Dogged Blog

Publishing eats its young: Why I won't write for Viacom anymore

For nearly 7 years, I've been writing for a group of websites that now belong to Viacom. I've loved writing for AfterElton.com and AfterEllen.com. But I won't be writing for them anymore, and you should know and care about the reason why.

I am a freelance writer and editor, by choice. I've been working in this field since 1991, and I'm very blessed to have been able to not only support myself as a writer, but to make a very good living doing something I truly love.

I've also been able to focus on subjects that really matter to me, mostly dogs, animal welfare, and veterinary medicine, but also LGBT equality and the relationship of political and social change with popular culture.

That last category is comprised of work I've done almost entirely for the AE/AE sites. I got my start there when AfterElton.com editor Michael Jensen and his partner, Brent Hartinger, came across a humorous post I wrote for this blog, "Ten Reasons Xena and Gabrielle Are Better Than Brian and Justin."

They'd been on the hunt, it seems, for funny lesbians who could write about television for a blog called The Big Gay Picture, at the time a partner site of AfterElton.com and AfterEllen.com. They invited me to guest blog for, I think, a month, and after that asked me to keep writing for them. That turned into gigs for AfterElton and AfterEllen, back in the day when I was, in fact, the only woman writing for the gay men's site.

I've loved working there -- although much less since so many of the people I worked with and for over the years left, particularly Michael who has become a close friend, but also Brent, Malinda Lo, and site founder Sarah Warn. But I still like and care about many of the writers there, and also many of the readers and community members.

However, under no circumstances would I agree to sign the obscene rights grab they call a "freelance contract," the language of which I've pasted below the cut.

In short, it claims ownership of all my notes, thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and works inspired by them, whether I write them down or not, whether they use them or not, literally "in perpetuity throughout the universe in all media and all forms and all formats, and/or any methods of delivery, in any and all media now existing or hereafter devised," as well as "irrevocably, exclusively and perpetually."

Now, you may not care that I won't be recapping Glee or writing anything else for the site anymore (although I do).

But if you care about reading things people have written, and want artists, writers, and other creators to be able to make even a small living producing creative works, then you should care, and care a lot, about large corporations leveraging their publishing power to force their contributors to sign contracts like this.

As a freelance writer, rather than a staff writer who gets a salary and benefits, you simply cannot survive if every idea or note or thought you have about something you’re writing for a publisher belongs to them in every usage for all eternity. I routinely turn interviews into multiple articles, and go to conferences and write about what I saw or learned there, for multiple publications, sometimes for years afterward.

I blog — including here — about “outtakes” from my articles on AE/AE all the time. I also frequently come up with ideas while I’m writing articles, which I then turn into other articles. This is how I make my living. Without that freedom, without the ownership of my own thoughts, without the flexibility of the kind of freelance contracts I’ve been writing under now for my entire career -- including for other big corporate media platforms owned by Hearst -- I could never have made a life as a writer.

And young writers, who are forced to go along with these disgusting agreements because they need to be published and need the money, are going to be increasingly disempowered, robbed, violated, and marginalized.

Furthermore, established, proven writers and journalists, photographers and artists, will no longer write for sites like AE/AE, because we don’t have to sell our souls to pay the bills — and who would sell their soul if they didn’t have to?

All of which will have a profound chilling effect on the quality of the work you are going to be seeing out of any publication that forces its writers into these kinds of contracts.

You can read the contract under the cut. In the meantime, I'm really sad to be saying goodbye to a form of expression that meant a lot to me. Thanks for nothing, Viacom.

Wild West vs. Mild Midwest?

It's not that there are no hazards in the Midwest. I went to college here, and I remember two big ones: Tornadoes, and blizzards. And I experienced the first -- in warning form, at least -- on Sunday, when a tornado warning interrupted my HGTV viewing and sirens sounded in my little town. Ended up being just a few minutes of high winds and dark skies, then just some clean-up.

But overall my experience of the Midwest so far is that it's been pretty well tamed. Living in the country in California, as I have, you have rattlesnakes, mountain lions, coyotes, and foxtails (those of us who have had dogs in the West know that they belong on a list with rattlesnakes and cougars). Here, things are older, softer, with the edges gently worn away.

I'm not pretending to be an expert after three weeks, not saying you can't get caught in a leg-hold trap or shot by a hunter, nor am I stating categorically there are no coyotes or rattlesnakes in Michigan. I'm just saying, after growing up in the "Wild West," this definitely feels like the "Mild Midwest."

One danger I started to worry about when I woke up with an itching ankle: Poison ivy. I had no idea what it looks like, however adept I had became at spotting poison oak in all its season permutations. I think my ankle was afflicted by a mosquito bite, but I've thought that before and been wrong.  And in the meantime, I'm studying up on photos of poison ivy.

CNN: Wisconsin? Never heard of it. Charlie Sheen? We're all over it.

CNN is covering the second anniversary of the "Tea Party," how to make rotisserie chicken, and Charlie Sheen's breakdown.

But the 100,000 people in Madison protesting for their rights? The fact that the police refused to shut down the protest in the capitol and instead, went and slept with the protesters?

Ten seconds and cut. "Liberal media" my ass.

From somewhere I never expected to be getting my national political news, Boing Boing:

Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: "We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what's right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!'

Full story here, with video.

New to blogging? Don't be a whore

I have some advice for fresh young new bloggers: Do not be a whore.

I understand you want to make money. I understand that you are sitting there working long hard hours on your blog, and you want it to be for something, and right now, "money" seems like a really good "something" for it to be for. And I understand there are a lot of folks out there cheerleading you on to "monetize" your blog, including  by writing "sponsored" blog posts.

Maybe I'm just old school, but if you want to be a PR or advertising writer, do that -- it's perfectly honorable. But to mix your personal blogging with sponsored/paid for/corporate blogging?

Even in traditional display advertising-funded media, such as magazines, newspapers and websites, it creates problems when the wall between editorial and sales gets breached, as it sometimes does. And when you're a publisher with only one writer on your team -- you-- the challenge is enormous to keep that wall intact.

But to frankly and blatantly take money to write about something? How did this become a norm in blogging?

And if you do it, consider its impact on your professional future. I know I wouldn't hire, work for, work with, link to or have respect for a blogger who was "sponsored" to blog about a product, brand, etc., no matter how fully she disclosed it. I'm not the only person who might be in the position to hire you who feels that way.

And forget ethics -- can't you see how pathetic it makes you look? How unprofessional?

I make my living as a writer and editor, including by blogging. I'm paid by the publishers of various websites and, rarely now, print publications. I have never taken a sponsorship, and when I'm offered them, I refuse on ethical grounds -- mine, and those of at least two of the publications I write for. I really had no idea there were so many bloggers saying yes.

Look, I've heard the argument that blogging isn't exactly like every other form of publishing, but even if it's true, so what? All forms of publishing have their own distinctive characteristics.

And I've heard the whine about how you shouldn't "give your writing away for free." Writers have been giving their work away free and cheap as long as there has been publishing, as interns at newspapers or just Tom Paine speaking out for freedom. 

I've also heard the argument from a few people  that paid/sponsored blogging doesn't affect them because the amount of money they make "monetizing" their blogs is so small it's a joke. So I'll tell you a joke:

A guy says to a beautiful woman, would you have sex with me for a million dollars?

He's not so bad, so she says, "Okay."

Then he says, "Would you have sex with me for ten dollars?"

And she gasps and says, "What do you think I am?"

And he says, "Madam, we've established what you are; we're just haggling over the price."

My advice to new bloggers is this: Stop thinking about "monetizing your blog." Think about earning a living as a writer. Think about being credible and good. If you don't want to write for free, then don't write for free; this blog is the only place I do, and you can see how often I have time to do that these day. 

Blogging is, and should be, and needs to remain, a form of journalism. It's not a way to get cool stuff and be on a company's "team." Don't dishonor blogging, or your own talent as a writer, by going down this road.

Get thee behind me, Foursquare

From the very first day I heard about Foursquare, I thought it was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard. Whoever it is who dubbed it, "Dear criminals, come rob me," had it right.

And yet, lately I've noticed some of my friends on Facebook posting their Foursquare check-ins, and I'm really enjoying seeing where they are and what they're doing during the day, and I can't stop thinking about it and wondering if it wouldn't be a way to get out more and create some positive reinforcement (you know, FUN) for going new places and trying new things, and then, you know...

See, this is how they get you.

Today's spineless media mourns Walter Cronkite, apparently not noticing journalism itself is dead, too

I was just now watching CNN. They did a piece on Walter Cronkite, in which they used the clip of him flatly contradicting the government party line on the war in Viet Nam, and Johnson responding that if he'd lost Cronkite, he'd lost America.

And then the same anchor followed it up with an example of  the most egregious and vacuous "he said she said, fake balance" crap on health care reform, in which she didn't even comment or put anything at all in context. And that was followed with a piece of political advertising reinforcing the exact message of the (factually false) Republican talking head sound bite that preceded it.

The media today lacks all awareness, all understanding of its role and how they have abdicated it. They mourn Cronkite while they spit on and disgrace his legacy.

I went to journalism school in the years immediately after Watergate. I thought it was my job to tell the truth about the powerful, not regurgitate their messages without analysis or judgment.

RIP Walter Cronkite. And RIP journalism as he knew it.

Farhad Manjoo, get off my lawn!

Farhad Manjoo at Slate was waxing nostalgic about the Web in 1996. Being only 30 years old, he didn't remember it himself, though; he inferred what it was like by, I don't know, visiting the web archive or something.

Dude. You should have called me.

But not to find out what the Interwebz were like in 1996. By 1996, we had the World Wide Web. We had reasonably fast modems. We had search engines.

When I first went online in, I don't know, maybe 1990, it was on a DOS computer, using a DOS version of AOL, which had something like 500,000 members. You could IM Steve Case, or hang out with him in a chat room.

There was no Web. Which was a good thing, given the 9.6K dial-up connection.

That's correct, you cute little young uns. We did have the Internet; we had bulletin boards and email (although if you used AOL or Compuserve or some other proprietary service, you couldn't email anyone on a different service).

But there was no Web. No pictures, no search engines... well, we had 'em, but nothing like what we have now.

Raise your hand if you remember Gopher.

We had Usenet, and believe me, until you've participated in pre-spam Usenet, you don't know the meaning of untrammeled freedom of expression.

But by 1996? Pffft. As Manjoo says:

A few newspapers and magazines have begun to put their articles online—you can visit the New York Times or Time—and there are a handful of new Web-only publications, including Feed, HotWired, Salon, Suck, Urban Desires, Word, and, launched in June, Slate.

Exactly. I mean... they had Salon. He may have called his article "The Unrecognizable Internet of 1996," but I'd argue it was, in fact, recognizable. Basic and slow and featureless, but recognizable.

No, if you want to see an unrecognizable Internet, go back in time to when it was really different. When we had no web at all. Nothing. Zip. Black and white text. Words on a screen. That's what we had.

I didn't even have Windows back then. I typed little white letters onto a black screen. For those too young to remember, if you're on a Windows machine, go open up your DOS prompt window. Maximize it.  That's what we had.

And yes, it did just strike me that I'm just one or two sentences away from saying, "When I was your age" and telling Farhad Manjoo to get off my lawn.

The article is here.

Interview and other kinds of mojo

My interview mojo has been just toxic lately.

First, I had a big problem getting an interview on one particular subject, period. No one I contacted would talk to me, and it wasn't even anything controversial! It was like I was cursed. Finally someone agreed, only to keep rescheduling until it was literally too late for me to use the interview in my article.

Then I actually had to cancel an article due to problems lining up an important interview.

Then I had to spend a week getting a freaking comment from one person, this time having to reschedule the article.

Then I spent the last week and a half trying to get someone who had agreed to talk to me, again about something totally non-controversial, to actually spend ten minutes on the phone with me.

Well, I just did two of those much-delayed interviews, and am having them transcribed by the good folks over at escriptionist.com, and I feel like the weight of the world is off my shoulders.

Now I have to interview the two gay contestants on the next Design Star, so if that goes okay, perhaps it means the curse has lifted.

Speaking of mojo, I wrote a diary over at Daily Kos about Barack Obama being adopted as a member of the Crow Nation... that is the top-recommended diary over there for the last 24 hours! I've been on the rec list there a few times with pet food recall pieces, but this is the first time with general political blogging.  I even got asked to cross post it at Native American Netroots, where it got front paged.

*iz proud*

Also, my coverage of the lesbian side of the GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco is up over at AfterEllen.com... with lots of photos of Sharon Stone, Jennifer Beals, and more.

Media Gods '08

Thank you to Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Keith Olbermann. You took the bad, bitter taste out of my mouth.

In other news: "Body of War" is opening in San Francisco tomorrow. I saw it in Austin, and I've blogged about it a couple of times... if it's opening near you, go see it.

Wherein I love Jon Stewart for money

When the Daily Show (blessed be its name) launched its new website and video clip archive last week, I was all over it like, well... you know, white Borzoi hair on black wool slacks.

And I convinced my darling editor Michael Jensen at AfterElton.com to let me write an article about the best of the gay (or maybe it's the gayest of the best) clips. And he said oh, well, if you must, I guess you must.

So I turned it in yesterday and it's up today and you know, that must mean he really liked it because that never happens.

And even though it's hideously immodest of me, I have to say it's pretty funny, and not just the embedded clips. So hey, you know... read it.

There’s a whole lotta gay going on in the brand-spanking-new archive of The Daily Show video clips launched last week by Comedy Central. Ever since 1999, when a relatively unknown political humorist named Jon Stewart took over as anchor and made “fake news” a household word, the anti-gay elements of society have been one of the main targets of his increasingly impassioned, brilliantly funny fake newscasts. So let’s check out the best of the best by looking at the highlights of the last eight years, stopping along the way to note a time or two The Daily Show really blew it (and not in a good way).

It does bear mentioning that there are plenty of queer comics doing pro-gay political humor. And Stewart isn’t even the only straight comic who supports gay rights. Kathy Griffin, Roseanne Barr, and many others have championed our issues and earned large queer followings. Stewart isn’t even the only straight male political comic with his own TV show who supports LBGT equality; so does, for example, Bill Maher.

What sets Stewart apart, aside from his tremendous mainstream popularity, is that his humor conveys a deeply-rooted sense of personal outrage at anti-gay policies, laws, and attitudes. He doesn’t, like Maher, support gay civil rights as part of an overall libertarian or progressive political ideology, but because, as he told conservative pundit Bill Bennett in what may be the greatest interview of Stewart’s career, gay equality is part of “the natural progression of the human condition” because “every gay person [is] someone’s son or daughter.” And in Stewart’s mind, apparently, you just don’t treat your kids like that.

It also has to be said, no matter how much it hurts, that Stewart isn’t perfect. Oh, his sense of humor rarely misses, and his hair actually really may be perfect. But when it comes to gay political humor, sometimes The Daily Show gets it wrong – hello, Stephen Colbert gay-baiting the inventor of “Gaydar,” a little electronic device that will vibrate whenever anyone else in close proximity has the same device.

It’s also true that The Daily Show and its spin-off, The Colbert Report, haven’t been making a lot of friends in the MySpace generation or the blogosphere lately. That’s because those buzz-killers at Comedy Central have been rampaging around YouTube and other video-sharing sites for months now, getting those shows’ clips yanked as fast as they went up. The reason is now clear: They’ve been building their own little Daily Show video universe, where every single clip of every segment of the show since the day Stewart joined its cast in 1999 can be viewed and embedded. The Colbert Report will be getting the same treatment soon.

The Daily Show site launched in mid-October with the butt-covering word “Beta” scrawled under the logo, probably to account for the fact that a lot of times, the videos just won’t play. Still, those seeking the gay can lose many, many hours in The Daily Show vaults, reliving past moments of queer glory and discovering many others previously unknown. After all, no fan, however obsessed, can ever really have seen every single episode – until now.

It's all here... have fun!