who drives an Independent Cab. Co. cab and happens to resemble him. Should readers of your blog see one of those cabs they may act without the full facts of this case. More importantly, characterizing Mr. Ayvazian as a "sex fiend" before his trial and without further evidence also threatens the impartiality of any potential jury in his prosecution. If he is guilty, it opens up doubt about the ability to find and impanel a jury capable of rendering a stable, credible verdict. If he is not, you have tremendously hindered his ability to have a fair trial.

It is rash, hasty reporting like this that discredits all journalists in this time of rapid changes to the industry. Journalists and those who claim to be journalists are shifting to Web based platforms more readily. Yet when the public continues to distrust the credibility of "bloggers," posts like this do nothing to help the field.

I might add that this sort of reporting also endangers our legal system. It contributes to the public shock when individuals are acquitted of crimes. When suspects are treated in the media as guilty from the moment of their arrest, it not only affects the quality of the jury pool, it also increases the dissonance the public feels when a jury, examining the facts and arguments presented by both sides in a trial, does not side with the prosecution. The more the public feels our legal system "protects" criminals or otherwise carries unexpected consequences, the less able it is to operate effectively and fairly. This legal system, while imperfect, is the core of our democracy as we know it, and we should work to fix its flaws, ensure its fairness, and remain committed to the ideals of justice we purport to believe in.

Should we be reporting about arrests if we cover local news? Yes. Is sexual assault an allegation to be taken seriously? Yes. But it's one thing to be accused of, arrested for and charged with any crime. It's another thing to be convicted of one."

Undercutting the competition

As should be readily apparent, I haven't posted to Lascher @ Large in some time. I've spent the past two months completing my master's degree, a time during which I sacrificed this site to one last focus on academics. I've also taken some time to consider what my next career steps might be, to pitching various publications on my master's project exploring the challenges and opportunities facing Los Angeles' evolving transportation network given the current economic and budget crises and to apply for a handful of fellowships and jobs. Earlier this week someone asked me for a short description of the type of work I'd be interested in. While I understand the need for focus, I'm always amazed how difficult it is to sharpen my my interests to a well-defined point. As a writer and an observer I hesitate to craft such definitions. I fret about what I could be leaving out by bounding my interests. If I am to be open to recounting the stories I encounter I don't want to pen myself into a place where I don't feel prepared to tell certain ones. As my personal acquaintances know, I am a restless, transitory man. I often long to run my toes through that green, green grass on the other side of the fence, sometimes (often) at the cost of savoring the tranquil landscape at my feet. Of course, in any field, successful individuals know summarizing their own work isn't a limiting practice, but rather a guide to help them understand the tools available at their own disposal for future endeavors. Thus the challenge for me — and presumably millions of other people considering their futures — is to plot the path before me by identifying both where I want to be and knowing just how much I'm worth based on the skills I've already developed.

When my father, Edward L. Lascher, penned his Lascher at Large column, he spent much of his time dissecting his own profession, the practice of law. Now that I've completed my work at USC, one regular feature of this Web site will be follow-ups of subjects he first broached two decades ago (or earlier).

Today, though, I thought I'd take a moment to express some frustrations about aspects of my own profession. No, right now I won't discuss whether newspapers are dying or how journalism is to be saved (Suffice it to say that success will come from energy devoted to quality, compelling content, not desperate hand-wringing over the latest bells and whistles and revenue generation models). Instead, I want to talk about the outrageous expectations expressed by some hiring managers and others soliciting original content.

I understand that businesses are struggling to make ends meet. I am fully aware how privileged I am to have the luxury to experiment with freelance writing instead of savoring the opportunity to make ends meet with a stable job. Many folks don't have that chance. Many have families to feed, mortgages to pay, debts to satisfy. In fact, sadly, more and more people just need some way to put food in their own mouths and a roof over their own heads.

Nonetheless, that doesn't excuse employers from taking advantage of their potential hires. As I've been redefining myself, I've also been keeping tabs on journalism, writing and editing opportunities in Los Angeles and other cities in which I'd enjoy living. Call me naïve, but a few examples posted to Craigslist yesterday are shocking.

An online community newspaper in Pasadena advertised it was seeking a full-time assistant editor with “Newspaper experience to develop story ideas, to make and manage assignments, to schedule and manage writers, copy edit, fact check, proof and write.” This individual was to have a “minimum [emphasis mine] 5 years' experience with a community newspaper,” and possess a number of skills that would benefit any publication, online or in print.

What was the enticement for this demanding job? $600-700 a week and no mention of any benefits. For those with slow computational skills, that's between just more than $31,000 and $36,400 a year. While the individual could work from home, and thus, presumably didn't have to live in Pasadena, where rents for a one bedroom apartment start around $1,000 and more often than not top $1,500, any candidate for the position who wanted to live close to the community he or she covered would struggle just to pay for housing. At a time when hyper-local and niche coverage is becoming more the norm (the Voice of San Diego is one tremendously successful and inspiring example), one would think someone with five years of experience in community coverage in addition to the ability to manage a publication online would be a tremendous asset to new media outlets.

Of course, there are more outrageous examples. One poster to Craigslist wanted a professional writer to work for free on targeted promotional materials. Unfortunately, that post has been taken down, but not before a follow-up post from someone who shares my frustration (albeit with a bit more vitriol). Sadly as the respondent refers to, such posts are hardly uncommon on Craigslist. I haven't explored postings in other professions, but I suspect we are not alone in our consternation.

Meanwhile, another poster is searching far and wide for a writer to pen “30 original articles about Las Vegas attractions, events and history.” Each is expected to be an original work of between 600 and 800 words. How much is being offered for this body of work? Ten cents a word (a low, but still, sadly, realistic figure)? Try $200 for the entire package. Let's break that down. They want about 21,000 words written for two bills. That's 1.05 cents a word. A penny and a half. Must I break down the time it takes to produce that much original observation of heavily-publicized hotels and nightclubs and figure out what that means in hourly terms?

Freelancers are often cautioned not to calculate their work in hourly terms lest their hearts plummet to the floor along with their bank accounts. Work is work, right? Sadly, I know someone will take each of these gigs. And more power to them — I know how hard it is to find work and I know how important it is to build up a portfolio. So if they need to hustle to make a career, I'm not stopping them.

Still, if publishers and other hiring managers want to succeed, they will need a committed, loyal and stable staff and to develop sharp, insightful contributors. An investment in skilled journalists ready to take risks to lead publications into the future is a wise choice. It may seem counter-intuitive to talk about investment in a time of economic malaise, but those who take such leaps of faith will be best positioned for future success. Those, however, who treat their content producers as chattel will continue to struggle to maintain a stable source of original content, and thus, they will spend all their time watching editors and writers leave for greener pastures while their competitors invest in competent, devoted teams passionate about the work their doing and the success of their organizations. The former will have no content to which they can apply their ingenious revenue generation models, while the latter will long benefit from quality work that sells itself.