Newscoma

Southern Beale breaks down the freelance business …

In my 15 years as a freelancer, no outlet has ever paid me additional money for the added benefit of putting my stories online. That is expected to be part of the deal. When I sell a story, I’m selling away my rights, and they can put it on the web, in a book, or on a billboard on the moon, and I see no more than the paltry sum I was paid when I first turned my piece in. But they can charge people to read it all they want.

In other words: newspapers like the New York Times expect to profit off of their internet readership by charging for online content. But content generators–writers–rarely see one penny of that money.

Even worse are those online outlets which now expect us to make a living at the going rate of $3-$5 for a 300-500 word blog post. Unbelievable!

I recently spoke to a journalist from Memphis that the best business model to make money on the innertubes for writers is that we are going to have to throw out everything we know and start over. I realize I’m Captain Obvious here, but in four years of blogging and other years working in journalism/broadcasting, what we have done hasn’t worked.

We just are going to have to figure it out, but damn if it isn’t disheartening.

The words are powerful.

I have no words, quite frankly, about this story from Jacksonville, Fla.

A Jacksonville woman who said she is Jesus Christ’s wife was charged with fraud Monday when she tried to purchase a car with a bad check.

Emma Kim-Tashis Harrison, 25, walked into the Coggin Pontiac dealership on Blanding Boulevard looking for some new wheels. She settled on a vehicle that cost almost $70,000, but things hit a snag when she grabbed her checkbook, according to a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office arrest report.

A representative from a bank in California informed the dealership’s financial manager that the account Harrison supplied was bad.

So were the names on the check. It was signed “Mr. and Mrs. Jesus and Emma Christ.”

Now, you’ve come this far so you have to read the whole thing and it’s a must to read the last line of the story.

I’m just saying people.

“Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine.”

When I was a kid, my grandfather who I called Dee, requested (aka made) me watch the Watergate hearings. And at night, we watched Walter Cronkite recap the days events.

I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house in Dresden when I was a child. Homer and I would come home after school and usually my grandmother, Mable (see a coincidence here) usually had Days of Our Lives. My grandfather worked for the Post Office and he was a bit of a news junkie. Watching Cronkite at night was a given. We knew that his face would grace the screen for 30 minutes at night.

I saw on Twitter last night some of the younger (ahem) people I follow writing about how they knew of the legend of Cronkite but had never really seen him except as a history lesson in journalism. I slept on that and realized this morning that’s exactly how I knew Edward R. Murrow.

Those trusted figures defined television news in a time when credibility wasn’t sought but it just was. Cronkite didn’t yell at us like some anchors do these days. He didn’t pontificate. He told of us men walking on the moon, he reported from his simple newsdesk at CBS about Vietnam and defining times that set in our minds even today the path of this country. He was more than an anchor as he had also been a correspondent before he took the desk. He knew he was there to report the story and not to pontificate about it.

Cronkite had grace. We trusted him and he worked hard for that trust by being transparent. He was never a part of any one story, like you see today. He was just the guy who gave us the news as he knew it.  And we believed him.

But Cronkite will always remind me of my grandfather, who died before Cronkite retired, and who watched him everyday without fail. He was revered by generations that watched him and I find that those people who came later realized that he had something special.

What was special about this humble man was he just told us the news of the day and he perfected respected journalism.

He set standards without even trying.

As the celebrity death cull continues in Aught Nine, his death was not unexpected but it cuts nonetheless.

For so many of us, he was our Uncle Walter and his death and integrity leaves a powerful dark hole in this country.

There is so much here that I just can hardly stand myself.

Let’s recap:

• Mark Sanford is about the douchiest guy that I’ve seen in a long time. His wife, however, was pretty cool by telling him to “Suck It” even though she says she believes in forgiveness. That whole soul mate thing was ridiculous and I’ll even go as far as saying that his little governor had no idea that being a hypocrite can get you in a world of trouble despite those pesky words he said in his campaign ad. Yet, dude isn’t going to resign.
• HOWEVER, Sarah Palin will.  I’m not going to throw her on a pyre here but I will say that I’m not getting it, her press conference was brain cell reducing and let’s not forget that members of the McCain team threw a very weird, oddly-timed curve ball this week. Why did they bring up the train wreck aspect now of her role in the election last year? I don’t know but most folks I know like the underdog role, but not the roll of a leader quitting. There has to be more to this than meets the eye.
• I don’t want to speak ill of the dead but let’s face it, Michael Jackson was a very rich junkie. I am suffering Michael Jackson Death Fatigue.  Can I get medication to treat that because Lord knows Jackson had doctors hopping him on goof balls every fifteen minutes. In other news, I had no idea that Jackson had a kid named Blanket.
• Al Franken is now a Senator. This might be fun to watch.
• This grosses me out more than I can say in words. The Washington Post needs it’s butt kicked and that’s all I have to say on that.
• North Korea. We get it. You are firing missiles on Independence Day. Again.

Oh, there was more. The news this week was a good old fashioned bus plunge.

From Bob Harris …

CNN trying to look cutting-edge by using Twitter is like 1950s radio trying to look high-tech by describing what’s on TV.

Having worked with battered women and men as domestic violence victims and also with attorneys (which isn’t always fun) for quite awhile before I went back into news (transparency girl here), your latest post sort of perplexes me.

I agree with you on one hand that two parents are GREAT. I had two of them, they dug each other, fought some, raised us and the like. I will say it wasn’t always Disney, but it wasn’t bad.

A two-parent family that is healthy is very groovy, and I have to say in a perfect world, what you are saying is a lovely idealogical oasis. But it’s not always reality and your bills seem to be very blaming to ALL women.

Why?

It’s a simple question and a political response would not work for me. A human response would suffice not to me, but to all parents would be great.

To let government decide that everyone should have mandatory joint custody is just, well, not good for every kid. Each case is different. Parents, no matter what their gender, need to be evaluated on an individual basis. You are talking money again and not parenting.

Less government, dear. Isn’t that the message you have preached? Less government. I think both men and women should be taken into consideration. There are excellent fathers and excellent mothers.

Your legislation doesn’t reflect that in the least.

You said:

All the bills were on shared parenting. The bill says men and women walk into child custody hearings on equal footing and the judge decides custody that is best for the child from there. No one is superior purely because of their sex. Currently 95% of contested custody cases go to the woman. Even when abuse is not part of the equation at all that number holds true. Where possible, reasonable, wanted and in the best interest of children that should be the case. The single parent household is killing the development of children. While not always the case you can look at about any study and the single parent household will rank at the top as a factor or common denominator for a child’s failure. Both parents are important to the life and development of the child and not just as a wallet.

My emphasis in bold, not Rep. Campfield’s.

You are contradicting yourself from your very words two week ago.

Maybe not. It all seems weird.

In a perfect world, a two-parent home would be idealistic except you tend to talk about money a lot and not kids. Shared parenting is great in a healthy environment , but I’m not getting that from researching your bill. I don’t have kids either, but I do have nieces I’m partially responsible for. I am very much a part of their lives and am with them every single day. I make mistakes but I love them. I also would like to add that most of the folks in my immediate family with kids are not divorced. I wish to be transparent once again.

How is your legislation going to impact me one of these days as an aunt? Just asking. How about an uncle?

I’m just speculating here.

And, I don’t disagree with you on nuclear families. Some men are better parents. They are. But the law is vague now as is yours, and you bring up the percentage rate among mothers. What you write goes from one degree to the other and is not about reality, but about perceptions about reality.

Haven’t judges had this right already? Wait, they have, Skippy. Laws are in place already, but you just want to create new ones?

(more…)

A quick question for you regarding this post at Kleinheider’s abode.

What does this mean? Seriously. I’m a huge fan of verification and I think this is something you need to address. I’ll reserve judgment until you make a statement, but I’m just wondering. Apparently the Associated Press confirmed information about Bill Freeman but I want to hear from you about it.

You see, I don’t know what to think about it but there is a part of me that doesn’t like it very much. I understand money and all, and I also know a lot of business people donate to both sides of the aisle because they feel like it gives them leverage including Gov. Ned McWherter, but it still doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Average folks don’t have that kind of money just to toss around. They do, however, have time which is also valuable. That time has to be earned though. You know that.

Also, regarding your Twitter account, could you please follow the members of the blogosphere back. It appears you are just following Tennessee politicians and, you know this, you already know what they are saying. I realize the political people don’t like communication, but it’s sort of necessary in this day and age.

And, with that said, please don’t be all PR guy. Answer the tough questions as well as the softball lobs.

Thanks,

‘Coma

There are some things that I just do not understand and one of those things is people who beat up little kids.

Last week we received word that a child had been flown to Le Bonheur in Memphis after being kicked in the stomach. Pictures of the child were sent to cell phones in the area, including mine, and in a word, it was disgusting.

The child’s GI tract had to be removed from the intestinal damage created through the beating. This little girl is 3-years-old.

I was writing the story yesterday, calling my contacts to check on her well-being (I won’t lie, I was wondering if she survived the weekend) and it washed over my chief staff writer and I just how horrible it is to remain detached while writing articles of this nature. Yeah, we are supposed to be all tough and crap, but as I sat listening to how they couldn’t sew the child back up after her first operation and how she will never really be healthy, I had to sort of retreat into that place we all go to when something upsets us deeply.

Wanna know why she was beaten? I’ll tell you anyway. She wet the bed and dropped an orange juice. She pissed off her mom’s boyfriend and he admitted he became angry and lost his temper.

Losing your temper is throwing your wallet, it’s not beating a little kid.

After the paper went to bed, I went to see some of my local bromances (yes, women can have them as well as men) and just stared for awhile. There was a lot of laughter, Dirk Diggler made fun of my cooking skills (he just needs to be my personal cook) and folks were having a good time. I tried to lose myself as folks were raising about two types of hell because these people tend to always cheer me up but I finally just went on home. They were a hoot but I just had things on my mind. And it’s not like you can go up to your friends and say “Yeah, I saw a kid who was sliced open from neck to stomach and it makes me want to barf. Oh yeah, they couldn’t sew her back up. Yeah, she is going to require about a gazillion more surgeries. How was your day?”

I knew if I started talking about it, I just might not be able to stop. You know what I mean.

I couldn’t shake the image of this kid.

Yes, sometimes these things stay with you. You try to get it out of your head but you can’t.

The perpetrator confessed. He waived his rights and he admitted beating this child. He’s in jail on a $150,000 bond. He’s standard range one offender, so he will get some time for his crime but probably not a lot. But what about the kid. This child who will never get to be a child as more surgeries are scheduled. The mother of the child was also charged because she didn’t seek her daughter medical treatment for five days.

There really aren’t any easy answers to things of this nature, just a glimpse into my cranium and what goes on sometimes in the newsroom.

I’m headed to Nashville today to attend the Online News Association’s Journalism Has A Future conference.

The conference will feature some of the best and brightest from around the state working in the news business.

It’s probably a good thing I’m headed to Nashville for the day. Here in Hoots, there is no bread, I had to go to five different places to find a gallon of milk last night and every hotel room is booked with folks who have come down from Kentucky. We found out that most of the hotels to Jackson are booked with people escaping the storm from as far as Mayfield, Murray and Paducah.

Lines of cars were at nearly every gas station yesterday. One woman at a local convenience store told me yesterday that the store’s supply trucks come from Paducah, which is going to make things ticky if they can’t get down and resupply their stores with supplies and gasoline.

Even Squirrel Queen’s mother has been without electricity for days (she does have heat.)

And, on the other hand, yesterday Editor Bates and I were dealing with one of the nastiest child abuse cases I’ve ever seen. For me, that’s saying a lot, because I used to work in victims’ assistance with battered women and children.

Why I need a conference like the one up above came into play yesterday as we found out pictures of the child, who is in Le Bohneur in Memphis, are circulating throughout the community with folks sending cell phone pictures of the little girl on a ventilator.

The photos went to hundreds of people. It currently sits in my cell phone as well.

This is a new one to me, I have to tell you, although I’m not surprised.

This kid is in a coma after being beaten for bed wetting and has already had four operations this week including the removal of her GI tract. Her entire internal system is destroyed. The perp is in jail on a $150,000 bond on felony assault charges. Yes, he confessed. Asshat.

Last night, I was feeling very stabby about who could do that to a child.

I won’t be in Nashville long enough to visit some of my blogger buddies as I have to get back to Hoots, but I am looking forward to the conference.

From Overheard In The Newsroom:

Guy 1: “This isn’t a news meeting, this is Journalists Anon.”

Guy 2: “Hi, my name is ___ and I’m a journalist.”

Guy 1: “How long have you been clean and sober?”

Guy 2: “I just told you, I’m a journalist.”

And this:

“Didja hear about the Lindbergh baby?”

Copy editor to colleague hopelessly behind on the news cycle.

Brilliant.

And overheard in mine today:

EditorBates: The county commission tabled the Reasonable Charges resolution last night.

Me: Get out! (I did my happy dance. Yes, I have a happy dance. Shut up.)

EditorBates: (grinning) I knew they had read our story. A couple of them (the commissioners) were eyeballing me.

Me: (laughing) Good!

High Fives in Hoots were plentiful amongst editorial staff and then we went back to business and waited on the ice to come.

I won’t even get into the gallows humor we’ve developed. It’s on a need-to-know basis.

When I started in news in Hoots, it was somewhat of a booming time. Ned McWherter was governor, manufacturing jobs were booming, agribusiness was in a good place and life was groovy. Several of the local media coming from as far as Murray, KY to Dyersburg would meet in Hoots Central every Thursday at the local Pizza Hut.

We called ourselves the Muckrakers. We even had a theme song and would occasionally throw some wild parties that would probably have freaked out the locals if they had known about them.

My friend, Leslie, who was head of PR at a regional company at the time, and I were reminiscing about this yesterday because it was a part of our lives that we remember fondly.

We would swap stories about the news in each of our towns, tease each other unmercifully, debate over politics good naturedly (despite what you might thing, I was the only liberal of the bunch) and pontificate. Sure, we would gossip. We would swap out stories. It was our version of the Algonquin Round Table and we reveled in it. It was a lot of fun. We got to know each other and we were young and carefree, believing that the world was ours.

Then life went on. The Commercial Appeal eliminated it’s northwest Tennessee writer (who is now in Chicago who unabashedly had a foot fetish that we would give him unmitigated hell over and yes, he was fascinated with my size 6 tiny foot), the Jackson Sun guy was sent back to Jackson, the Kentucky folks got out of news for better paying jobs and after several glory years there just wasn’t anybody else to muck it up with.

We had all moved on. The Muckrakers were, alas, no more. Younger journalists who moved into the area were different that we were. They really didn’t care about the camaraderie that we had created.

Life goes on. Things phase in and out but, damn, it was fun while it lasted.

I realized late yesterday that I am the last of that crew still in news.

I was reminded of The Muckrakers yesterday as I watched OJ sentenced for armed robbery over a hamburger steak at Cadillacs where Leslie, EditorBates and I had lunch.

An example of how we clicked had to do with that I was the only person in Hoots at the time in news who had an AP wire. When OJ Simpson did his infamous Broncho ride, several of us sat at the radio station one Friday night (I was news director back in the day) watching each update come on the computer which was beeping like no body’s business. (If you have ever been around a wire back then, and they may still do it, they have an annoying beep for AP breaking news.)

Yesterday, when OJ was sentenced for a completely different crime, I was reminded of the Mucks. How we sneaked a six-pack of beer into the newsroom on that Friday night, smoking cigarettes in my tiny office which wasn’t allowed by the brass and followed the ongoing police chase in LA until he surrendered.

Yeah, I’m the sole remaining working member of the Muckrakers. It was a different time. Seriously, I was the only one with the wire but now everyone has one just by logging into their computer. I do this as well.

I’m showing my age here, aren’t I?

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