Remembering NewsTIlt...

It's dead, and even my early thoughts of continuing my content somehow have been lost in the chaotic life I've been living lately, but one of the founders of NewsTilt blogged a post mortem.

It's interesting how he sees it, and explains a few things. For one thing, it turns out their plan was nothing like what I thought I signed up for. They thought they were building a great commentary site for each individual journalist -- post the story and wait for dialog with readers. I thought that's what this is. If I wanted a glorified blog, I'd rebuild Cat Typing into that.

I thought they were building something that could perhaps be described as an online catalog of stories available for resale to other outlets. I was very excited about that thought. I produce material enthusiastically and often, but am a terrible marketer. If someone was going to do all the marketing (and incidentally, all that complicated internet coding crap, which I could learn but don't want to), then great: a perfect match. But in reality, not so much.

I've got to say, he raised my hackles a bit with the comment that the journalists weren't "hungry to succeed," but I think he's just choosing his words poorly. I think his idea of product is just different from mine, perhaps most sharply shown by his frequent admission that he isn't a big news reader. I am a constant news reader. I am a journalist by definition; it's not my job, it's what I am. I am one of those people who, as Christiane Amanpour described it, will run towards the big scary thing everyone else is running away from.

He is a computer guy. He clearly thinks that short stories, delivered quickly and frenetically online, with lots of reader commentary and interactivity is journalism. I thought NewsTilt was an opportunity to work on some of those big think pieces that I had been meaning to get around to. I wanted to do New Yorker, while he was building Gawker or TMZ.

And, apparently, they were expecting me and my fellow contributors to drive readership to NewsTilt, where I expected NewsTilt to drive readership (or rather secondary outlets, and thence readership) to me. See above: I thought it was a marketing scheme. If I could somehow create vast legions of readers, why would I need NewsTilt? Again, I'd just monetize this site somehow. (And, by the way, thank you once again six followers. I know where my readership is...)

The pity is I'm back at Square One, still with product and no outlet or marketing scheme. When I finish moving and various other things, I guess I'll go to Word Press or some such place and rebuild my site with the former NewsTilt content, but then what? How do I go about monetizing this stuff?

Anyway, I forgive him for implying that I wasn't willing to produce product and wasn't hungry for success. But am I the one he mentioned as an Emmy winner when speaking in the same breath as a Pulitzer winner?

About that news site...

You'll undoubtedly recall (having followed my posts here in detail) that a while back I proudly proclaimed the creation and premiere of a new journalism site, NewsTilt. Don't worry if you get a blank page on that link, I'm about to explain: Poor thing didn't last two months.

The guys who ran it were very nice, and I think had a great idea: Find journalists who produce good product but don't know how to market and distribute it, build a syndication site, and voilá: everybody wins! But building a market is harder to do than to say. Personally, I think they gave up too quickly -- USA Today planned to lose money for ten years when it began -- but you can't force people to do things. I hope to transfer all the material I had there to a new site of my own soon. However, that takes time, and as my last post explained, that's a rather precious commodity in my life right now.

Welcome to my hectic world...

FOOTNOTE: On the subject of links that don't show anything, I've discovered that a lot of my links in earlier posts -- the ones to stories on the WDBJ site -- just take you to the front page now. The station went to a new host for its website, and I guess that is one of the defaults. I'll try to see if I can get them so they'll take you to the stories again, but I'm afraid that's also way down on the priority list. Like, after I move the NewsTilt stuff. That far down...

The Newest Outlet

Today a new website, NewsTilt, premiers, and I am gleeful to be part of it. Perhaps this has as much to do with passing through the rigorous selection process as to have a new outlet for my many random story ideas. And then, of course, there's the possibility of income...

At any rate, I've been scouring my material for stories written and story ideas never finished. The latter are generally pretty good (at least I think so), but abandoned because they failed to find an outlet. So now I have one...

Hopefully, by the time you read this, you'll be able to sign on and look at the material on NewsTile. I have three stories up now, and there are dozens of others on subjects ranging from an old bookie in St. Paul to the current scandals in the Catholic Church.

Thus endith the commercial. You may now resume your normal activites...