Technology has made many things possible, and is enabling unethical people to pay as little as one quarter cent per word for their writing. The Internet is the great democratizer. It is also the great enslaver of the disadvantaged and the marginalized.

Freelance writers, often students, mothers, and older people, are the victims of a global conspiracy to pit people against each other to auction their skills and time for as little as possible.

One of the culprits is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MT). Amazon didn’t invent microworking, which is the practice of paying independent contractors by the task instead of by the hour. But they are the first globally recognized company to put their name on the practice, thereby endorsing it and making it an acceptable business practice.

Amazon MT is a service that allows businesses to contract with Amazon to have people perform very brief, discreet operations like manually forwarding an e-mail based on subject matter or moderating blog comments. My son, a student, worked for MT moderating pictures for a social network at the rate of a few pennies each.

ShortTask is another example of a service that brings together businesses and people who want to do microcontract work. In addition to facilitating this process, ShortTask often has questionable tasks like paying for positive product reviews and blog comments, Diggs, Twitter followers, etc.

And last night, someone tweeted a link to Article Slash, which had this posting:

“Hi, I need a group of writers or writing teams who can deliver 20-30 articles of 300 words every day. Payout will be made everyday through paypal.. 0.75$ for every 300 word article.”

Seventy-five cents per article! That’s .0025 per word, one quarter of a penny! If you could write 1200 words per hour (I’m a professional writer and I can’t), you could make $3 an hour doing this.

Our current minimum wage in California is $8, and the federal minimum is $7.25. As bad as that is, there are millions of Californians who would think they had died and gone to heaven to get $8 an hour. The rate at which people work and the quality expected by buyers varies, but the wages offered by these services, like the 75-cent, 300-word article, are equivalent to under $2 an hour. The last time the federal minimum wage was below $2 was in 1974.

Both California state and federal law require* that pieceworkers be paid a rate that is equal to or more than minimum wage, except for students and “new learners” (people who have never done the job before) who are paid at 85% of the minimum wage. Of course this is for regular employees, not contractors.

Some of the inevitable byproducts of this trend are:

• Devaluation of good writing, research and analysis
• Illiteracy
• Theft of editorial content

Microworking is an area in which the law has not caught up with technology and common practice. And the marketplace for these services is mostly underground, so the average person isn’t aware of it or upset by it. The operators of sites like Article Slash and ShortTask may argue that they are merely facilitators, and not responsible for the behavior of their users.

Ours is supposedly a free market economy, but we also have checks and balances so that everyone from the soup kitchen to the boardroom is protected from abuse. As the economic recovery slowly ticks up, one can only hope that supply and demand moderate the wages for microworkers so they are fairly paid for their effort and intellect. Unfortunately, the practices, which may have been made necessary by the downturn, will be status quo for some companies who will be unable to resist the appeal of continued lower operating costs.

* This is based on my research and interpretation of government documents. I am not an attorney and could be wrong about this.

Tags: Microworking, Article Slash, minimum wage, piecework, Amazon, Mechanical Turk, ShortTask, writing, writers

I went to journalism school, which just might make me a “better” blogger. Here’s why I think so.

First of all, I learned to write in the “inverted pyramid” style, which says “start with a lead that exposes the most important elements of the story first, and then work down the page to aspects of the story that are of decreasing importance.” It’s a simple way to organize my writing.

I also learned how to properly use attribution, something which, when done wrong (by my standards) drives me crazy and is borderline dishonesty and/or theft. When I reference someone else’s blog, or an article, I’m very thorough and conscientious about clearly pointing out where the information came from. A typical attribution I might write would look something like this:

Tom Goldstein, writing in the August 21 San Francisco Chronicle, quotes Scott Rosenberg’s Book Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters:

“blogging could be journalism any time the person writing a blog chose to act like a journalist - recording and reacting to the events of the day, asking questions and seeking answers, checking facts and fixing errors.”

It might be a little pedantic, but heck, with that much information, you could find the source of the article I quoted without the link. And by the way, Rosenberg is on to something. There are plenty of bloggers who don’t act like journalists, but should.

As far as I’m concerned, for a blogger to “act like a journalist” is for the blogger to apply a few basic principles to blogging, like research, fact checking, correcting errors, using some kind of consistent style of presentation, distinguishing fact from opinion, and so on.

What else did I learn in journalism school? Keep paragraphs short for readability. There’s no magic number of words or sentences, but if your paragraphs look too dense, break ‘em up.

Emulate the pros. Some great bloggers to learn from are Dave Winer, and Tom Foremski, the first professional journalist/blogger.

Use a style guide. I don’t always follow it, but I do my best to write to Associated Press (AP) style. A style guide will tell you things like “write out numbers that are less than 10, and use numerals after that.” A little consistency is awesome.

Find your own unique voice. I’ve found mine, but I’m not sure it’s the right one. I can be a little too sarcastic, and (You might have noticed), I get all parenthetic. It’s my way of representing online the way I really talk. I tend to wander and introduce tangents, parallels and diversions, hopefully returning to the original thread. But I digress.

Write about something new, but if you can’t, find a new way to write about something that already exists. I recently wrote a column for Talent Zoo titled “Famous Dead People Weigh In On Social Media.” I quoted McLuhan, Einstein, Edith Wharton and others and used their quotes to make various points about the state of social media. I’m not saying this was an act of genius. And I didn’t write about anything “new,” but I did write about something in a new way.

Read voraciously. I mentioned emulating the pros, which I try to do, but I also read constantly. I have a book in bed and another in the bathroom. I read in the bathtub. If there’s nothing else to read I’ll read the ingredients on a toothpaste tube. I have a reading compulsion, and much of it happens offline.

So there’s a bit of what I learned in journalism school. I hope you find it helpful. I went to a state school, so if I was going to charge for this it wouldn’t be much, so you can have it, gratis.

Tags: blogger, journalist, journalism, inverted pyramid, attribution, Tom Foremski, Dave Winer

You’re at a conference, the wifi is good, and you’re excited about live tweeting the next speaker. But have you ever wondered whether it’s “OK” to copy and publish someone else’s words and ideas? If you were at the movie theater, neither the studio nor the theater operator would permit you to videotape portions of the movie to post on your blog. On the other hand, the art of critical commentary goes back to at least Shakespeare’s time, so it’s definitely established both in common practice and in the law that reproducing information, even copyrighted information, is acceptable under certain circumstances.

Setting aside issues of whether the practice is actually useful, and whether it is distracting to the speaker and to others in attendance, live tweeting and live blogging of conferences, events and webcasts raises legal and ethical issues. Producers of webcasts and live events often charge admission for these, and they may include copyrighted material. Speakers may also have copyrighted their presentations, or may (in my case) quote substantial portions of a copyrighted book or other work. These words and ideas are essentially products that are sold commercially, and the owners have certain rights to them.

On the other hand, the law does permit reproduction of portions of copyrighted material. I have two biases that affect my opinions on this issue, but I think they balance each other. I have a degree in journalism so I appreciate the need for journalists to incorporate information from third parties in their works. As the author of a book, I also understand the need for copyright protections for commercial content.

The best guidance for whether live blogging and live tweeting is acceptable comes from the Fair Use provision of U.S. copyright law, which allows a certain percentage of a copyrighted work to be reproduced for purposes such as a review of a book or theatrical play. Factors that affect whether reproduction of a copyrighted work is fair use are:

1. “The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.”

In other words, fair use is in the eyes of the beholder. The government will not rule on what is or isn’t fair use, leaving it the judgment of the individual, and in some cases, the courts to make the ultimate determination.

Despite the federal government’s unwillingness to establish numerical guidelines for fair use, many organizations have set their own limits. The University of California for example, in its Policy on the Reproduction of Copyrighted Materials for Teaching and Research, permits teachers to reproduce for classroom use “either a complete article, story or essay of less than 2,500 words or an excerpt of not more than 2,500 words from any prose work.” The policy was written in 1986, long before blogging and tweeting. Today, 2500 words is quite substantial and I think excessive. The UC policy also reminds teachers that if they exceed fair use limits they “can subject the one making unauthorized copies and the University to severe penalties.” The UC policy pertains to photocopying, not live events, but it does give some ideas of how to apply fair use. (I did not find a UC policy covering other fair use guidelines.)

Last year, the Associated Press announced it would “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”

A practical approach is to simply ask yourself, does the speaker want his or her work reproduced and distributed free of charge? Some may, some may not. The right, and the ability, to freely share information is such a cornerstone of Web 2.0, that I think most conference organizers and speakers in the Web 2.0/social media sphere are happy to have their talks live tweeted and live blogged. Either practice is more like reporting than reproduction, and would involve the “copying” of relatively small percentages of the content.

Most speakers make their slides and speaker’s notes available to attendees and these are freely distributed. I do the same, and I don’t care if my talks are reproduced in full, as long as there is attribution. And if someone can benefit from the information, I am happy for them to have it. Who knows — it could lead someone to buy my book or choose to engage my company.

My publisher generally allows me to grant permission to people who request the right to reproduce content from my book as long as the material constitutes less than 10% of the book. It is unlikely that someone live tweeting one of my talks could approach that 140 characters at a time, or even that a blogger could do so.

In one recent case, a blogger and researcher was criticized for live blogging a scientific meeting because the organizers felt he should have “abide(d) by the rules governing professional journalists attending the conference.” These rules include the requirement that journalists inform conference organizers in advance of their intentions.

Another interesting issue journalists are contending with is how Fair Use applies to information published on Twitter. Last month, Julie Posetti wrote a piece on the PBS MediaShift blog, Rules of Engagement for Journalists on Twitter. She believes that anything that appears on Twitter is “fair game”:

“Although social media etiquette may not recognize a journalist’s right to report any material published openly, the reality is that open Twitter accounts are a matter of permanent public record and fair game for journalists. While attribution is vital and it might be polite (but not necessary) to seek the approval of a Twitterer to quote them, I don’t see anything unethical about using tweets in mainstream news coverage.”

She goes on to say, however that she feels private Twitter accounts, those requiring owner approval of subscription requests, are off-the-record and not fair game. I disagree with her take that simply because something is published it is therefore a matter of public record and fair game. This would probably apply to quoting someone in a story, but not to reproducing material that might be copyrighted. Just because a tweet is only 140 characters does not remove it from the domain of copyrighted material. Multiple tweets could be used to convey an article, or a Twitter-based webcast. A journalist could quote a portion under Fair Use, but could not reproduce something in its entirety.

This also points out one of the weak links in the integrity of information in the Web 2.0 world. Bloggers and tweeters are NOT professional journalists. They don’t have training in ethical practices in areas like attribution and when and how to quote a source.

I generally hold that new media does not require new ethics, and I think this is largely the case in live tweeting/live blogging a presentation or webcast. Given that these practices don’t generally involve reproduction of any significant portion of the entire “work,” both common practice and the law seem to permit this.

Do you live tweet conferences and web casts? Do you have any personal guidelines you follow, or are you aware of any guidelines established by your company or organization?

Tags: Fair Use, copyright, Twitter, live tweeting, live blogging, guidelines

It wasn’t that long ago everyone (or so it seemed) was asking everyone else, “do you have a blog?” Or worse, “do you blog?” In the past week, two of my favorite bloggers — or people I choose to call “people who write blogs,” as I try not to use blog as a verb — announced they were going to stop blogging, or writing blogs, or whatever.

On September 4 came the announcement on my little brother David Postman’s blog that he is “leaving The Seattle Times. I’m also leaving journalism, at least for the next phase of my career. I am going to work for Vulcan, Inc., the company founded and led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. I will be doing media relations for the company.” Talk about a sellout! And how did I find out about it? On his blog. He never calls.

David is chief political blogger for the Seattle Times. Journalism and blogging were but two of the many things he set out to in life in which he seriously kicked my butt. He flew in the governor’s helicopter covering the Exxon Valdez spill. He met President Bush. In high school, he had an awesome Austin Healey “Bugeye” Sprite. And a vintage Honda into which I accidentally poured a 5-gallon “jerry can” of rusty water. (Dave, I’m really sorry about that.) In the 60s, growing up, my brother was known on Templeton Ct. as “Little Davey.” It was such a cool nickname, that when the family moved away from Sunnyvale, California, there were two other Davids on the block, and the younger of the two, asked, “Hey, do I get to be ‘Little Davey’ now?” Of course the answer was no. Sorry pal. There is only one Little Davey. Good luck on your new venture, Little Davey!

One day later, Michael Tangeman, who up until recently was not a “Knight Who Said ‘Ni!” but up until recently did write the Media Mindshare blog, announced that he has decided to stop blogging. Michael is a solid writer, with a keen eye for news and a sharp analytical mind. I have always enjoyed his blog. He’s a fellow Humboldt State University alumni. Michael decided to stop blogging because he wondered, as many of us do, whether he still had something worth saying, and whether there was a world beyond his blog. Michael concludes his two year foray into blogging believing there is a “case for the advancement of both traditional media and online media hand-in-hand — rather than the supplanting of the former by the latter.” He wonders if his focus on his blog has interfered with his more active participation in this process.

As the number of people writing blogs continues to grow, there will naturally be in an increase in the number of people who quit blogging to go on to something else, something bigger and better, something perhaps more rewarding. I think it’s very healthy to break out of something quotidian and comfortable and go on to take the next step, whatever it is.

Tags: David Postman, Seattle Times, Michael Tangeman, Political blogger, Postman on Politics, Media Mindshare

Something weird happened on Twitter this evening. So-called traditional journalists used Twitter and collaborated with “regular” Twitter folks to report on Hurricane Gustav. Rick Sanchez of CNN has been tweeting coverage of Gustav, and has been chatting with Twitter users in New Orleans and elsewhere. Apparently, Sanchez even projected tweets on his CNN broadcast.

Another Twitter user with the identity GustavReporter is apparently a team of Chicago Tribune journalists en route to New Orleans (in Jackson, MS as I write this), occasionally reporting live via Twitter, and using TwitPic to post still images. I noticed that their photos, like the one below, were not captioned, and they told me this was because they were driving.

The Tribune was tweeting via Twitterific*, an iPhone client which means, yes, a journalist no longer needs a satellite uplink, and can cover a live event, complete with images and even video, using just an iPhone. (Yes, you can capture video with an iPhone, long story, no time to tell it right now.)

Mark Mayhew, who lives on Bourbon St., has been “covering” Gustav on Twitter and tweeting with the Chicago Tribune team.

I don’t claim to be an expert on New Orleans or Gustav, and this post is based solely on what I could “see” via Twitter, but it is interesting to watch the unfolding of the inevitable merger of traditional journalism and social media. It is a sad moment indeed when we will no longer be able to say traditional journalists “don’t get it.” That’s going to leave an awful lot of bloggers with nothing to write about.

* iPhone users can also get a free version of Twitterific from the iPhone app store

Tags: Hurricane Gustav, Rick Sanchez, CNN, Twitter, GustavReporter, Chicago Tribune, New Orleans, Twitterific, Mark Mayhew