So Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal has announced she’ll only be writing for the web from now since she’s tired of killing trees.
A noble sentiment, certainly, but it’s sparked some discussion as whether or not journalists should completely ditch paper and embrace new media.
I’ve liked the idea of online publishing since Salon launched more than a decade ago along with quirky zines that were posted in Usenet groups. But right now, there are several flaws in the system that are creating resistance among so-called "old media reporters."
The big one is money. I get job postings for writers delivered through my RSS reader from multiple sources and some of them are mind-blowing. The main one I see are blogs looking for writers to post 400 words per day, six days per week. The pay: $125 per month.
Um, excuse me?
I’ve met freelance journalists who consider one dollar per word to be a pittance, I wonder how they’d react if they knew there are some well-trafficked blogs out there that only for two dollars per article.
Now, Ms. Swisher can certainly do what she’s doing. She has had more than a decade of building up credibility and a loyal readership while receiving a steady pay-cheque. Those of us starting out now have to do things like work nights in call centres while researching and writing during the day.
This is one reason things are hard for new-comers like myself.
Another point of contention I’ve heard from some veteran reporters is the multi-media aspect of the Internet. Management is increasingly expecting their staff to not only file a text article, but they also want a video to throw up on YouTube as well – making the reporters drag handy-cams to their interviews with no extra compensation for the video work.
Never mind the fact that having to film can seriously cramp a journalists interview style – people tend to behave differently when there’s a camera pointed at them.
Finally, I have one more person beef with writing online: search engine optimization or SEO. Essentially, SEO involves writing an article in such a way that more people will come across it while searching on Google.
So rather than writing for the readers, you’re writing for an algorithm that indexes information. This usually means repeating keywords over and over instead of looking for creative synonyms and somehow working in Paris Hilton, no matter what the article is actually about.
Of course, all of this said, I tend to go where I can get monies – some print publications like to give them to me and some web sites and blogs give them to me, so I’m all over the place. I’m just not about give up on print media since, at the moment, they send more shiny pennies my way.
