|
|
You are viewing the most recent 17 entries June 17th, 200911:08 pm: Getting back in the groove, hopefully
I submitted my first paying article in months, a review of Douglas Rushkoff's Life Inc. It was 70% over length and 2 days past my self-imposed deadline. My journalism output has dropped sharply over the past year or so, both in gross revenue and in total number of pieces printed. Part of that has to do with forgetting the first rule of freelancing: pester. I'm not competitive, yet freelancing involves fighting for the editor's scarce attention. I've sent several queries to a certain editor, and never followed them up, so I assumed that they were ignored. I'll also admit to taking this a little too personally, as an individual snub, instead of being the nature of the business. Of course, I have to try to get back into the freelancing game just when the money is drying up and everything is restructuring. Current Music: "Scrubs" on TV , writing
December 16th, 200801:00 am: My editorial on sex work decriminalization
My second piece in THIS magazine, an editorial on sex work decriminalization in Canada, is now online. It's derived from my earlier feature article on decriminalization in the Tyee. While I'm glad to have another publication credit, I feel a bit of... not guilt, exactly, but discomfort. One of the points I make is that the discourse on sex work should have more actual sex workers in it, which probably would mean fewer contributions from people who aren't sex workers and have no personal stake in the issue (e.g. me). I write about how great Scarlot Harlot was, when perhaps they could have gotten an article from Scarlot herself. I also wish I knew about THIS magazine's special topic in advance, as I think I could have done a good feature on that topic, given all the research I've done on the history of pornography. Tags: journalism, writing
August 12th, 200809:26 am: My article on sex work decriminalization
To my surprise, my article on the decriminalization of sex work in Vancouver is up on the Tyee, front page top story no less. (Thanks, David!) This is my first news-feature in a while, and I got a little nervous about covering such a complicated issue with so many divergent points of view and strong feelings attached. Personally, I'm in favor of decriminalization. When you look at the people who are being chewed up and spat out by the sex industry, that's not an issue of sex, that's an issue of poverty. The prostitution is just the most visible and emotionally charged aspect of the larger social problems of drug addiction and poverty. I once had an argument with a friend who didn't understand why I didn't consider banning child pornography a higher priority, when she considered it essential to protecting children. I explained that, of all the children living in wretched and exploitative conditions in the world, most of them don't end up on film. Better child protection laws would help far more children than cracking down on child porn and weakening freedom of expression. The sex industry is, if you'll pardon the expression, a "dark continent." Everybody knows it exists, but there is little hard information on how many people are involved, how much money moves through it, how the people within it behave. In the absence of facts, there are myths and legends, some romantic and some horrifying, propagated by a special, liminal caste of people who are not natives and who simplify a vast, diverse and complicated culture into simplistic narratives. The really interesting development in this story is people who are sex workers forming their own organizations and speaking for themselves. That's the only way the sex industry and the people in it can stop being abject pariahs, the dark underworld. No comments have yet been posted on the Tyee story, but I anticipate some strong feelings. Current Mood:  pleased , work, writing
June 21st, 200812:52 pm: Paths to the future
On Thursday, I met with an editor who's been a great support to my career over the years. Over chai latte and tea in a coffee shop on the margin of gentrification of the Downtown Eastside, he told me something that was considerable food for thought. The way to make it through the fabled dollar-per-word barrier of freelancing, he says, is adopting one of two strategies: The first is the path of the stylist. You develop literary chops and practice Tom Wolfe-style New Journalism. What you write about is less important than your particular artistic interpretation of it. You build a literary reputation and get called upon by editors for assignments. The second is the expert. You develop in-depth knowledge of and contacts in a particular field so you can stay abreast of new developments and be ahead of the curve. You become known to editors as the go-to person for that topic. Write enough features on something, and that can eventually turn into a book deal or speaking engagements. Of the two, the former sounds like the harder path. Literary stars come and go, decided by the vagaries of fashion. Expertise has staying power. Secondly, trying to write stylistically sounds exhausting, as if it isn't hard enough to write at all. More utilitarian prose is less flashy but is more accessible. I have my niche topic, actually my niche of a niche topic, but the editor suggest that I have broader interest expertise: sex and tech. However, I have no interest in writing relationship advice or tech journalism pieces either.
Tags: journalism, work, writing
April 20th, 200610:17 pm: Fake it so real you're beyond fake
Donna Kossy, the author of Kooks, wrote that the difference between kooks and con artists is that kooks believe. They'll spend their last dollar on mimographing their guide to male pregnancy instead of buying food. If their sincerity is less than total, they're not true kooks, just a mere con artist. However, the difference is actually a lot blurrier. Remember the old alleged Roswell alien autopsy video? According to the Times, a special effects artist, John Homphreys, has said that he made the gray alien out of animal parts. So, case closed, right? It's just a fake and it can be filed alongside the Piltdown man and PT Barnum's mermaid. However, Ray Santilli, a London-based video distributor who first presented the footage, says that he has, or had, a real alien autopsy film.
Santilli... insists he was trying to “re-create” a real Roswell incident. He claims he bought genuine footage that was badly damaged when it was exposed to the air after 48 years in a can. “John was given very precise images to work with and what he did was sheer genius,” he said.
So, let's get this story straight: Santilli had a genuine film of a real alien autopsy which, however, wasn't usable. That is, it wouldn't convince anybody of its authenticity, despite having convinced Santilli. Santilli therefore (re)creates the film with actors and special effects and offers it to the world as the real, original film, presumably in the hope that this would convince people of its authenticity. Except that he doesn't offer the actual film, just videos of the film, further undermining his credibility. Assuming, for the moment, that Santilli is sincere, his sincerity is so strong that he will fake evidence. That's where the kook and the con artist overlap. The main difference is which comes first, the lying or the belief. That's why I think faking evidence, no matter how justified you think it is, is wrong. Tags: journalism
August 22nd, 200510:19 pm: the CBC lockout, the PR flack and me
A few years ago, I decided that I wanted a career that wasn't routine, that didn't make me envision an unending stretch of days of doing the same thing. I've come to realize that this means giving up a few things like regular pay checks, paid vacations, health coverage, and so on. (Then again the whole idea of a job that you can count on for the long run seems to be on the way out.) For instance, on Saturday I got a call from an editor at The Tyee, to do a piece on how locked out CBC employees are putting together their own radio network via podcasting. No problem. I hadn't done anything for the Tyee in a while. They wanted it on Monday morning. Ah, I said articulately. I agreed anyway. Journalism means rising to the challenge, and this would probably be only 600 to 800 words, which through experience I've learned to do pretty easily. Maybe it was a lingering guilt over getting some minor names wrong in the Granville Book Company (which generated good readership response anyway.) That meant a Saturday and Sunday of tracking down various Canadian Media Guild people in the middle of their hikes or with screaming twin boys on their laps, for phone interviews. That was hard enough, but try getting any kind of response from CBC management on a Sunday. I got through to some security guard at the Vancouver branch, but I'm pretty sure he was so tired of being called a scab that he just wanted to get rid of me. Monday morning, I got up early to hammer out a final draft and make a last ditch effort at calling somebody at the CBC. It's turned out quite well, despite an low information content conversation with a Toronto CBC spokesperson (he stayed on message, I'll give him that). Communications like that is why I much prefer talking to artists or regular people or anybody who doesn't use public relations newspeak. Most of the workers I contacted to were glad to talk. That's my hope for the future, that new kinds of organizations will not have a layer of personal assistants and PR flacks insulating the decision-makers them from the world. The article on CBC Unplugged from Studio Zero in Vancouver is up, and I think it turned out pretty well. Some of my best work is done under pressure, when I don't have time to agonize over things. It has even generated a Technorati hit or two. The podcast will go up Tuesday morning. Monday, I found myself unexpectedly free from by temping job downtown, and hung out for a while on the CBC picket line, actually meeting the people who I had talked to on the phone yesterday. I actually overheard somebody talking about "the article on the Tyee", and introduced myself. I also got to see Ian Hanomansing playing street hockey. On top of all that, I got a check for $1000 today for my two Vancouver Courier pieces. I also have tenative plans for a trip to Montreal, to visit Vijay, and then on to my favorite city in the world, NYC. So, things look pretty good right now. Current Mood: satisfied , journalism, work
July 27th, 200507:46 pm: Vancouver Courier cover story
Though it hasn't been posted on their site yet, my story on point of care HIV tests was the cover story for the Vancouver Courier today. I'll post a link ASAP. I'm also working on another cover feature about the demise of the Granville Book Company. Things are happening. Freelancing isn't easy, but you've got your freedom. Running into an old J-school friend today reminded me of that. Current Mood: chipper , work
May 14th, 200512:37 pm: My second Globe & Mail piece
Not only did my piece on the Sex Party's struggle with the provincial liquor authority get into the Globe and Mail today, but I apparently got the release form to them in time so that they could put it online.Current Mood: chipper , work
April 13th, 200511:31 pm: Sex Party (not that kind)
Even though I struggled, it's hard NOT to make jokes when writing about the newly announced Sex Party. I don't envy John Ince, the party's leader, for the way the press will handle him and his colleagues as we run up to the election. I'll be at their press conference at the Firehall branch (1455 West 10th Ave (just east of Granville)) of the Vancouver Public Library, thursday at 10:30 a.m. Tags: journalism, work
April 6th, 200512:32 pm: More on the mini-tabbing of Canadian news
PressThink has an ton of links to other discussions and theories about CanWest and it's move into the mini-tab arena, plus some interesting items like how, according to Macleans, Noah Godfrey, 27-year-old publisher of the Dose, is the son of former Toronto Sun publisher and current CanWest director Paul Godfrey. Tags: journalism, work
12:03 pm: Sum it all up
How could this blog have escaped my notice? Christopher Zylstra has a great overview of what's new in the concentration of ownership in the Vancouver media market, and suggest this may be an example of hedging bets, and building a new brand in a cheaper segment of the market (i.e. mini-tabs) while anticipating the decline of daily newspapers, both tabloids and broadsheets. Tags: journalism, work
11:46 am: The Future of News
The Carnegie foundation published an excellent report on trends in the creation, distribution and consumption of news. This supports some of my own theories, that the functions that used to be the mainstays of newspapers (daily news, classifieds) are better done through other media. Why spend hours scanning through columns of sans serif tiny print to find your job or apartment when you can search online? Why limit yourself to what somebody else thinks you ought to know when you can google whatever topic interests you? Why buy and carry a big hunk of lifestyles, sports, classifieds and theatre reviews when all you want is a few wire-service headlines and a little celebrity gossip on the way to work? The daily mini-tabs like Metro News, 24 Hours and the newly added Dose may represent the future of news on paper, but not the future of a news organization. People don't buy your paper anymore? There's the Web, handheld devices, blogs, videotext, digital radio, podcasting, etc. Your job is to produce the news and distribute it to the people by whatever means works. Again, separate message from medium. Tags: journalism, work
April 3rd, 200501:16 pm: New publication
My article on rapid HIV tests was printed in the Globe and Mail this Saturday. Unfortunately, it didn't show up on the web site, possibly due to not faxing the release form to them in time. I don't know if it will get posted later, once they get the release form. They jazzed the lead up a little, which in hindsight I wish I had done. Sometimes I'm so intent on being "serious journalist", my prose can be a little bland. Current Mood: chipper , work
Powered by LiveJournal.com
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}