by Clyde T. Linsley, AIW Board Member
For the past few years I’ve been writing fiction almost exclusively, but most of my 40-some-odd years as a professional writer were spent writing nonfiction. And mostly, it was journalistic writing.
I wrote for newspapers, radio, television, I edited magazines, and I wrote for various web sites. Nearly all of this writing was journalistic in nature. I still follow developments in the field, with an eye toward maybe returning to it at some point.
Lately, I’ve been wondering: Will there be anything to return to? (To which to return?)
Last year my alma mater, the Missouri School of Journalism, celebrated its centennial. Since it was the first school of journalism in the world, the celebration was a Big Deal. I attended.
During the nearly week-long festivities, the school held a seminar on future technology. A number of entrepreneurs described, and demonstrated, a number of new approaches to delivering information to consumers in a digital age. Some, I thought, were half-baked. Some held genuine promise. But they all lacked what seemed to me an essential ingredient: Money.
Oh, there was money, or at least the promise of money. Entrepreneurs don’t get involved in a project that doesn’t show potential profits somewhere down the line. But the economic potential of all these projects was based on the widespread belief that their raw materials – their content – were free.
You can see how they reach that conclusion. On the internet, content looks free. I can read The Washington Post online without spending a dime. Same for The New York Times and for dozens – probably hundreds – of other newspapers. Television stations and broadcast networks have all established web sites, which carry news stories. Magazines routinely place much of their content online. All the web portals have links to news stories. All of it free.
Except, of course, it isn’t.
The news has to come from somewhere. Right now, it comes mostly from newspapers and news services – such as the Associated Press – created to serve newspapers. If newspapers die out, as they seem to be, where will that content come from?
This could be a tremendous opportunity for freelancers, or it could be a catastrophe. Right now, I’m inclined to bet on the latter.
These techno-geek guys have grown accustomed to the idea that content is, if not free, at least a negligible expense, like the cost of acquiring a domain or a new piece of software. If we’re lucky, they’re in for a rude awakening. If they’re not, well . . .
Newspapers understand that they have to spend money to produce their product, but the internet has made most of those production costs irrelevant.
And the cost of producing content could become irrelevant, too. When I started in journalism, many smaller newspapers (and even a few big ones) relied heavily on unpaid “correspondents,” who rarely left home. They would write weekly or monthly columns that reported on which of their neighbors took a cruise to Bermuda, when the first robins of spring were spotted in the trees, or when the first crocuses appeared. The more adventurous souls among them might report that two members of the town council had resorted to fisticuffs in a dispute over a zoning matter, or publish the municipal leaf-collection schedule.
Some of this stuff was interesting. Most of it was crap. The publishers didn’t care. It was content, and it was free. I call this indifference to quality the “warm body” disease, and it is more widespread than H1N1. And it spreads faster.
Let’s face it: Nearly everybody thinks he can write. After all, it’s the first thing they teach us in school. And, of course, everybody could write, if they were prepared to spend the time and effort required to do so. Not many are willing to do that, especially if they can get by with less.
Bad money, they say, drives out good. I’m afraid we’re about to find out if no money will even drive out bad.
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Clyde T. Linsley has been a full-time freelance writer since 1986. He served two terms as president of WIW during the nineties. He is the author of four published mystery novels.
