Hey President Obama, Spare Any Change?

Experienced, Independent Journalist Seeks Audacious Opportunity to Earn Living Wage.

Attention Barack Obama: journalism needs your help.

In 2008 more than 15,500 journalists were laid off or bought out (or, considering the corporate greed driving much of the cuts, laid out and forcibly bought off), a 700 percent increase over the second half of 2007, according to a running tally on Paper Cuts, a website created by a journalist from the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Considering the state of the state of the American economy, this is merely a drop in the recessionary bucket, but speaking out of admitted self-interest, I'd call it a crucial, wave-making drop.

Before I go any further, let me say that though I've watched with dismay as many of my colleagues and friends have in recent months been kicked out of the corporate nest to join me in the rough, rude world of freelancing, I'm not speaking for anyone but myself. No one told me to say this, no one told me it's a good idea. Lots of people will probably think it's a terrible idea. For the record, it's all mine.

Yes, we're coming to you, Mr. President, hat in hand like everyone else. But before you throw us to the back of the line, hear us out.

Our aspirational society, in order to create a more perfect union, needs journalism. Not gossip, not snark, not uninformed blather that passes for opinion, but good, solid reporting. Investigations, deep features, reporting-driven storytelling. These are the stories that show us who we are, that shape the narrative of our lives and the life of our nation. But it's getting harder to sustain the journalism needed to tell those stories.

I teach journalism at a major university, contribute regularly to a major metropolitan daily, am working on a book for a major publishing house and blog to my heart's content for a highly regarded city blog, as well as for this esteemed outlet. The hours are long and the work is demanding, but it is all exactly what I want to be doing.

There's just one glaring problem: money. The lack of it.

The late, great David Halberstam once described the life of a journalist as a donation to society, and I can abide that, to a point. I never expected to rake in the bucks, only to make enough to contribute my share to the family coffers. It seems a reasonable expectation.

I have a master's degree in journalism. I've been awarded several journalism fellowships -- one to cover the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- and won a few prizes, one for writing about AIDS and another for covering the death penalty. I even landed a (tiny) share of a staff Pulitzer at the LA Times for coverage of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Unfortunately, prizes don't pay the rent. As a freelancer, I get no health benefits, no 401K, no pension, no paid vacation. Only multiple, disembodied bosses whose demands are communicated via email, minus the sympathy and camaraderie that working in a newsroom brings. I can handle all that. I've gotten fairly used to it.

But in recent years, with the advent of blogging, the pay rate for freelance work--always low -- has plummeted. For my work on the Huffington Post, for example, my only pay is the honor of having my material appear on the site. No small matter, mind, you. But still. My journalism take-home pay in 2008 was about the same as that of a Wal-Mart clerk.

As I write this, lots of smart journalism types are working hard to figure out just what, exactly, economically sustainable journalism should and can be. At some point things will settle down and the path will become clear.

For now, we are in desperate need of some major help. As in government cash. Non-profits like ProPublica and the Poynter Institute can't do all the heavy lifting.

There are a few foundations that fund independent journalism projects, but their limited resources enable them to fund only a handful of projects each year, and the need far exceeds the supply. One of the funders, Alicia Patterson, received a record number of applications for its 2009 fellowships. With advertising revenues and subscriptions plummeting and newsprint costs soaring, someone needs to help maintain the infrastructure of American journalism.

Government subsidies for the fourth estate are a touchy subject and will certainly raise concerns (as they should) about censorship and press freedom. But there are models to emulate (NEA, PBS). And serious journalism has managed by and large (with some notable exceptions) to maintain its integrity in the face of significant pressure from advertisers.

How would such funding be structured? It could start out as a pilot program, kicking in immediately after the inauguration. The process could be competitive and project-driven, and the program could be run by an independent entity which would hand out relatively small grants -- $50,000, say -- made to individuals, not institutions. Because if one thing is clear, it is that the future of journalism is tending toward independence, more along the lines of documentary film production than the traditional newsroom model.

Those among us who are dedicated to the work, who have the experience and the desire and the hunger to continue, want a chance to do what we love and keep the stories coming. We don't promise that the stories will be flattering, but we do promise that they will be honest, fair and well-reported.

We can't hang on much longer.

Comments

[Sara Catania - Huffpost Blogger]

It's a sad day in America when porn has its act together to tap into gov funds and journos are out here wringing our hands. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/07/porn-bailout-larry-flynt_n_155878.html

[amandaspake]

Write on, Sara!

For all its strengths, the internet is not only gutting pay and journalistic standards, it's given many young plagiarists the idea that anything they read is free to take for their own "reporting." With copyrights no longer viable protection for the intellectual property of writers, reprint rights (and payment for them ) are going the way of article fees and job security.

The stimulus package we journalists need is a new Federal Writers Project, one part of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The Obama administration has proposed a jobs plan based on rebuilding infrastructure, not unlike the WPA , FDR's jobs program, But the WPA also operated large arts, drama, and media projects. Many of the nation's greatest (then jobless) writers worked in the FWP: Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, John Steinbeck, and many others.

The Federal Writers Project is best-known for its American Guide Series, and its compliation of more than 2000 narrative histories by former slaves. The Guide Series remains most exhaustive encyclopedia of America ever published. And the Slave Narratives provide the only first person accounts of slavery ever written. These documents would have been lost to had it not been to the work of unemployed journalists in the 1930's.

Perhaps the contributions of this era's struggling scribes may be as crucial to the cultural fabric as those of their predecessors in the 1930's...if we survive long enough to tell the compelling story of today's America.

[Sara Catania - Huffpost Blogger]

HuffPost's Pick

Thanks, Amanda. The great sociological study --the one that set the standard of all those that followed -- was "Black Metropolis" by University of Chicago profs. St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton. Their book drew heavily on WPA field work conducted by many then-fledgling writers, including Richard Wright.

[TonyWhiteshoes]

The unrelenting sunami of illiterate stumblebums who post their useless ramblings all over the ether certainly fully underscores your concern for the future of Journalists (with a capitol "J"). A case in point can be found at "The Inquisitr" in a comment about this piece. Reading the article, with its constant errors in grammer and truth, gave my mind the same horrible feeling as when chalk is squealed across a blackboard. Those of us who treasure intelligent, probing, well-written commentary will always need Journalists of your ilk.

[dagdavid]

" . . . . constant errors in grammer and . . . " You might want to try using this word next time - "grammar"

[ForObamaInDallas]

Sweetheart, not just journalism, but in the tech industry as well. *My* personal self interest: bring back tech jobs from overseas. We write better computer programs anyway.

[Sara Catania - Huffpost Blogger]

Last spring my brother in law was sent by Yahoo, his then-employer, to India to train his future replacements. Upon his return he was expected to be on call at all hours to continue the training by phone and Internet. In December he was shown the door, with an hour to pack up his belongings. So, yes, tech is facing some serious downsizing. The difference is that there is still a great deal of money to be made and plenty of work for those who know how to make it. Unfortunately journalism can't make the same claim.

[dagdavid]

You might have to put down your pen and pick up a shovel along with the rest of us.

[Sara Catania - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm ready and willing to shovel with everyone else -- so long as I can write about it later.

[IGNSTHMD]

Im not sure what you mean be serious journalism, but it seems like your well invested in the institution; unfortunately, I can't say I agree with you about professional journalisms integrity though I am still learning about it. I am reading the political economy of media and it is very enlightening to the whos and hows of responsible or rather irresposible media and journalism specifically. You do mention that someone needs to be called on to maintain the infrastructure, I think there is an impass there to discuss accountabililty in professional journalism and it's vector since Upton Sinclair; there there may be feasable reference to alotting resposibilities.

[Sara Catania - Huffpost Blogger]

As in any profession, journalism has its share of scoundrels and profiteers. Partly because there's never been much promise of material reward, most of the dunderheads crash and burn quickly. The vast majority of us are hard-working, dedicated souls.

[IGNSTHMD]

so why the emphasis on "balenced" news when the dedicated lot of journalists are seathing with the truth. I find it hard to believe the majority of journalists, be they so removed from the moneyed faction of the news process, allow this kind of caracaturized and polarized (kind of latent sensationalism) news content to rein the media mainstream without being textured by those that hold the flame of journalistic integrity. Reparations are as close as exemplifiying informative distribution by way of interpolation, organization and contextualization and then the consumate presentation in contrast with the self concerned declaration of balence which precedes the self affirming cognitive funnel we call news media.

[LoRiseAntlers]

Looks like there's gonna be a bunch of really well-educated laborers building roads and bridges.

[SiberianRat]

I'd say that the last 2 paragraphs would be a MUST before I would ask legislators to support funding journalism. The quality of corporate-owned American journalism is shameful, and just as the auto industry is not worth saving in its current state (i.e., it's needs a MAJOR overhaul), the same can be said for the tabloid crud being pumped out on paper and over the airwaves. If you can pull off the last 2 paragraphs, you'd have my support.

[SimplyBkuz]

Amen.

[Sara Catania - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks. I do think that independent journalism is where we're headed -- perhaps some sort of hybrid that does include a degree of monitoring, perhaps a peer review system similar to that of academic journals, though obviously in an accelerated form.

[IGNSTHMD]

seems like newspapers became accredited in the 1920's with the rise of schools of journalism. perhaps a system of accreditation could be created where a coalition of the major schools of journalism not only set the standarts for news production, but act as an intermediary between accredited news sources and government systemic representation agencies. or just make accredited news sources non-profit organizations. or something