Though it’s been eight months since I actually launched the crowdfunding for my book (and then wrote about how it was going), it seems to have kicked up a new firestorm of discussion over the past weekend. Much of it began on Twitter; then a few people wrote up blog posts covering it. I only discovered the discussion after it was well underway (evidently I’m difficult to track down online, and not much of a conversationalist anyways, heh), so the last few days have been spent correcting factual errors and offering catch-up insight as to why I believe so deeply in this model. I’m hoping now to sum up a few of the arguments I’ve made elsewhere, but moreso I’d like to pull back and look at some big picture issues.
For background, here are the series of posts that sum up the first discussions on Twitter, and subsequent responses:
There seem to be two sets of argument made against crowdfunding in much of the discussion I’ve seen: one, it reveals the funding seeker as a shameless self-promoter and snake-oil salesperson; two, it destroys the ethos of publishing either by allowing publishers to never have to produce advances again, or by allowing just any ol’ work to be produced without blood/sweat/tears.
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We touched on so many different angles of the changing media landscape during yesterday’s roundtable on GRITtv that my brain really got going on a bunch of tangents and points that I’m hoping to synthesize here.
1. On foreign correspondents: John MacArthur (publisher of Harper’s) made reference to the fact that they have a reporter on the ground in Iran doing some pretty intense work for Harper’s, and that it costs money to keep him sustained. I’m sure that it does. However, it made me wonder a couple of things–using this case as a jumping off point, not as a target itself necessarily–namely, is the best journalism in a situation like what we’re seeing in Iran produced by an American (presumably white) man? (Even if the person in question “speaks Farsi and has an Iranian wife.”) Not that this would save the magazine any money, but couldn’t we be thinking less about foreign correspondents and more about using local journalists/citizens to aid with not just reporting, but contextualizing the events?
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I’m excited to head upstate next week, back to some old stomping grounds in Ithaca, NY. I’m participating in the Park Center for Independent Media’s symposium, and I’ll be presenting with David Mathison some thoughts on rapid response and journalism via social networking tools like Twitter. Yippie! It’ll also be good to see a bunch of friends and colleagues — Roberto Lovato (who is putting his faith in my Dunkin-Donuts-fueled driving skills, bless his heart), Tracy Van Slyke, Robert Greenwald, David Cohn, Amanda Michel… the list goes on and on.
Then a day or two of downtime with the parents while I’m in the neighborhood, which always does the soul some good. But alas, it’ll be back to the city to resume apartment hunting madness. Anyone have any leads on a dog-friendly 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn?
Well, well, well… it’s all the rage for these 15 seconds, but Time has basically crowned “Web 2.0″ the official whiz-bang-iess thing out there right now. It’s all about you and me, and what we do with ourselves online these days. I read a really great post over at Read/Write Web dissecting what Time got right, and what they got terribly wrong… man, this is such a strange media moment.
Brian Williams, the darling of NBC, had this to say:
We work every bit as hard as our television-news forebears did at gathering, writing and presenting the day’s news but to a smaller audience, from which many have been lured away by a dazzling array of choices and the chance to make their own news.
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Due to some technical complications and a short-circuited brain unit, I just found out that Brad Will was the journalist who was shot dead at the protests in Oaxaca, Mexico on Friday.
Brad taught me about white balance on my camera, how to walk slowly enough to not mess up your picture, and to always point the mic at what you’re shooting. He was earnest and spirited — a wide smile and a big heart. He believed, and dedicated his life to showing others the truth.
More from Jason, and the AP report with quotes from Beka and Brandon.
News on vigils and protests, and latest reports: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/bradleywill/archive.html
“Love is a memory that never fades. May memories be your comfort.” — anonymous
