Tam Harbert

The first time I quit my job to freelance full time – 1989 – I learned how valuable referrals are.

My former employer started using me as regular contributor. I hadn’t planned on that, but I had left on good terms, and apparently they missed me. It was a good deal for the publication as well as for me. The editor already knew how talented, reliable and thorough I was. And I already knew the publication’s style and readership. I could report and write great stories in half the time it would take if I were working for an unfamiliar magazine, so my projects for them worked out to a nice hourly rate.

Then, as editors and writers from that publication moved up or out to other jobs, they continued to hire me for freelance work. It was a wonderful sort of cross-pollination. Like butterflies, people for whom I’d worked flitted off to a new flower, and then offered new opportunities to me. Many times I not only added a new client, but continued working for the old one as well. Thus, my client base grew.

Today, however, the publishing industry is consolidating. As more and more magazines and newspapers close, more of my colleagues are being laid off. Given the state of the economy and of journalism, they aren’t necessarily landing on a new flower right away. Many have become freelancers by necessity.

And yet, the cross-pollination has continued. Most of my new clients still come from referrals from former editors or freelance colleagues. A few recent examples:

A former colleague who’d been freelancing for the last several years just took a full-time job editing blogs for a major trade publisher. Not only is she handing off at least one of her freelance clients to me, she also has hired me to do some work for her new employer. On top of that, she’s in a position to circulate my name to other editors at other publications the company owns.

A former editor took a job at a custom publishing company. He has hired me for regular contributions to an online newsletter for one of his clients.

A freelance colleague and former editor has found himself suddenly buried in work. Rather than say no to a valuable client, he referred them to me.

I’m amazed, and grateful, that this process continues. In this time of upheaval in the publishing business, maybe even because of it, there is still work out there. It’s just more difficult to find. That makes referrals especially sweet.

Twy as I might, I can’t figure out what to do with Twitter.

I’m not exactly on the cutting edge of social media, but I do use Facebook, have my own website and blog, and pride myself on being an early and fairly sophisticated user of LinkedIn. I find all of these platforms useful – either professionally, personally or both. They each have their learning curves, but they aren’t so steep that they keep moderately intelligent people away.

Twitter, on the other hand, baffles me. Its content is neither relevant to my life nor useful in my work. The top Twitter trends last week – the NCAA and Justin Bieber – don’t interest me. Every time I see an article on how to use Twitter, I scan through it eagerly, hoping that I’ll find the key to make sense of this confusing world. So far, nada.

Typical tips for how newbies can get started on Twitter:

1. Share URLs. We’re already overwhelmed by stuff to read, see and hear on the Internet. Unless it’s really important, why would I want to add to that burden? And if it is really important, why would I rely on Twitter – where it will get lost in the great galaxy of tweets (except of course for those people who’ve mastered the Twitter universe and can filter out the critical news from the mundane I-just-spilled-coffee-on-my-keyboard drivel)? Having said that, I have tried to use Twitter to market myself. Each week, I dutifully tweet the URL of my blog post. Google Analytics tells me it draws very few readers. (It’ll be interesting to see the stats this post generates.)

2. Retweet information. If I don’t understand the usefulness of tweets, why would I want to retweet and just add to the cacophony?

3. Directly message friends and colleagues. I already can’t reach them by phone, e-mail, texting or IM. Now I have to add tweeting to that list of futile attempts? Sometimes I suspect it’s all a cosmic joke by the gods of the Internet, who laugh as we all run circles around each other online.

4. Search for friends and colleagues. See non-reason #3. Besides, when I try to search for people, I either come up with complete strangers (with similar names), I can’t tell which of the people listed are my friend/colleague (most don’t have photos), or I locate the right person but find they haven’t tweeted since 2009. (There’s a lot of us newbies who tweeted once or twice, then gave up.)

I’ve also tried some of the desktop clients, such as TweetDeck, which are supposed to make all those tweets manageable. I couldn’t figure out how to use them. It probably had to do with the fact that I didn’t even know what it was I was trying to manage . . .

So, why twouble myself? Give me a good reason – in 140 characters or less – why I should tweet.

When people get all their news from Facebook, Twitter and blogs, how will they know what’s factual and accurate? Will it even matter to them?

If those questions alarm you, then check out the News Literacy Project, a program that tries to teach students “the critical thinking skills to sort fact from fiction in the digital age.” Indeed, the organization’s tag line – “how to know what to believe” – sums up its mission succinctly.

The worry: that in the age of Google, Wikipedia and seemingly limitless online information young people are losing the important skill of discernment, that they view all information – regardless of source or bias – as equal in value, and that they will therefore be incapable of making well-informed decisions. Not only will journalism suffer, but such a citizenry could damage, even ultimately destroy, our democratic society.

I had never heard of the organization, even though it has a pilot program at a local school – Walt Whitman Senior High School in Bethesda, Md. I discovered it when a fellow journalist forwarded me an e-mail announcing that the project was sponsoring a panel discussion at Whitman on “The Future of Journalism in the Digital Age.” That would be my future, so of course I went to hear what they had to say.

On the panel were seasoned journalist Ray Suarez, senior correspondent of the PBS NewsHour, and the heads of two major news organizations – Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of NPR, and Katharine Weymouth, publisher of The Washington Post. Although they talked about journalism’s present and future, they didn’t say anything we in the profession haven’t heard before or experienced first-hand. Ironically, the panel served as an exercise in critical, analytical thinking for those of us in the audience. The News Literacy Project teaches kids to question what they read (or hear) and to consider the bias of the source. Both Schiller and Weymouth insisted on extolling the virtues of the digital age of journalism, while refusing to discuss the downside, such as how it has decimated the staffs at most news organizations. Suarez, the moderator, tried to raise these issues, but got nowhere. In fact, they flat-out ignored a question from an audience member about whether either of them planned to farm out research and basic reporting to workers in India, as some news organizations have already.

They kept stressing the importance of quality journalism, the value of good reporting and the crucial need for students to appreciate these values and learn how to pick the wheat from the chaff. All the while I kept thinking, “OK, but who’s going to pay for that quality?” I could barely contain a chortle when the Post’s Weymouth said she tells aspiring young journalists that the most valuable skill is “to be a good reporter.” The Post has laid off hundreds of staff in the last few years. It essentially killed its business section last year. I’m pretty sure they were all good reporters.

Nevertheless, the News Literacy Project seems a worthwhile endeavor. It may not save our jobs, but it may save our society. To learn more, take a look at this video.

As a writer, I believe strongly in the concept of copyright, retaining the rights to the work by which creative professionals earn their living. But I have a confession to make. Ever since I launched my website, I’ve been operating in a gray area when it comes to the copyright on images.

I strongly suspect, however, that I’m not alone. How many of you out there – yes, you writers and bloggers – verify the copyright and obtain permission if required for every image you use from the Web?

I thought so. Me, too.

Initially, I was concerned about using the magazine covers on my website. Still am. But the images are so small I’m betting these publishers won’t give me grief about it. At any rate, it’s probably fair use.

But I faced another copyright challenge once I figured out how to add images to my blog posts. I’ve tried to be careful, but it’s not easy – in fact it often seems impossible – to figure out whether images are copyrighted. A Google search for mountains, for example, yields more than 37 million images. If I start clicking through these, a few are obviously copyrighted – they carry the familiar copyright symbol, ©. But most do not. Of course, the law no longer requires a work to display the © symbol for copyright protection. In fact, when I click on any image, Google warns me that “This image may be subject to copyright.” When I click further to go to the original source – which may be a commercial website, someone’s blog, or even a variety of websites that claim to offer “free” images, it’s never clear whether the image is copyrighted. There is no copyright notice on the photo, although there is a copyright notice at the bottom of the website. Presumably this copyrights the website, but not the photo.

When I attended the Future of Freelancing conference last summer, one presenter mentioned that a good way to find images available for legal use was to search Creative Commons (CC). I’ve tried, but remain baffled. Right off the bat, the home page tells me:

“Do not assume that the results displayed in this search portal are under a CC license. You should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link. Since there is no registration to use a CC license, CC has no way to determine what has and hasn’t been placed under the terms of a CC license. If you are in doubt you should contact the copyright holder directly, or try to contact the site where you found the content.”

In addition, Creative Commons offers a confusing array of different types of licenses that specify different conditions under which I may use the work. So even if I figure out it’s licensed under Creative Commons, I still have to decipher exactly how I’m allowed to use it.

All this means that locating and verifying an image often takes as long as writing the blog post. Sometimes longer. Occasionally, I actually discover the copyright owner and ask for permission. The outpouring of gratitude tells me how widescale this problem is.

Here’s what Richard Krzemien, the author of the cartoon I used in last week’s post, told me about copyright infringement: “I used to keep close track of copyright problems, but honestly it can become a full time job. That’s why I took most of my comics down from the site. And all that’s available are the low resolution versions online. I figure it’s the cost of doing business. So I greatly appreciate you contacting me for permission.”

I’m sure what I’ve run into is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of copyright infringement on the Web. Come to think of it, that would make a good illustration for this post. There are 1.5 million images of iceberg tips on Google. I wonder which ones are legal?