Hard News: Trust. Us.
100 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 Newer→ Last
-
Perhaps one of the declared aims of such a trust would be to campaign for media ownership law reform in New Zealand?
Anyway, if a Guardian like trust were to be set up I would contribute - but the "liberal tradition" would have to be mentioned.
-
I think it's a great idea - can we start by hiring Phil just to keep everyone's numbers clean?
-
I'd kick in. $100 a year is substantially less than the cost of subscribing to my local Fairfax-clone. Start a pledgebank pledge already!
I think the biggest problem would be getting the material published; newspapers and magazines may be reluctant to carry it. Though if it was put to them simply as a freelance article, then they might be happy enough. Any funding would have to be declared, but they do this already for e.g. travel stories where the reporter was funded by an outside party.
-
I think the biggest problem would be getting the material published; newspapers and magazines may be reluctant to carry it.
Yes, I suspect the print duopoly here would be leery of the idea -- but the Star Times does, I think, pay rather less for Nick Hager's stories than they can have cost to research, so they're privately financed in that sense.
It would be interesting to know more about who runs the stories in the US.
-
This reminds me of something that came up at the EPMU Journalism Conference last year.
Consolidated media ownership was pretty much the theme of the conference (as well as a general fear of "new media" and the internet).
I suggested towards the end of the two days that if media ownership was the problem, as everyone seemed to be saying, then maybe it's time for a group of journalists to run their own paper. Easier said than done of course, but an obvious solution I thought.
For all the enthusiasm the suggestion received I would have been better off using Audrey Young's laptop as a chamber pot.
-
Levin was where I spent the first 17 years of my life. For most of my high school days I worked after school and Saturdays in the late Corrie Swanwick's nursery, keeping the Horowhenua's mainly Chinese market gardeners supplied with cabbage & cauli seedlings. In his retirement Corrie's formidable memory and hitherto undiscovered writing talent launched him into a new career as Levin's unofficial historian. His weekly column appeared in the Chronicle through most of the 80s, and though the paper itself may have all but vanished most of his work is now online at the excellent Kete Horowhenua site:
http://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/
APN and the Levin Council may have killed the Chronicle, but the sheer wealth of material at the community-run Kete Horowhenua is bloody impressive.
-
Jose: I grew up in a household of self-employed parents running their own small business, so to me many of the organisational requirements, worries and mysteries of such things were warp and woof of my life from a very early age - one my earliest memories is the bed made for us kids out the back of the shop, where we would fall asleep to the clatter of commerce. What has come as a revelation over my life is how clueless people from backgrounds of salaried families are to the world of running your own business. I am sure many of the journalists at the conference just saw a big blank space on their mental life map with "here be dragons" on it when you mentioned setting up their very own publication.
-
A few more notes:
- a trust could simply commission articles, rather than publishing them itself, and leave the copyright with the author. That would keep the wolf from the door for the Ngs (and Saarinens and Hoskings) of this world.
- if a trust did have publishing as its mission, online delivery is far cheaper than print or broadcast. Other media could always reprint or broadcast it ("this article/documentary/audo interview first appeared at the New Zealand Reporters Trust website").
- Would there be practical or ethical barriers to commercial media organisations carrying privately-financed stories? Given the frequency with which they print barely paraphrased press releases now, the answer is clearly NO on the first count if not the second.As to who would fund this, Russell omitted my subsequent comment, which I will now repeat: if you would kindly die and leave your vast estate to said trust, that would speed things up. Thank you.
Seriously, the biggest and most successful charitable enterprises of this kind have their origins in bequests to supply the original capital, even if they subsequently earn revenue from commercial activities.
Who would run it? A trust whose mission was merely to fund and commission work just needs an editorial board and a clerk or two. A trust whose mission is publishing probably needs a legally constituted subsidiary to commission and then manage the publishing enterprise. In either case the initial choice of trustees is probably the most critical decision.
-
The math is easy. Freelance journalists gets paid 40-50c per word.
Say, for a well-researched 2000-word feature, they earn $800-1000 for one or two weeks' work.
If you have, say, a modest readership of 5000, and say, 20% of them are prepared to pay $1 each for the article, then you've already matched what the MSM can offer.
It can totally work...
-
Jose: I was just reading through my notes from that. As you note, its easier said than done - but Simon Collins had a more modern solution of doing it via the web, with bloggers and journalists effectively syndicating their best public-interest material in the format of a national news site.
Of course, a web site is pull rather than push, and if the aim is to get better journalism to the public, then its not much of a solution. But it is perhaps a project for a dedicated loon to think about.
-
I don't think getting it published is an issue at all. God knows, Fairfax is ridiculously skint when it comes to *paying* for stuff. Cheap bastards.
But I reckon getting it in all the community papers would be a hoot. Imagine that - community papers outdoing the national papers.
Chaos!
-
one my earliest memories is the bed made for us kids out the back of the shop, where we would fall asleep to the clatter of commerce
Luxury! I spent eight years as a school kid living in a kiwifruit grading shed and ate nothing but avocados.
I am sure many of the journalists at the conference just saw a big blank space on their mental life map with "here be dragons" on it when you mentioned setting up their very own publication.
I don't doubt it, that's why I said it would be easier said than done. But at the very least there should have been discussion about the idea, rather than silence. I think I even saw a tumbleweed blow through.
-
As to who would fund this, Russell omitted my subsequent comment, which I will now repeat: if you would kindly die and leave your vast estate to said trust, that would speed things up. Thank you.
Great. So all we need is for some kind, wealthy individual to whack themselves in the near future for the benefit of NZ journalism.
Keith: you need a micropayments system. I understand Salon just introduced one on its new blogging site, but it can only be used by Merkins.
-
Of course, a web site is pull rather than push, and if the aim is to get better journalism to the public, then its not much of a solution.
It's not as bad as all that. When a good story breaks, other outlets pick it up. If our putative trust-funded outlet finds something good, others may pick up the story and run with it. Mission accomplished.
-
if you would kindly die and leave your vast estate to said trust, that would speed things up. Thank you.
owen glenn may be annoyed enough with the MSM here to donate something substantial, well before his demise...
count me in, if anything gets going.
-
Oh, and I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the Bruce Jesson trust yet. It has a small "critical writing fund" which makes small awards, though more aimed at supporting books than everyday journalism.
-
But it is perhaps a project for a dedicated loon to think about.
I've begun sleeping exclusively with billionaires, so stay tuned. ;)
-
Jose Barbosa wrote:
... maybe it's time for a group of journalists to run their own paper. Easier said than done of course, but an obvious solution I thought.
Which is my cue to pipe up.
I'm been going on for some time to my fellow PAers (fixing them with my long beard and glittering eye in the manner of the Ancient Mariner) about just such an idea.
A daily would be a very difficult starting point, but one could easily imagine a weekly news magazine that would be something like a quality version of The Listener.
Of course, in the age of the intertubes, you'd set up your weekly schedule very differently from The Listener. You'd roll out the magazine over the course of the week, with columns and features going up on your website every day. At the end of the week, you'd automatically typeset and bundle it into a downloadable PDF -- readers would be able to print this out themselves or pay for a print-on-demand version to read on the dunny.
I've actually already written software in Latex and Python that can do the automatic typesetting and bundling into a print magazine from HTML.
The start-up, as everyone points out, is the difficult thing. The writers would have to donate their time until the advertising and print sales become profitable, or an eccentric millionaire would have to be prepared to kick in NZ$380,000-NZ$570,000 for a few years to get it going.
Any news-loving eccentric millionaires out there with a desperate urge to spend their money?
My vision would be for the publication to be run by a trust pretty much as Stephen Judd has already described.
[I know that my fellow PAers are already well-and-truly sick of me going on about this, so I'll shut up now...]
-
It's not as bad as all that. When a good story breaks, other outlets pick it up. If our putative trust-funded outlet finds something good, others may pick up the story and run with it. Mission accomplished.
Point. Though the original journalist may not see any benefit from that (though society would).
-
I would be another starter for $100 (or more) annually. What we might need to consider is the NZOA model of funding ie you need to have a promise from a broadcaster of a slot in the schedule, to qualify for funding. If TVNZ, TV3 etc are happy with the situation of benefiting from heavily subsidised programmes, there may be publishing outlets who would be the same. Of course, you would have to have caveats re editorial independence etc.
I wasn't aware of the origins of Pew (I have sometimes wondered about it) but I too have respect for their research output (such as their annual The State of the [US] News Media), and their willingness to make this free and available. The Guardian features their latest research effort, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/18/digitalmedia.usa
-
At the end of the week, you'd automatically typeset and bundle it into a downloadable PDF -- readers would be able to print this out themselves or pay for a print-on-demand version to read on the dunny.
This sounds frighteningly similar to what Ian Wishart is doing.
-
The thought that occurred to me, whilst watching your show, was "Is the print media as a prime source of information dead or in it's last death throws?"
I thought it could be a good idea to hybridise online news with print news, a website with more of a newspaper feel and look, maybe with a big friendly banner at the top "NZ Observer" for instance.
There must be plenty of journos who no longer have a regular outlet for their work and as Stephen saidif a trust did have publishing as its mission, online delivery is far cheaper than print or broadcast.
I like the idea of a trust and the owners of small and failing provincial papers maybe just the people to kickstart such a venture?
-
David Haywood: Salon in a number-8 wire incarnation? I am IN.
-
I know that my fellow PAers are already well-and-truly sick of me going on about this/
I'm not.
-
Dedicated loon here. I've been thinking about it for the last 379 days: Micropatronage journalism.
Establish a micropayment system. Get freelance journalists.
Freelance journalist writes stories. Reader-patrons use a thumbs-up($1)/thumbs-down($0) system to rate the stories. It's painless, it provides concrete feedback and encouragement for the journalist.
It gets around the fundamental problem of advertising-driven journalism: more eyeballs = more revenue, regardless of quality. And it gets around the fundamental stupidity of freelance journalism: number of words = amount of money, regardless of quality.
But I figured, when I first had this brainwave last year, that neither online journalism nor online payment systems are mature enough for this to happen. Yet.
Comments?
Post your response…
This topic is closed.