Via Reuben Abraham

We all want to make more than a buck, we want our work to mean something. But to connect with editors who make the final decisions on what will appear in their publications and who will produce that content is no easy feat. Laurel Touby of Mediabistro.com has begun a new service that proposes to connect freelancers to those editors. There is a fee, of course. But should it work, it could shake up the way the business of journalism is conducted. Perhaps now, the cream will indeed rise to the top.

Freelance journalism

Spike seeks copy
Aug 5th 2004 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

A journalistic problem solved?

BEING a staff journalist is bad enough, with its brutal deadlines and brutal editors. As for being a freelance hack-well, a lucky few may be famous enough to pick and choose the best assignments and file at leisure, but most freelancers live a lonely life of constantly rejected story pitches in which brutalised copy counts as a triumph. And while there is many a newspaper or magazine editor who dreams of unearthing that freelance gem he truly believes is out there, most of the young (and not so young) hopefuls that phone constantly and fill his inbox cannot tell one end of a story from the other.

Thankfully, a solution to this wretched problem may now be at hand, thanks, inevitably, to the internet. After all, if the web can help two isolated hearts find love, or connect the owner of an unwanted garden gnome with someone keen to buy it, surely it can help an editor find the freelancer of his dreams-and vice versa.

Officially launched this week in New York, the Freelance Marketplace is an online forum where freelance journalists, photographers, illustrators and graphic designers can, they hope, network with editors. For a fee of
$14-19 a month or $149-175 a year, a freelancer can post a bio, details of his experience, and clips and other work samples. The site is not unlike dating websites such as Friendster and match.com, as the bios can
have a distinctly personal flavour. Some users have posted pictures of themselves, and one seemingly serious journalist has posted a picture of her dog.

Freelancers are ranked in terms of recent clippings and relevant experience. Most seem to be highly qualified-many of them are presumably the victims of recent cullings of staff jobs. Editors can search for contributors by region, experience and specialty. Ellen Piligian, a Detroit-based reporter, was approached to write a regional piece “out of the blue” by Seventeen Magazine soon after signing up.

The marketplace is the latest creation of Laurel Touby, a former reporter and (still) compulsive networker who, in the dotcom boom, founded Mediabistro, a website for media folk that now has 270,000 members and a much-used jobs bulletin board. Ms Touby, who says that Mediabistro made its first profit last year, expects 100,000 freelancers to join the site (www.mediabistro.com/fm) within two years. Her big challenge will be to get those brutal editors to take a look.

Copyright 2004 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

I am at the UNITY2004 convention in Washington, D.C. this week. 7000 journalists of all hues have assembled here.

My blog posts will be shorter than usual. I am standing in one of the great halls of the Washington Convention Center where the Job Fair is taking place. Two stacks of computers in the hall allow journalists to check emails and post stories. Will have a recap of what I have seen and done tomorrow.

Off to a party that is being thrown by ESPN.

Henri Cartier-Bresson is dead at 95.

Join Phil Borges, photographer Amanda Koster and the amazing children of Takaungu for an unforgettable workshop in digital storytelling. In this workshop our goal is to get past the “grab shot” and find a way to use our photography to creat images that tap into the spirit of those we photograph, while at the same time imparting meaningful skills to the communities we work in.

“We had an immediate connection with the children, and had access to their community in ways I never thought possible. It is such a gift to feel welcomed and connected to the people in a place you're visiting, and to combine travel, photography and volunteering.” Karen Church, Tibetan Children's Village Workshop, Dharamsala, India

Building effective commmunity relationships in remote and beautiful locations is the hallmark of Bridges workshops. The strength of Kenya's coastal history, its trading ports, its centuries-old Arab-Muslim influence, and its beaches make this Bridges workshop a rare chance to explore the rich landscape of the Kenyan Coast. You will work with internationally renowned photographers and students in the local community, taking your personal work to the next level while empowering a new generation of storytellers.

You will challenge your photographic skills in a new environment, develop familiarity with digital imaging at all levels, and build meaningful relationships with the communities you visit by engaging students in their own documentary work. Opportunities for remarkable image making will present themselves every day of this two-week workshop.

Dates: October 5-21, 2004
Cost: $3,475 includes workshop fee plus all in-country travel, lodging and most meals.
For more information click this, or call Kathy at (206) 275-3247

Via Mark Kramer

Online registration for this year's Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism at Harvard is now open.

Read The Narrative Journal to get a sense of what took place at last year's conference. It's always great to see a photojournalist included. This year Molly Bingham will be present. I hope I can take some time off of work to go check it out. Students should contact Mark Kramer (click on his name above) to see if they can register for a reduced price if they volunteer their time.

The conference gathers a thousand savvy, mid-career journalists (editors, reporters, book writers, radio and TV documentary-makers) who choose from among seventy-five keynotes, breakouts, panel discussions, readings and workshops that explore the narrative process, start to finish. We'll cover such topics as story selection, fieldwork and interviewing, processing reporting notes, drafting and redrafting, working with editors/writers, building narrative teams, coordinating with papers, attracting agents and publishers, ethics, sourcing and reconstruction, and related genres.

Our 45 speakers are among the most experienced writers, editors and teachers in the field, including dozens of Pulitzer and other prize-winners and finalists: Tracy Kidder*, author of “Mountains Beyond Mountains” and other books; Robert Coles*, Medal of Freedom recipient, and author of “Children in Crisis”; and Seymour Hersh*, New Yorker staff writer, as keynoters; joined by Marie Arana, editor of The Washington Post's BookWorld; Adam Hochschild, author of “King Leopold's Ghost” and other books; Molly Bingham, WorldPicture News Agency photojournalist and reporter; Stanley Nelson, award-winning filmmaker and MacArthur “genius”; Jon Franklin*, author of “Writing for Story”; Alma Guillermoprieto, freelancer, New Yorker writer, and MacArthur “genius”; Anne Hull, national correspondent for The Washington Post and four-time Pulitzer finalist; Jay Allison, independent radio journalist and five-time Peabody Award winner; Louise Kiernan*, enterprise reporter for the Chicago Tribune; Jack Hart, managing editor at The Oregonian and editor of two Pulitzer-winning pieces; Jacqui Banasyznski*, AME at The Seattle Times; Tom French*, narrative projects report at the St. Petersburg Times; Dan Barry*, About New York columnist for The New York Times; DeNeen Brown, Canada bureau chief for The Washington Post; and more. *denotes Pulitzer winners

Early registrants and groups of 8+ have lower fees. Our registrants come from most of the major dailies in the USA and Canada, such as The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, The New York Times, ABC News, the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, among many others, and from media in dozens of other nations as well. If this is for you, don't wait long. We sell out earlier each year.

Please forward this note to other interested reporters, editors, writers and film and radio folks, and also print it out and post it in your newsroom.

We hope to greet you in December.

Mark Kramer
Director and Writer-in-residence
Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism
Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University
Walter Lippmann House
1 Francis Ave.
Cambridge MA 02138