Angela Sucich, freelance writer

asucich@hotmail.com
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Writing Blog
I started a blog to capture the "writing moments" that both challenge and help inspire my work as a freelance writer. These are my not-completely-random musings that range from the challenge of finding clients and fair compensation to the question of how much gratuitous self-promotion is necessary for success to the creative use of self-mockery in media industries. Check it out!

March 09

Caught Up in the Web: Pop-up Ads Take Over Print

Now I'm all for mixing media, but seeing the pop-up ad on the mock front page of the LA Times print edition gave me a moment of pause. Sure, this overt selling out to advertise the new Alice in Wonderland film release may compromise the integrity and authority of the LA Times brand as a news source, but if that's not a sign of the times, then the ascendancy of web over print is (as the pop-up print ad demonstrates). Of course, after I spotted the ad on the FishbowlLA blog and after my brief moment of pause, I immediately retweeted and posted the link to Facebook. The irony of my actions does not escape me. Friends and social media followers could only say, "Wow."

Angela Sucich, Freelance Writer
www.angelasucich.com






10:04 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

February 28

The Results Are In: Bloggers Are Making the News

                          

The Society for New Communications Research just released the results of their 2009 survey of journalists’ views on new media technologies and citizen journalism. It may come as no surprise to learn the results: Web 2.0 is becoming increasingly acceptable and even utilized by ostensibly “traditional” journalists. For good or for ill, it seems the role of the journalist is shifting to make room for the blogger.


Research for the “2nd Annual Middleberg/SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World” was conducted between July 2009 and October 2009, and the survey sample included responses from 341 journalists around the world, with 51% from the United States. Comparing the findings to the inaugural 2008 survey, which the SNCR reports as showing “a striking disparity in adoption rates and attitudes about the value of new communications and social media technologies and citizen journalism between the youngest versus the older journalists,” the 2009 data presents growth across all data sets. Here are the 2009 findings:


  • Nearly 70 percent of journalists are using social networking sites, a 28% increase since the 2008 study
  • 48 percent are using Twitter or other microblogging sites and tools, a 25% increase since 2008
  • 66 percent are using blogs
  • 48 percent are using online video
  • 25 percent are using podcasts
  • More than 90 percent of journalists agree that new media and communications tools and technologies are enhancing journalism to some extent

The SNCR also took note of journalists’ increasing utilization of new media and even citizen-generated content (including blogs) in their reporting:

 

Nearly 80 percent of respondents agreed that new media and communications technologies allow them to report with greater accuracy, and 80 percent of journalists believe that bloggers have become important opinion shapers in the 21st century and many are increasingly incorporating citizen-generated media into their reporting.

 

Of course, the SNCR findings may be somewhat influenced by the research methodology: the survey was web-based, and more than 20 percent of those surveyed stated their role as working for online media-only organizations. But the fact is, in an increasingly wired world, bloggers are having an impact on the news. That’s good news for bloggers. Have you started your blog yet?

Read more from the Society for New Communications Research’s “Key Findings From the 2009 Middleberg / SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World” here.



Angela Sucich, Freelance Writer Blogger

www.angelasucich.com

 







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January 26

Do Tablets and E-Readers Portend a Reading Renaissance?

Considering all the speculation over Apple’s new tablet, expected to be announced tomorrow, and concurrent campaigns by Amazon to attract interest (and talent) to its Kindle electronic reader, it seems as though we are on the cusp of a reading renaissance, a new age ushered in by the digitized word. The question is: if such demand actually materializes out of the hype fueled by the Amazon vs. Apple wars, will the reader, not to mention the writer, win out?

Compared with Amazon’s Kindle and other electronic readers, Apple’s highly anticipated multimedia tablet will offer users many more services and features. According to a recent article in the New York Times, it will run the same applications as those on the iPhone and iPod Touch but on a 10-in color display. It will also maintain wireless connection over 3G cellphone networks and Wi-Fi.

Amazon has not been idle either, having reached out to developers of late, inviting them to create apps to sell in their Kindle Store (read more in this recent news release.) But will this focus on extra services and features enhance or distract from the reading experience? Currently, the Kindle’s minimalist style, black-and-white graphics, long battery life and easy-on-the-eyes reading light create a balanced hybrid of traditional print and new digital media. But to attract more readers, Amazon may have to offer them new experiences, even at the risk of alienating existing customers.

Attracting media companies is a different problem. In fact, media companies who get on board with Amazon (or Apple) may face pricing restrictions and loss of revenue as the online sellers intervene in what used to be the publishers’ direct relationships with customers, a problem discussed in a recent Los Angles Times article:

With Amazon, publishers receive 50% of a book's retail cover price, but the Seattle-based online merchant is free to charge whatever it wants -- a fact that has frustrated many publishers who fear the same price erosion that occurred in the music industry when albums began to be sold digitally.

But that’s how money can be made—dividing up albums into individual songs (or in this case, book chapters) to sell, or offering new experiences not possible in print, such as how-to videos to accompany books on cooking, or extra features, like interviews with authors.

Amazon seems to be trying to assuage fears about pricing restrictions while attracting authors and publishers by offering a 70 percent royalty option to those who self-publish through the Kindle Digital Text Platform, specifically 45 percent more than the current rate (25% of list price, net of delivery costs). Amazon’s tactics to grow their digital library and Apple’s launch of new product technology will surely increase demand for the digital devices themselves, and the devices will increase the convenience of reading. But whether that means there will be a bigger market for digital books and articles (Amazon has claimed that digital books outsold their print books on Christmas Day last year)—a market that will actually support the work of authors—has yet to be determined.

Digital publishing might be a good option for an industry which has seen traditional print book sales drop off, but one can’t help but wonder if the slowly growing niche will become as diluted as the quality of writing on the Web, or if authors’ work will be devalued because of price erosion and the cannibalization and selling off of portions of a whole work. But for authors out there who believe there’s always a market for good work, that the good stuff will bubble up, eventually, then now seems like a perfect time to start work on that novel. Or, better yet, a short story.



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November 12

“You Get What You Pay For”: How Much Is the News Worth to Us?


In a recent Columbia Journalism Review editorial (“A Helping Hand: The case for (smart) government support of journalism”), the editors throw their support behind “some creative help from Uncle Sam” to sustain the kind of accountability journalism poised to vanish with the collapse of the omnibus newspapers. Advertisers who once paid inflated rates to reach consumers on a mass scale now have plenty of options, especially with the Internet, and news outlets no longer have the revenue to pay for the rigorous, investigative research that defines should define accountability journalism.

While not in favor of a bailout, the CJR editors argue that government help would not necessarily “compromise editorial integrity and stifle innovation and competition.” They point out that government subsidizing of the press already exists and has since 1792, when legislation established below-cost mail rates for newspapers. They assert that government support in some form would be a better solution for saving journalism than creating paywalls or requiring paid memberships. The public certainly doesn’t seem receptive the idea of paywalls. A mediabistro.com poll that closed last night with 1,682 people participating showed 65% believing that paywalls would “be the beginning of the end” for newspapers, as people would turn instead to free news sources.

Some people may understand the concept of “you get what you pay for,” but those aren’t the only people that professional journalists are trying to reach. Paywalls would further decrease readership levels among populations that need to be exposed to hard news the most: people who believe it’s not really worth their time (or money); people in the grips (and RSS feed) of dogmatic talking heads; people who spend their time following celebrity tweets on Twitter, etc.

 CRJ writers Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson in their October 19 article, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” argue that “more should be done—by journalists, nonprofit organizations and governments—to increase the accessibility and usefulness of public information collected by federal, state, and local governments, to facilitate the gathering and dissemination of public information by citizens, and to expand public recognition of the many sources of relevant reporting.” One idea they propose is for a portion of the yearly telephone surcharge (totaling more than $7 billion) that the Federal Communications Commission uses to underwrite telecom services for rural areas, schools and libraries to be directed into a “Fund for Local News” in support of grant-based local news reporting. Alternatively, fees could be imposed on other commercial communications providers—“fees paid by radio and television licensees, or proceeds from auctions of telecommunications spectrum, or new fees imposed on Internet service providers”—to support their proposed Fund for Local News.

While even CRJ editors have used the term “radical” to describe this part of Downie and Schudson’s proposal, a radical solution might well be in order to retain capable, committed journalists in the demanding field of accountability journalism. We could, of course, continue relying on comedian Jon Stewart to break stories that force people (including media) to account for their actions, or we could actually invest in professional journalists who are trained to inform rather than to entertain. These journalists might have a passion for keeping organizations and agencies accountable through rigorous investigative reporting, but such passion can only reach so far. Before we see them lining the side of the street, holding up “Will Report for Food” cardboard placards, maybe we should ask ourselves how much the news is really worth to us.

Angela Sucich, Freelance Writer, angelasucich.com






10:43 AM GMT  |  Read comments(2)

November 05

Writing Blog: Romanticized Job Postings and Their Candidates

Freelance writers leave no rock unturned when looking for work, and while the search for contract jobs can get tedious, there is fun to be had in scanning the job postings, believe it or not. Case in point: online real estate company Redfin posted a cleverly-composed, albeit idealistic job ad for a writer/brand manager who they hope “can cut through all the baloney in online real estate to say something lively and real about our company, our industry and the whole home-buying process.” They may be asking for “lively and real,” but the ad unsurprisingly constructs an overly romantic portrait of the job itself, as well as a similarly-envisioned candidate. Do you think you might be the kind of literati-blogger they’re looking for? Check it out and see:

About you:
Live to write: like Proust in his cork-lined study.
Fun: storyteller, mesmerist, exhilarator. Your words will be our brand.
Perfectionist: "who" or "whom," "which" or "that"? You sweat the details.
Deep Space 9: you're plugged in to Twitter, Facebook, blogs.
Big-thinker: you see the shape of an idea in a red wheelbarrow and a bunch of chickens.
Truth-teller: you'd never write something untrue just to avoid denting a word or phrase.

About the job:
Writing: every word that goes on our website goes through you – and then out to two million people. You'll also handle monthly newsletters, fun & thought-provoking blog posts, just-the-facts-ma'am press releases.
Research: you dig into a bunch of numbers to understand what's really going on. You interview people in the field, chase down people in the office. Asking questions, sorting out contradictions, checking facts. Columbo. Woodward. Bernstein.
Program management: you'll often be describing something before it exists, in more precise terms than anyone else at Redfin has hitherto attempted. This usually means you'll be part of the team defining our site and our service as we go.
Story-telling: you cook up ideas that we can pitch to the press or develop for our own blog. One of the ways that Redfin asserts its relevance is by having something to say that nobody's ever heard before.
Strategy: you'll work with a startup team of executives on how we build our brand, serve our customers and drive revenue.

Other requirements:
Strong academic record.
Liberal arts degree: we want someone who not only writes clearly and precisely, but has some intellectual interests, and panache too.
Entrepreneurial energy, creativity: in your interview, we'll ask you for three or four ideas on how our website could be better. Come prepared!

Of course, you may be able to put that requisite liberal arts degree to use on the Redfin writer job, but be prepared to see your broad and deep knowledge frequently distilled to the point of sound bite or meme. True, such may be the experience of any commercial writer who plumbs everything from literature to politics to pop culture for the right word that will trigger recognition in readers’ minds and evoke a host of desired associations. For instance, Redfin’s “Columbo” reference personifies investigative rigor while throwing in a touch of understated street smarts to boot. “Proust in his cork-lined study” stands in for the purist's utter devotion to the arts—or maybe it refers to a Redfin employee’s utter devotion to the job. Who knows? But I’m afraid the image of a reclusive Proust also brings to mind a sense of isolationism that undermines the ad’s request two lines later for a social media expert. A Twittering and Facebook-befriending Proust? Clearly, Redfin wants a writer who can do it all—and so does every company out there looking for new hires.

The job ad that Redfin posted recently is entertaining to read—just as entertaining as it was several months ago when I read it the first time. Apparently, Redfin is still looking for the perfect fit. It must be that all those fun, meticulous, plugged-in, big-thinking truth-tellers who live to write are hard to come by these days. But hey, I do know of several good, accomplished, hard-working writers, if anyone’s truly interested in “lively and real.”

 



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