Lawyering up for the digital journalist.

ho knew the Huffington Post was running a modern day form of slavery (for journalists)? Apparently Jonathan Tasini did…

Tasini alleges that thousands of writers and other contributors have been wrongly denied any compensation for the value they created for the Huffington Post. Jeff Bercovici at Forbes.com explains:

“TheHuffingtonPost.com has been unjustly enriched by engaging in and continuing to engage in the practice of generating enormous profits by luring carefully vetted contributors, with the prospect of ‘exposure’ (which TheHuffingtonPost.com deceptively fails to verify), to provide valuable content at no cost to TheHuffingtonPost.com, while reaping the entirety of the financial gain derived from such content,” according to the lawsuit.

Multimedia meltdown.

Multimedia and online are the future of journalism.

Upon entering college three years ago I was drilled with this idea every single time I stepped into a journalism or communication class.

The lecture would go a little something like this…

“The principles of American journalism… blah, blah, blah… online journalism. Joseph Pulitzer once said… blah, blah, blah… multimedia.”

My teachers preached this, guest lecturers raved about this, and (once I had enough cred to get one) my internship bosses imparted this wisdom as well. And by choosing to follow the Convergence sequence in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, I too glorify (present tense) this thought – especially at 8 am when I have to roll out of bed, run to convergence class across campus, and remind myself why I am awake.

Newsflash: here is a new piece of wisdom, us journalism school kids are sick of hearing that multimedia and online are the future of journalism. Not because it’s wrong, but because we know this and so does everyone else.

A recent Huffington Post article, whether meaning to or not, perfectly proves my point. The article called, College Journalists Are Good at Consuming Multimedia but Bad at Making It. Why?, is about the author, Michael Koretzky, and his experience judging a multimedia competition. The college newspaper websites he set out to evaluate fell way below his expectations. He theorized why…

Print is special to college journalists precisely because it’s old tech.

The easiest way to insult a college journalist is to tell them they have an online exclusive.

On our campus, newsprint is still the most mobile and immediate form of media.

Alas, it takes a lot of time to maintain even a homely newspaper website.

All of his reasons are totally correct. But I think there is another underlying, bigger theme he is missing. As journalism students, we are always around multimedia and online journalism – a majority of my classes even have the words ‘multimedia’ and ‘online’ in their official titles. We know how to make good multimedia and we are taught how to make good multimedia everyday… it is expected of us and of our professors. When it comes to actually doing it, sometimes we are burnt out and we just don’t care. I have been blogging and making web pages since high school (19% of people 12-17 have their own blogs). There is nothing too overly thrilling or special about this multimedia online production for me.  When I enter the workforce in a year (fingers crossed) I will be expected to know how to create meaningful online content – and I will. Will anything else be expected of me… I don’t know.

Right now for me, simplistic web design and online publications are just as welcome as a ‘flashy’ page with flash.

Maybe this reporter should take a step back from his expectations… is it really a bad thing when my internet age generation is worried more about content over presentation? Right now, while we are in school, let us worry about what we put out there – when we wear suits and ties in a few years, then you can worry about how we put it out there and if that ‘how’ is making it sell.

14th Street FML subway stop.

@huffingtonpost provides quite the array of news. One minute it tweets “Proof that Justin Bieber fans are craaaazy - http://huff.to/aCESyK” and the next it informs me “BP may agree to set up a massive victim’s compensation fund - http://huff.to/cs8Pd8.” But it’s ok, I keep following because I like my Bieber fix to be mixed with some news that actually makes me feel like a competent, slightly informed American citizen. This may be all journalists can ask for from a population that may turn the news on but tunes it out… but that’s a post for a later date.

Today @huffingtonpost led me to a New York related story and, because I’m pretending to be a real New Yorker (minus the love for the Yankees), I decided to read on and to now add a bit to the discussion.

image via CNET - click on it to check their story out

The the article says:

The MTA promises to change new signage at a 14th Street subway station that now boasts a profane internet punchline.

Because the M train is replacing the V train, a previously innocuous subway sign now reads FML.

For the uninformed, FML is internet slang for “f**k my life.”

Best change ever. Do we really live in a society in which A) people automatically think “f**k my life” when they see those three letters in a vicinity near each other and B) is the abbreviation FML really so offensive the MTA needs to create a new way to display the info? I guess we do. In a few days the sign will read FL and have the M line displayed below.

I find the whole thing ironic. This weekend I hopped on the subway not too far from where the “FML stop” is. As I sat down, a huge group of teenagers jumped through the door before it could close. The string of profanities I listened to for the next thirty minutes not only broached FML, but also a lot of things involving a lot more creativity and imagination. And it’s not like the teenagers were the only ones. This is NYC we are talking about, not bible belt Missouri!

So thanks @huffingtonpost – now I know I need to head to the 14th street stop ASAP so I can get a picture of the infamous FML sign before it is gone.

Other perspectives:

CNET

The Village Voice

Disinformation