 |
 Schadenfreude  |
This is the New York Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.
Posted on 05/30/2003 12:24:09 AM PDT by Timesink
From LISA SUHAY:
I can understand the upset felt by New York Times staff writers who feel their image has been tarnished by Rick Bragg's use of an intern's material and the resulting presumption that staffers do not do their own work.
I can understand it only if they are able to cast this stone in the firm knowledge that they themselves have never once used the work of another who did not receive credit.
It is interesting that the people I know who actually do the invisible reporting (stringing/legs work) have a completely different take on this issue, from the in-office people who get the bylines.
Since the Bragg story broke I have been contacted by writers who have provided vast amounts of description, ambiance, the dateline and interviews for Times news pieces and never seen a byline or tag. They are all plainly confused by all the high moral hats being donned.
I was told by management it is partly a bulk issue. This is difficult to fathom because I imagine if a famous Times writer had contributed so much as a line, their name would appear somewhere on the piece.
Still, many I know have indeed provided the bulk of a news piece and remained anonymous. As freelance or stringer you tend not to complain because keeping an editor happy, being available at all hours and pleasing them in every little way you can devise is how you continue to get work. Stringers particularly must let go of ego and pride in order to continue working.
Why do that? The answer has been, "Because it's the New York Times." That was my answer because I am a native New Yorker, a believer, an acolyte. The pride of simply holding the Gray Lady's hemline was so immense that for me it eclipsed ego.
Friends who know I have had well over 100 bylines in a weekly section of the Times have urged me to stay low and under the radar on this issue and on Jayson Blair. They feel I should be grateful and silent.
But in four years I have never had so much as a tagline for work I have provided to the main paper. I know a number of writers who have never had a byline in any section and who have worked tirelessly to provide copy with no respect given in the form of credit.
Furthermore, I suspect that one of the reasons Jayson Blair was so comfortable twisting the material I provided to him was the fact that my name would not be on it. As he said to me at one point when I was pressing him for a correction, "quit worrying about something that doesn't even have your name on it." That remark stuck with me. It was the first time I felt devalued instead of proud about my contribution.
True, Blair was one bad apple. But does the rest of the barrel have this ingrained assumption that the stringer, intern or freelancer providing copy is not as invested in their work or as important as the copy itself? Copy which the desk deems vital enough to send us out to get in dead of night, through storm or police barricade.
I have also been told by editors at the Times that the choice to give credit or not is also a matter of urgency. Breaking news vs. feature story. We just don't have time to do the right thing? That doesn't sound right.
Next I expect to hear it is a space issue, so many people "flooding the zone" the names won't fit on the page.
If the issue is giving credit where it it due, then it should be due in every case.
The excuse here appears to be that newspapers don't have to worry about it when they're in a hurry, competing for the story (all's fair in love and news war) or the writer in question isn't on staff or working for a star.
I realize that writing this letter will probably kill my freelance career in newspapers. So be it. I am tired of cowering and rubbing my forehead after the koto. That's not what good reporters do. In that culture Jayson Blairs breed.
The question is who will take my place? Will it be one who manages to retain pride in their work despite the disrespect of anonymity, or one who will work this invisibility to their advantage and further discredit of our profession?
I hope the Gray Lady chooses well and balances the scales of justice, despite the blindfold and the deafening noise all around her.
|
Schadenfreude |
I have done Sunday School with a writer for a major paper in my area. This person is a natural interviewer. She draws out people in a very disarming way.
How true.
Screwing freelancers also transcends party lines. What nobody hears about, is all the times that a freelancer gets stiffed on a paycheck by an editor, either for a story that was published, or more often, for one that was commissioned, byt never run. The industry standard is to pay a kill fee of usually one-third of the publishing fee, with one conservative outfit I know of paying 100%. However, based on my admittedly limited knowledge, when an editor screws a freelancer on a story, more often than not, he screws him on the kill fee, too.
About five years ago, I was shocked to be interviewed in downtown Queens by a comely young woman who said she was doing it for Adam Nagourney at the Times. Although my interview didn't make it into the finished product, others did, probably none of which were conducted by Nagourney.
Like so much of America today, journalism is a sort of caste/feudal system, in which certain people are inexplicably rewarded, who are not necessarily any good at what they do, while others who have proven their competence, are treated like dirt.
Increasingly, I see parallels between the way freelancers and college adjunct professors are treated. An adjunct will teach all the hard-case remedial courses which require three or four times as much weekly prep time, deal with abusive and sometimes violent students who will never make it to the "college-level" courses, have no benefits or job security, and for about ten cents on the dollar, compared to full-time instructors. Meanwhile, no matter how long an adjunct toils for a school, even if he is magnificanet at what he does, he will never be offered a full-time job, and new full-timers will come along, treat him like dirt, and encourage students to disrespect him.
I don't think it's a coincidence, that both fields are dominated by people who claim to be radical democrats, but who in practice are about as democratic and fairminded toward the people who do the work, as a Barbra Streisand.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.