For the Content Hungry: The Eat Media Blog

Mustering up the motivation to create anything fruitful is tough on a Friday afternoon, especially with the long weekend to look forward to.

Here’s what inspired us over at Eat Media this week. Hope it gets your wheels turning.

Ian:

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability & Science of Customer Centricity and the DIY ethos of Hip-Hop culture—lifting yourself up and making things happen. Not waiting for a handout. The Jay-Z story.

Wendy

Islamic dress. MTV did this great True Life documentary on kids in Saudi Arabia gracefully refusing to accept the societal norms of their parent’s generation.  I can’t stop thinking about Fatima, a 20-year-old from Jeddah who is making and selling her own brightly colored abaiyas. They’re beautiful and I want one.

And M.I.A.’s Agitprop Pop by Lynn Hirschberg. I still can’t decide if I like M.I.A. more or less after reading Hirschberg’s profile, if she’s smarter than all of us, or just feeding into her own idea of what a rebel should be. A good profile will keep you guessing even after you’re done reading.

Lindsay

This talk by Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Rick Bragg at a recent conference. The video is half comedy routine, but it’s a nice refresher on feature writing.

And 1st Books: Stories of How Writers Get Started, a site that offers insight into how to get started if you’re a first-time author.

—Wendy Joan

After a long Tuesday, I hit the treadmill. The wall of television screens at the gym glare and glaze, each silently playing a different station, each beaming equally distracting content. In the midst of this digital dinner-hour chaos is Diane Sawyer, tranquil and statuesque—beautifully portrayed in an ABC News ad reminding viewers of the network’s commitment to seasoned professionals breaking world news stories.

I can’t help but think of this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine article, “Putting a Price on Words,”—Andrew Rice’s piece that chronicles the rise of entrepreneurial journalism and the increasingly blurred line between reporting and advertising—and realize Diane Sawyer might be one of the last journalists of her kind. Because, certainly there is no reporter willing to endure decades of $15 writing assignments, thinking that each piece submitted is one stepping stone closer to the top of investigative reporting. It’s not.

If you missed the article, here’s the skinny: the media market tanks. Journalists are out of work, and when start-ups emerge out of neighborhood coffee shops with free wireless, contributing writers submit stories for the flat rate of $15-20 a pop, with the promise of ad-sharing compensation down the road. If the site takes off (like True/Slant has), the writer reaps the monetary benefits of high traffic. If the site does not, then the writer just spent X amount of time working for the equivalent of a few subway rides and a latte.

This past Sunday’s magazine was devoted to the idea of worth—self and otherwise. For me, the elephant in the room wasn’t that sex and SEO sells (posts that cover “sex, scandal and Sarah Palin always score high”), but the fact this model of journalism cannot sustain itself. For newly out of work writers spreading themselves thin with freelance jobs, these jobs are a necessity—a means of survival while the industry adapts in the face of folding newspapers and free content. But according to Henry Blodget, the editor in chief of Business Insider, in order to “earn back” a $60,000 annual salary, “an online journalist needs to generate a whopping 1.8 million page views a month.” And, for the young, 20-something fresh out of journalism school, not only is the prospect less than financially appealing (if not entirely unreasonable), but unattainable. Even if the entry-level reporter can break into the industry, the chances of success are low, and the move to a more stable profession is probable.

Not long ago, I interviewed a doctoral student studying sustainability, and asked him to define “sustainability” as if I had never heard the term before. He told me “Being sustainable is living like you give a damn about the future.” But, to make sure good journalism survives, whose job is that? The established writer working for minimal pay, or the bright-eyed young writer who can’t wait to get her first scoop?

—Wendy Joan

Media moves really fast. And (apologies for the cliché), if you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss some really great pieces.

Below are my picks of the week. Enjoy!

—Wendy Joan

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Being and Frumpiness, New York Times Style Magazine

Last week, Knopf published a new translation of “The Second Sex,” Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist masterpiece . . . This latest translation got us thinking about de Beauvoir’s accidental style statements — about her whole amazing, intellectual frump thing. Digging into the New York Times photo morgue, we’ve come up with what must be the world’s first “Simone de Beauvoir Look-Book.” Which is nothing if not reductionist and superficial.

407: The Bridge, This American Life

I first met Patrick three years ago, sleeping in a cardboard box … Considering his circumstances, what was surprising wasn’t so much that he ended up living in a box under a bridge, but how he had come to be right there, precisely. His probation officer, he said, had ordered him to live there.

China’s Arranged Remarriages, New York Times Magazine

So staggering was the scale of destruction unleashed by the Sichuan earthquake that, much like the Haitian quake in January, its horror was often reduced to a series of statistics: more than 87,000 dead or missing, nearly 400,000 injured, upward of five million homeless …

Looming over the physical reconstruction, however, has been another question: How can society rebuild? In China, one answer has been to pair grieving men and women to create instant families that will help ensure social and economic stability.

Covering ‘Tainted Justice’ and Winning a Pulitzer, Fresh Air

GROSS: So after you broke this story, there were threats against you, a lot of nasty things said, press conferences, threats to sue you?

Ms. RUDERMAN: Oh, yeah.

Ms. LAKER: Yeah. We had that early on, one attorney told us if we ran the first story, he would sue us and close the paper.  I mean, we had a lot of threats like that, but Wendy and I really believed in this story.

Jenny Shimizu and Susi Kenna, Style Like U

The first time I saw myself as a model was when my friends woke me up at four in the morning and took me to Times Square. I saw the Banana Republic billboard that I shot with Bruce Weber. There was just a picture of my face, and underneath, it said ‘American Beauty.’ It still makes me have the chills. Never in my life did I think that I was beautiful.”

(Simone de Beauvoir photo by Charles Hewitt/Picture Post/Getty Images, China photo by Wang Gang for The New York Times, Style Like U photo by Stylelikeu.com)

Three quick content tips from Paul Boag. Simple stuff, but everything is so much better when orated by a a Brit.

—Ian

Not everything is a container. Know thy CMS.

The Three Too’s are at the epicenter of many web project #fails. Identify them and eliminate them.