Spalpeen

I support Obama for President (the opponent would be a disaster for America and the world), but this video the campaign aired recently is essentially propagandist drivel. Who would in their right mind sit through a 30 minute commercial?! I expect that it’ll come off cheesy for uncertain voters, and probably patronising for most supporters of Obama. The only group I can see actually sitting through it are hardcore fanatics of Obama, but they would have watched this if it had been published solely online. Seems like a waste of money to broadcast this on the networks. Then again, most of this $1 Billion “race” to the White House comes off as a waste sitting from all the way over in the U.K.

Around two weeks ago I formally* applied to the NUJ, stating my occupation as “blogger”, and that my full salary came from blogging in a freelance role. A week later I received a call from Paul at the NUJ, confirming that I couldn’t be a full member of the NUJ if I was in full time education, and neither could I get a student membership if I wasn’t a doing a media course / on the student paper. Because my “situation” clashed with the NUJ’s rulebook, I had to admit that I’m taking a year out of my course, and therefore I won’t technically be a student this year (I’m off to work at Mahalo in Santa Monica, lucky me). I have to tell them I’m a student again when I get back and resume my course, which means I’ll probably be reapplying: depending on whether I find the union useful or not of course.

I received a letter a few days back, suggesting I attend a London freelancers meeting today (Friday 12th November) at 6.45PM. Unfortunately I can’t attend, so I phoned up the NUJ to see whether this would affect my application. It will, to the extent that I won’t be able to answer any potential objections that may or may not be raised.

Then, I get an email from Martin Stabe at the Press Gazette, quoting Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the NUJ.

“I also approved the application of the first NUJ member who has blogger as their job title. Whilst we have hundreds, if not thousands of members who write blogs, this is the first person who earns their entire living solely from freelance blogging. Who says we’re not attracting new media workers? Membership in new media was up almost 11% over the past year.”

It sounds like I may officially be the first member of the NUJ with blogging as his/her only profession (as long as no objections are raised at this meeting tonight). But am I really the first to join the NUJ as a full-time blogger? It seems like half The Guardian’s online staff are bloggers by profession (including the co-signer of my application), and I’m sure there are plenty of other mainstream media reporters out there who are members of the NUJ, yet their primary job role is blogging. What’s different about me?

I may be the first person to apply as a new member with the vast majority of my experience being at a blog — that has always been a blog, and will always be a blog — but that doesn’t mean I’m the first blogger member of the NUJ.

Is Jeremy Dear saying that I am the first person who earns a salary solely from a blog (which isn’t associated with a mainstream entity) to apply to the NUJ? But wait, you say that Engadget isn’t associated with a mainstream entity? I thought you got your paychecks from AOL, you corporate whore, you! That’s true. So is it a requirement that every blogger who wants to be in the NUJ must be associated with a “big” media company with shareholders and stuff? It seems so. Either that, or no other non-MSM associated blogger has bothered to apply for the NUJ. That scenario honestly wouldn’t surprise me, considering the archaic application process.

The most surprising thing for me is that I was told to my face, on video by Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur) and Richard Sambrook (the director of the BBC’s Global News division) that I’m not a blogger, because of my blog’s mainstream media association, and the fact that my paychecks exist and come from AOL.

So why did I apply? Mainly to see what it was like and whether I would succeed, partly in an attempt to enact some basic changes at the NUJ using a method other than arguing online with Donnacha DeLong (setting up a form based online application system, publishing The Journalist magazine online, and allowing international members would be a great start), and peripherally because I want advice on unions. Surely in an ideal world, that peripheral motivation would be the only motivation?

Let’s see how it goes.

*Apparently, “formally” means writing a letter, on paper, and getting it signed by myself and two other NUJ members (thanks to Jemima and her colleague!) using a pen. I also had to stick an AOL payslip inside.

Two of the first books I’ve been recommended to read by Prof. Noel O’Sullivan at Hull:

Gordon Graham’s The Internet - Buy here, read an academic review here. Note that this was published in 1999. The web has changed an awful lot since then.

From the review: ” … even if the Internet is a new world it is not a world unto itself for its members are already members of this, our non-cybernetic, world. The world of the Internet cannot, in short, supplant our world; at most it can grow out of and assume an enormous significance within our world. But its shape and character are determined by, and can be controlled by, the forms our present world choose to assume.” I think this viewpoint (that the internet was never designed to replace reality) has been accepted now. People acknowledge that sites like Facebook only compliment real life activities. Possibly this is why concepts such as Second Life are failing: they seek to emulate the concept of the “3D Internet”, a silly concept where people replace their real physical lives with an artificial world.

Another interesting quote from the review: ” … the worldwide web, for all its puffed social and political ramifications, is principally a world of commercial activity.” I love this quote, because it questions the concept of the web as a force for unequivocal good. Commercial activity is tied inexorably to making money. It’s arguable whether that can ever be “good”, no matter what the optimistic college student CEOs in Silicon Valley think.

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire - Buy here. Also first published over 7 years ago in 2000. Interesting review here: ” … the book is a breathtakingly incoherent hash, composed of loopy 1960s utopianism, apologetics for the Soviet Union, paranoia, and sheer blood lust. Neither author appears to have really been prepared to handle a book of this attempted scope.”

“Mr Blair says he has not kept a diary of his time in Downing Street, but hints that once he leaves he will try to understand the world of the iPod and text messaging which, he acknowledges, is also changing the medium of political debate.”

Wow, just wow. Is there really hope for any kind of integration of a democracy that utilises the web when dinosaurs like these are still in power? If he can’t grasp the concept of text messaging or iPods (this quote is from the middle of a podcast, no less) then the prospect of concepts like blogging becoming integrated into the political process don’t look too great!

Read - The Guardian