Dave Eggers: Still Not The Real Enemy!
I am merely going to note the volume at which I exclaimed "Oh my GOD" while reading this Onion interview with Dave Eggers, regarding his publication, the San Francisco Panorama. (Earlier, we published some speculation and suppositions regarding that one-time paper's own business model-by the way, since then, we've heard that many people who worked on it were not paid at all.)
• To me, the print business model is so simple, where readers pay a dollar for all the content within, and that supports the enterprise. * [Um, also, ads.]
• We've lost that very simple transaction that's so pure, where a reader can say, "I support what you're doing, here's my dollar. I know that you guys are gonna be watchdogs or keep the government accountable, so here's my 50-cent contribution each day. ** [Nostalgia renders the past unrecognizable.]
• Instead of running a wire story about Afghanistan, we knew a guy going to Afghanistan, J. Malcolm Garcia, and we said, "Okay, send us something when you're done." And he sent us something, and it doesn't even cost that much, because he was going anyway. ******** [Screams]
• I think there's great value to the Associated Press and to Reuters, too, but if you wanted to generate original content, maybe written by local writers, it just takes a little bit of openness to open your pages up to a wider freelance writer pool, and then you might find new voices and a wider array of voices, and definitely more original content that can't be found anywhere else. All that wire stuff, that's free, and I don't think you're gonna put that genie back in the bottle. ** [??? Actually the AP does this thing where they charge people to run their stories?]
• My respect for everyone that works at every daily, especially those that send it off at night, is just through the roof, because if they have four or five errors a day, it's pretty remarkable, given how many moving parts there are. [This is a very good point and nicely made!]
• The paper-based media really has to work within a rational scale, and if they do, they'll be fine. There's plenty of room, people really care, there are magazines that people will fight to hold onto. You might not be able to operate your own LearJet and have an unlimited expense account, but if you have a reasonable expectation for a print-based product, whether it's a newspaper or a magazine, you can certainly exist. [A totally excellent point, very well put!]
Holy shit I am reading What is the What RIGHT NOW.
YOU PEOPLE ARE STALKING ME.
Oh my god, does he really think the AP is free content? NOT HELPFUL.
And I don't think a single one of our local newspaper readers is making any sort of offering to watchdog journalism. They just want obits and grocery store sale inserts.
I think his point is that AP content is now so ubiquitous on the internet to be free to end users.
Still annoyed overall. I wonder when was the last time he bought a new record. These niche physical media industries are becoming almost entirely by and for people in those industries.
That's how I read it too. (The AP's recent stinks about Google probably contributed to Eggers' perception of such. Although doesn't Google license the AP's content for its newswire? Has that arrangement ended since I stopped blogging full-time?)
The comments on this article are actually worth reading for both their fact-checking and anecdotes about working in the local-journalism trenches. One reporter made $11.65 an hour after working at his local paper for four years!
"It'd be an ideal system if we kept Tweeters onboard planes to monitor passengers with explosive shorts."
He is downright Palin-esque in his simplicity.
To paraphrase Charlie Brown: How can he lose when he's so sincere?
I tried to do my part to support Eggers and his simple business model but there's not a slot for change on the computer I'm using. I even tried printing the interview, but the dollar kept coming back out with only part of the words of the article printed on it. Why would they do this? Doesn't the entire premise of the model rest on them keeping the dollar in exchange for the whole article? Or is it just like a rental thing? Eventually I just printed it out using regular paper and left the dollar on top of the printer. I guess they send someone around to collect the money later?
Hmmm, might be obvious, but I'll still state it: To my knowledge none of Dave Egger's projects have ever been stable business models in and of themselves and their funding is based on a combination of his inheritance from his parents tragic death and fundraising on a project-by-project basis.
So he's lecturing the publishing industry from what vantage point exactly?
Nothing says newsprint is dead more than a massively subsidized one-shot art piece of literature.
Now if he could take these ideas and apply them into some kind of forward thinking model (ie: ONLINE) then I would appreciate the thoughts.
I think what happened is he made a bunch of trips to Sudan, and every time the only in-flight movie was "Pay It Forward".
(giggling)
"Any given city, certainly in San Francisco, there's something like 50,000 writers*, probably, in the metropolitan area, so to assign freelance work for them is no huge feat."
Yes Dave yes. Get out and cover those bumpers. We had an overflow in the laundromat. Where can I send my article?
*And by the way THERE ARE 700,000 WRITERS in San Francisco.
Dave Eggers:Newspapers::Kevin Costner:Postmen (i.e., institutions require more than your boundless sentimentality about them in order to work)
"Information wants to be free" = "Money wants to stay in my pocket."
From the consumer point of view, yes, probably. But my sense is that this isn't so much the case with Eggers, which maybe is what's informing his oversentimental naive responses.
But what do I know? Maybe all of the charity, tutoring centers, and money shoveled into unprofitable publishing experiments are just a front to obscure a bottomless pit of greed.
To quote 30 Rock:
"I'll have you know that Barry Diller and I are working on a whole new approach to media, combining all the digital… God! just let me drink. …"
The Learning Annex – San Francisco New Classes
1) "Know a Guy:" Publishing Print Profitability in the Post-Print Age
It has never been easier to start a print publication from home. There are unlimited opportunities in today's post-print economy. Put the purity back in the simple transaction where readers pay a dollar for all the content you put within. And you can have your paper up and running within a year for less than $1,000 all through a simple plan to "Know a Guy."
Instructor: Dave Eggers
I still love the guy. His sincerity is pure.
Fundamentally, I agree.
I think his point was that you can reinvigorate reporting with voice and a little idiosyncratic content, to rescue it from the generic newspaper-speak that has become ubiqitous (thanks, J-schools!) and turned newspaper reading from something to be looked forward to to a chore, the way a bran muffin has replaced a cinnamon bun.
I think his argument is a good one and right on the money. But the paper wasn't. The story on water was very good.The bridge story was a mess, and it claimed to offer new information when it just seemed to be alarmist about public info and SOP for public projects. The rest of it was so-so at best.
The larger issue is did the S.F. Panorama reach out to folks outside of the folks who are already interested in the issues covered? Or was it more heartfelt preaching to the converted?
It's like "An Inconvenient Truth"… Did anyone see that who didn't already believe global warming was an issue? Heck I didn't see it explicitly because I didn't want to pay $10 to be lectured on the dangers of global warming; you got me! I believe it!
Publishing can come back if someone does something like the Panorama but actually targets it to group and folks who would not normally read something like that.
I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" on a bus from Hanover, NH, to Boston. That left at 6 a.m. Now THAT is presumptive preaching to the converted; i.e., white people in Patagonia fleeces.
That guy needs a new death in the family stat.
what a downright horrible thing to say.
but funny. i LOL'd.
So essentially the only thing that can REALLY save print journalism is The Daily Mirror, c. 1970?
Even better: The Big Issue! Future of journalism: saved.
I love the comments generated by a cut-and-paste article with one-sentence comments about ANOTHER article.
The future of journalism is not actually doing an interview, or going to a place, but just commenting on someone else's comments on how they did that stuff. It will be like the 2nd Enlightenment.
well yes. there is that.