The Associated Press and freelance photographer Mannie Garcia have settled a dispute over copyright of an iconic image of President Barack Obama, with both parties dropping their claims, reports the British Journal of Photography.
But the case involving artist Shepard Fairey, who claims he used the image to create his HOPE poster of the US leader, is yet to be settled or judged.
Full story on the British Journal of Photography at this link…
A new US-based digital magazine will feature the work of freelance journalists in mini-editions, produced and designed for mobile phones, reports the New York Times.
Subscribers to Nomad Editions, produced by a startup company of the same name, will receive a weekly edition focused on their area of interest and delivered via a mobile application. Each issue will take between 20 and 30 minutes to read. Writers will earn up to 30 per cent of revenue subscription from each edition with different shares for editors.
A niche, mobile, and freelance model? A new launch worth watching when it goes live in October.
An honest and amusing assessment of working as a freelance journalist, from US-based writer Richard Morgan, who looks at the problems of pitching, protecting your ideas and dealing with editors.
He (half-) jokes: “Freelancing means your editor will reject your pitch and then, seven months later, run the story you pitched – with the same language as your pitch – and then have it submitted for a National Magazine Award.”
But on a more serious note:
Freelancing isn’t just about finding good stories. It is also – more so? – about finding good editors. I have solid relationships with four, which, over a seven-year span, works out to encountering one good editor for every 21 months. Maybe I sound as silly and vain and vacuous as Jessica Simpson talking about her very real struggle with acne and how Pro-Activ Solution helped her, but journalism is built upon the values of truth and transparency and intellectual service and candour – of sunshine being the best disinfectant.
Citizen journalism site Allvoices is to offer a healthcare plan – at a cost – to its regular contributors in the US, it announced last week. It’s open to all its users who participate in its journalism incentive scheme and produce 15 new articles per month.
We believe health care is a basic human right, even though it is still dependent upon a less-than-perfect system which keeps it from those in our society who are most in need. Many within that group are recently un- or under-employed journalists. These are talented people who have a valuable, necessary skill to contribute but can’t because of consolidation within the media industry.
The site has plans to introduce other benefits it says:
…We see this as a small and very necessary step toward changing the future of journalism as we know it. The plan we now have in place is a great start for a citizen media site, but we’re cognizant of what else is needed; additional benefits will be introduced over time as we continue to grow. For a while we’ve been soliciting feedback from our community on other benefits they’d like to see in return for their work, and we intend on delivering. We’re committed to providing an environment where people can not just augment their living by writing for Allvoices, but can make their living here if they so choose.
Journalism.co.uk readers in the US will have to tell us how the plan shapes up next to other alternatives…
In January we reported how AllVoices, with five million unique visitors a month and 275,000 reporters, plans to develop its presence in hyperlocal and global markets.
I get tired of bloggers and journalists (let’s face it, like me) who spend their time opining about the problems and challenges for journalists. Which is why I’m a fan of Adam Westbrook’s Future of News Group in London, which he founded to discuss the latest in practical solutions for the news biz instead of lofty theory.
So I came down to the latest #FONG meet-up – concerned with “entrepreneurial journalism” – on Tuesday night to find out more. Westbrook – who himself has a very healthy entreprenuerial streak – kicked off the session by admitting, with blunt accuracy, that “lots of us are coming round to the idea that we can be entrepreneurial journalists, but none of us have a bloody clue how.” Here’s Adam’s take on the event, but here’s what I made of it:
First up was Emi Gal, founder of Brainient, a Romanian video advertising start-up – it adds a layer of contextual or affiliate-led ads over any video content. (I’m not entirely sure how this engages with Google/YouTube’s own increasingly profitable overlay ad programme, but that’s for another time…)
24-year-old Gal is a good person to listen to because this is far from his first attempt at making a start-up work. He founded his first business aged 18, a social network which became very successful, and then went on to found an online TV start-up, which he admits “failed big time”. Brainient was one of six winners at the Seedcamp start-up competition in 2009, which landed it $50,000 in seed funding, and Gal has since received more funding.
Gal has lots of advice for would-be entrepreneurs, though much of it is the kind of thing you will hear from other enthusiastic entrepreneurs: things like pick a good co-founder, get the right team, pick a massive market, figure out the “minimal viable product” that people will pay for. Check out coverage of this Techcrunch’s GeeknRolla conference for similar advice, particularly the excellent Morten Lund (funded Skype at an early stage, made gazillions, went bankrupt) and Rummble founder Andrew J Scott.
But for me the best advice Gal had for news professionals looking to either sell themselves of a product they’ve built is that “you are marketing, your product is marketing, your mum is marketing.” In other words, everything you do as an entrepreneur should contribute to the buzz about your business.
Being personable and memorable when meeting people is a big part of that: it sounds flippant, but Gal made a big deal of his vibrantly red shoes. But, he says, at least it makes him memorable.
Up next was YooDoo, which provides advice and tools for new businesses. Tony Heywood and Nick Saalfield talked about what they do – I wasn’t entirely sure how they might specifically help news entrepreneurs but I’m sure they’ll offer help to some people out there and the service is free.
This was Saalfield’s harsh but accurate approximation of the print media: “Start feeling sorry for newspapers and publishers. They’re badly managed, they work very slowly, they’re fragile and not very agile.”
I was more interested in the debate that started after their talk. Deborah Bonello – aka @thevideoreport – founded Mexicoreporter.com and carved out a niche as a multimedia freelance journalist (she spoke at the Frontline Club alongside Adam last month at a great event on freelance journalism).
Bonello hit the nail right on head by describing the economic barrier for anyone wanting to make a living from original content: the FT can make money from writing about stock markets and emerging markets; Gizmodo sells ads by writing about gadgets – this is all actionable content, stuff that will inspire readers to click on an add or affiliate link and buy something.
But what about reporting focusing on human rights? Who’s going to click on an ad surrounding that? She said:
The problem is, if you’re not writing about the decisions about why people make investments, [but about things like] immigration, or culture, art… there’s not that same market for people that might like to pay for that.
As she so rightly says, “as journalists we’re taught to questions the powers.” The plan for most people who go into the industry – I would say – is not to think about how to give the capitalist classes exactly what they need to make more money.
Here’s what content entrepreneur Evan Rudowski said on paywalls on PCUK in February:
The paid content opportunity is greatest if the content is unique, actionable, targeted at a relevant niche, frequently updated and from a credible or trusted source.
Availability of free alternatives can be a limiting factor, but not the determining factor – there are barrel-loads of free content about wine, for example, but plenty of people are nevertheless willing to pay FT wine columnist Jancis Robinson £69 a year for her unique expertise.
So “actionable” is one of the things journalism needs to be to be profitable. But could you tick the other boxes on Rudowski’s list and still make a living? Or, more likely, is there a public or charitable solution to this problem that takes news production out of the corporate, profit-driven, assembly line model?
I have no “bloody clue” either but I’m looking forward to more FONG meet-ups in the hope of getting closer to some answers.
Patrick Smith is a freelance journalist, event organiser and formerly a correspondent for paidContent:UK and Press Gazette. He blogs at psmithjournalist.com and is @psmith on twitter.
Feel the need for some networking? Contacts book looking a bit bare? The Frontline Club in London is offering Journalism.co.uk readers a half-price ticket offer for its latest networking party, tonight, Wednesday 21 April.
The theme of the evening is original video journalism and the club will be showcasing four unusual, innovative films, including an exclusive preview of a Current TV documentary on South Africa. The event takes place at the club, near Paddington Station at 13 Norfolk Place from 7pm.
The first 10 Journalism.co.uk readers to email events [at] frontlineclub.com with “Journalism.co.uk Frontline networking offer” in the subject heading will receive up to two tickets at £10, a full 50 per cent off the normal price (payment will be accepted on the door but advance booking is essential).
From last week (via Martin Stabe) but worth a mention: ESPN has a report on Mark Zuckerman, a US sports reporter who is supporting his site by reader donations.
Built on $20-60 donations, Zuckerman has raised more than $10,000 to support the site and cover his costs while working. Essentially ‘hired’ by his donors, he is particularly responsive to questions and feedback on the coverage from his audience and tries to answer readers’ queries with his reporting:
Like his patrons, Zuckerman is getting something extra: a rekindled passion for his work. While driving to Florida, he blogged from a roadside rest stop about the Nationals signing Ron Villone. During his first day at spring training, he broke news that probable starting pitcher Ross Detwiler would miss 10 weeks following surgery on a torn hip flexor. Without the space restrictions of a newspaper, Zuckerman can write what he wants when he wants to write it; with greater reader interaction, he can tailor his information for the people who value it most.
In an interview with Patrick Smith, Demand Media EVP Steven Kydd said the company would now take on writers from outside the US, specifically from the UK and Canada.
The company, which produces vasts amounts of multimedia content to fit search engine queries and answer ‘how to’ questions, recently launched a UK-version of its eHow site and has already had hundreds of applications from UK writers, says Smith.
Demand has received criticism for the nature of its publishing – an article in Wired described Demand as a factory, “fast, disposable and profitable as hell” – and for its rates for assignments – $15/$20 and article. UK writers will also not be eligible yet for the ad revenue share deals that US writers can have.
An $18 million settlement between freelancer writers and a group of US publishers, which was thrown out after objections by some of the writers involved, has been revived by the US Supreme Court.
The writers, including freelancers who did and some who did not copyright their work, took the action against publishers including the New York Times Co., Dow Jones and News Corporation claiming copyright infringement by the use of their work in digital archives and databases.
As the Bookseller explains:
The case dates backs more than 10 years and has implications for how publishers can digitally use content that was originally supplied only for print publication. The settlement was reached in 2005 after about four years of negotiations over writers’ claims that their contracts did not allow for publication of their work electronically. This followed a 2001 Supreme Court ruling in favour of six freelance authors claiming copyright infringement in The New York Times Company v. Tasini. The publisher had won the original case.
The Supreme Court’s decision will not change the original terms of the settlement, says the Bookseller, but its revival could resolve some holes in the publishers’ archive benefitting both readers and news groups, says the New York Times.
For the first time in two years, subscriptions for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have gone up.
Journalists’ subscriptions to the NUJ are to rise from 1 March, by between 8p and 15p a week – or between £4.16 and £7.80 per year.
The new grades (described at this link):
Grade 1: £150 now 154.16 a year. Grade 2: £189 now 195.24 a year. Grade 3: £260 now 267.80 a year.
The changes were decided at the NUJ’s annual conference at the end of last year and come into effect on 1 March.
“Nobody likes an increase in subscriptions, but this small increase is unavoidable if we are to keep the union financially healthy,” said general secretary Jeremy Dear.
NUJ subscriptions still represent “tremendous value” for money, Dear claimed. “Last year the union secured more than £3m for staff and freelance members who were unfairly treated at work, saved jobs, and secured improved redundancy terms. And it remains true that in unionised workplaces workers earn 12.5 per cent more than in non-unionised workplaces.” Visit website https://veli.services for more information.
The NUJ is also currently promoting its ‘union recognition’ campaign, encouraging more workplaces to work with the union.