Remember When You Could Hear Jay Rosen Speak for Free?
Maybe I should title this Public Journalism Advocate Makes Good, While Traditional Journalists Don’t.
Who would have thought that a public journalism scholar, now a citizen media scholar could sit on a panel that commands a $75 ticket? Check out: Journalists and Social Media: Sources, Skills, and the Writer: A panel discussion with Jay Rosen (NYU), Shirley Brady (Businessweek), and Andy Carvin (NPR).
Of course, this has a deeper meaning. If the stars in the free-content movement can command high speaking fees and then residuals from videos edited from their talks, then maybe you will see less of them for free.
Is this the beginning of the end of free high quality information? After all Jay has always been at the vanguard of media reform and change. Apparently it is not the beginning of paying people who produce the content…see Jay’s comment below. He isn’t getting paid, only MediaBistro is charging.
One more thought. A long time ago when I was editor of Minnesota Monthly Magazine, which is a for-profit enterprise owned by the nonprofit Minnesota Public Radio, I ran a piece about how much Minnesota speakers were getting paid. In the piece we mentioned that Garrison Keillor charged some enormous figure, I think it was $10,000. Keillor blew a gasket because he said he often speaks to small groups for free and worried that some church lady now might not feel comfortable in asking him to speak.
So maybe Jay Rosen will blow a gasket too. Any how, if you like what you hear for $75, you might want to check out the free video (at least for now) of Jay here at PJNet.org.
Important Update: Read Jay Rosen’s comment. Apparently MediaBistro took it upon themselves to charge for the event without Rosen knowing it and without paying him any fee either.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Speaking fee? I’m not getting any speaking fee, Len. I don’t know where you got that. I didn’t know they were charging until I saw the online publicity. I don’t think I will do anything for MediaBistro like that again, but I didn’t want to cancel once I had committed. As for free, which I believe in, I am doing more journalism education for free than ever, via Twitter.
http://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu
Cheers.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Sorry Jay, an amateur mistake on my part. Thanks for correcting is so quickly.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:39 am
That is MediaBistro’s thing. I’ve never really been a fan of it – but that is how they make so much money.
It makes sense that they charge for the classes they teach: especially when they teach digital media skills (photoshop and stuff) – but I never understood why they charge to attend their parties, their panel discussions, etc – it is a bit “We are all New Yorker writers” of them.