May 01, 2005
Help Us Interview Ourselves For A Magazine Article
Tell Us What We Should Address
Here's the deal. Some time back, before the attention-diverting process of moving, we were asked to consider writing a short piece for a local magazine about (for lack of a better term) the business side of Portland Communique. On this count, we need the help of our readers.
While we, of course, occasionally write about that aspect here, it's mainly in the very specific context of hitting you up for money. On the whole, we're not enjoying the process of trying to step back and explain the "business" side of running this site. So we thought we'd try a little experiment, worthy of the medium in which we write.
(And, anyway, we've always, generally speaking, done better at explaining various aspects of doing what we do in the context of being asked certain questions, rather than just going off and pontificating on our own.)
Using the reader comments to this item, tell us what question or questions you'd ask if you were sitting down to interview us about how this site is funded, and/or any related issues you think might be of interest to someone reading an article on that subject.
We don't intend to get into the answers to your questions here, since that would defeat the purpose of writing the article. But we've been at a loss every time we've tried to take a stab at the article (an artifact, we suppose, of our long-standing inability to write for other people), so we thought that perhaps our readers could help provide the context and direction.
So, ask us some questions, and we'll use that as the basis for trying, finally, to complete an actual full first draft of something to submit.
Comments (12)
Elaine of Kalilily on 01 May 2005
1. Have you ever sat down and figured out, at $XX per hour (say, whatever even a lowest level reporter makes), how much you would actually earn, per week, if you were actually getting paid for doing Communique. What's a ball-park average of hours you spend per week doing any kind of activity related to posting on this site -- including thinking, researching, emailing for info, reading sources of info, talking to people, and actually posting.
2. Have you ever figured out, by pro-rating your living-work space costs, how much it costs you each month to support your work. Also include transportation costs, software, and other materials.
3. If you had unlimited funds, what would you do differently with this blog?
4. You started this blog as a way to find out more about Portland. There seems to be a different purpose now. How do you define your "mission" at this point. And do you feel you are achieving it.
5. Aside from struggling to make ends meet, what's the most frusting thing about doing this weblog?
I've interviewed lots of people for magazine articles, and those are the questions I'd start with if I were interviewing you.
Alan DeWitt on 01 May 2005
You might mention the implications of using free software and of doing your own hosting.
Yoram on 02 May 2005
If you're trying to raise money with the interview, I'd focus a lot on the value of the site. That is, ask questions like:
- What stories did the site cover most comprehensively of all local media (Burnside Bridgehead, Portland JTTF, etc.)?
- Who visits the site, and why?
- When it comes to coverage of discussions, how does your reporting differ from conventional press?
etc.
john on 02 May 2005
1) What about business/editorial tensions? Could you compare and contrast yours from the O, WWeek, or MSM in general?
2) Could you compare your "business model" to community/public radio?
One way to approach that might be reading the chapter on KBOO in the Portland Edge (Btw Did you ever report back on what you thought of the book?). Substitute yourself for KBOO and compare and contrast how you've found financial and other forms of support in the community.
Amanda on 02 May 2005
1. How many (and what proportion) of your regular readers have ever given you any money to support your work? How many hits per day compared with how many donations?
2. What's the total amount of reader donations per month? Total amount of advertising revenue? (To be compared with the answers to Questions 1 and 2 from Elaine of Kalilily, above)
lisa on 02 May 2005
An old advertsising sales guy once told me that, as far as the business of media goes (TV radio and print), the product sold is not information, it's advertising -- the editorial content is just the vehicle for convincing suckers to pick up the ads. So in fact, you are setting the standard model for media business on its head. I mean, that's what it looks like to me.
Not only do you get a sort of insane joy out of lifting the rug of city government and showing people that there's yukky stuff under there, in fact you are attempting to carve out a niche doing just that.
On the business end: Are you rich yet?
Has there ever been a story you chose not to post? Why?
Has there ever been a story that earned you a surprising reaction from readers?
Name some of the influential people that you know for a fact read your blog. Have you heard that your writing has influenced anyone in City Hall? Who? How?
Many establishment media types look down on blogs and bloggers as rumormongers. Do you have personal standards for accuracy and content? Are they different from establishment media standards?
Does establishment media live up to its own (or any other, for that matter) standards of accuracy and content, in your opinion? Compare and contrast your work with the O.
What are your biggest obstacles in publishing P-land Commy-K? What are your greatest victories?
Where will you, and the P-land Commy-K, be in 10 years?
What have you learned so far -- about anything?
Is it true that you are, in fact, the Peekster, and that you plant his wild rants as a foil to make you look more reasonable?
Kidding. About the last one. L
Scott Jensen on 02 May 2005
1. Do you have a business plan? If not, why?
2. Does your business plan deal with your funding strategy and how you will survive as an enterprise to pay your business expenses and someday even yourself?
3. How do you intend on sustaining your business and the services you provide to the community?
4. What went into your thought process when you choose to remain 'independant' rather than branding or partnering with another media outlet after your deadline?
As always, Thanks Christopher.
We love you and appreciate your blog.
Tenskwatawa on 02 May 2005
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The first order of business, I think: How much are you getting paid for the written article? Can we have a piece?
Such questions are my idea of humorous. As a general rule, when I don't know what to say, I try to think of something amusing. Because I'm lazy and humor is easy. It's everywhere, a plethora of giggles. This comment, for exam pull. My finger.
And humor says more. Did you attend the Dalai Lama in Pioneer Courthouse Square? He cracked a joke. And it opened. To the thinker life is a comedy. To the feeler life is a tentacle. -- Rodin.
I know, I know, here come the jibes again: 'T., what are you on?' I'm not 'on' anything. I'm over it. Overmuch, overdrawn, over the edge, overwhelmed. Over sanity -- look at what is has caused us: nationalistic nuclear bombs, market competition to live free, bullets on the brain. Give insanity a chance.... :-)
What I can get serious about is food for hunger, purpose for destitution, remedy for injury, shelter for distress, learning for ignorance, sustenance for dispiritedness, uplifts for downtrodden, mercy for mania, liberty for slavery, kindness for disease, sympathy for the devil and bananas, two for ninety-nine.
But seriously, b!X, is not the blog the model of socialism's 'from each according to ability'? Could blogs be publicly given (tax receipts) and publicly partaken (universal always-on access)? Should you be financed to learn about Portland where you let others copy your notes? Yes. Yes. Yes.
The problem with questions is the answers speak too short. The problem with answers is the questions continue too long.
Don't ask; announce. Don't obey; obtain. Don't figure; write.
Do right.
Trade with the magazine -- they publish your balance sheet, you publish their's. Too many magazines, too few magnanimous. Send the magazine to publish the human stories in Dignity Village, or you go cover it and file that report. Establish a blog in Dignity Village.
It is said somewhere, '... citizens are the riches of a city.' Buckminster Fuller said, "Wealth is the number of forward-days a system can be maintained," then he said there's more of it in a pile of grain than in a pile of money. I heard him. It keeps me reminded what 'land use rules' is good for. Keep on keeping on, b!X. Tell it like it is. You give them some truth and they give you some gold and see which one can handle what.
Dear diary: Still smiling. Reading this day in history, 200 years ago, Lewis and Clark get snowed where their river turns west in North Dakota: May 2, 1805, Snow,
180 days ahead of them is Portland and 180 years on is SuperFund siting and radioactive Hanford seepage in the confluence. Nobody's joking.Extract the money and run. What your question brung, b!X.
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Tenskwatawa on 02 May 2005
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In Praise of ProsperityI wrote that, then I read THIS:
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted April 25, 2005.
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Jack Peek on 02 May 2005
Is it true that you are, in fact, the Peekster, and that you plant his wild rants as a foil to make you look more reasonable?
Yes...IT'S TRUE....look at the issues of low blood pressures I have solved, the great debate's we have had, my soul really is like "agitated man" in my old neighborhood.
If we could all have the passion of the "Peekster" then we could all live happy ever after in the ROSE CITY!
Jack Peek on 02 May 2005
Many Americans are tired, stressed out, depressed, hooked on drugs, relatively poorly educated and with few opportunities for a better life. They are ready to hear something new, something other than the usual scare-tactics of the right.
BBBBBBBBAAAAARRRFFFFF!!!!
Like what? like a "community" garden? A common multi-plex apartment like they have in Moscow, free dental..free drugs,(legal of course) a return to the 60's where free love/share your pardner type living arrangement was in fact the order of the day?
Or even better,the diversity of folks who want their eight states back, or a dominant religon that says, "our way,OR WE CUT YOUR HEAD OFF!"
I don't write so good, but I get too the point Tensk. Your way??? NO THANKS!
PS,WAS IT THE "B!XSTER" OR THE "PEEKSTER?"
belinda on 03 May 2005
If Portland Communique's primary purpose is not to be a commercial enterprise, what does motivate you to work on it?