RuthAnnHarnisch.com

Romenesko, Roger Ebert, And The Unfairness Of It All

by Ruth Ann Harnisch on 02/20/10 at 1:27 am

Day 51

While on sabbatical, I haven’t disengaged entirely from the world – I can’t help encountering some work-related material.  As a recovering journalist who knows the value of professional journalism to a free society of well-informed citizens, it’s difficult to ignore the crisis in current pay models of  journalism.

On Friday morning, I opened my email Inbox.  One of the subscriptions I kept is Romenesko. I clicked on the Roger Ebert story .

Then I read Chris Jones’s story in Esquire about Roger, which Roger wrote about in his blog, which Romenesko included in his daily aggregation of media news stories.

I read all this great writing for free.  I clicked, just like you can click the links I included here and read Romenesko’s blog and Ebert’s blog and Jones’s article in Esquire, no paywall, no subscription fee, no “donate here” button.  I’m not going to subscribe to the Chicago Sun-Times and I’m not going to subscribe to Esquire, but I’m reading what their writers wrote.

Oh, sure, The Harnisch Foundation  gives a little money to the Poynter Institute , which publishes Romenesko’s blog.  But we don’t give enough to support that blog, believe me.  And no money went to Ebert, whose blog is a wonder, nor to Jones and Esquire, whose original reporting was the start of the whole thing.

I feel as if I owe somebody for the privilege of reading this writing – but there’s no sensible method in place. 

Journalism pay FAIL.