Artchatpodcast 079

Julie has independently raised money for her current photo-journalism project. Her first time attempting crowd funding. She has a lot of readers of her independent reporting, she thought she'd have a lot of small investors to her crowd funding effort, but instead, she got several big funders which gave her half her budget. She hoped for more small investors because she hoped to be able to come back to them for future investigations. She reports that although she can sell her stories, the amount offered doesn't meet the expenses of covering even local stories. The Tar Sands XL pipeline oil spill in Arkansas was the first story she didn't jump in her car and go cover. She knew she'd be able to sell the stories, but she'd never get enough to cover the gas and hotel required for her to make the eight hour drive from her New Orleans home. For her current story following up on Hurricane Sandy damage in the New York area, six months after, she wanted to try crowd funding. She's glad she did it, she got more money than what she'd receive for selling the story, but she'd like to develop a larger group of people who look to her for environmental stories and can frequently throw in five and ten dollars for each assignment. "It's awful," she says, to be in the field shooting all day, work up a story overnight and spend the next day pitching and begging editors to take your work. She chose IndieGoGo because they let her receive the money even if it doesn't match the target budget. She's worried her Facebook appeals are too frequent. But she thinks her reporting is critical. As an example of what she hears from editors, the Atlantic told her they don't want any more David versus Goliath stories. She asks the group, what do you say to that? What other kinds of stories are there? I'm I suppose to tell corporate fairy tales? She says she's driven to tell the stories she sees, but it is not cost-effective. She was offered $100 to cover the BP oil spill aftermath, but it would cost her more than that to get into position to cover the story. No one knows how much it costs an independent journalist to the cover stories - this is why we are not getting the news coverage we deserve. Photo journalism suffers the most and the public suffers from news editors relying on free amateur cell phone photos. Getting Foundation funding requires you to know the right people. Julie says she's more interested in her work than socializing. But the social layer is of huge importance for getting her work funded. She's been a free-lancer for thirty years. When she started they told her she would need to marry well. "That made me puke!" I've shown in some prominent places, but I'm not well known. Emory sympathizes with her. He's glad to not be doing journalism anymore. Julie said she was always a fine artist and went into photography full-time in 2005, focusing on long term projects, like documenting genocide sites around the world and natural history museums. She says she became a news junkie and it all convene red for her. From looking at natural history, it was clear that looking at the current natural world was interesting and current environmental stories vital. She remembers she used to sell jewelry on the streets near where Allan lives and run when the cops came around. Emory says Julie's narrative sounds like the early muck rakers, Ida Tarbell and the others - fighting against great forces and creating a remarkable body of work. Julie says now it's more dangerous than then, with the new laws. She has to worry about being disappeared because of the NDAA and other anti-protest laws. During the Tar Sands Blockade, she got in touch with a friend in law enforcement to have a backup if they took me away. She knew she would have to trespass and that she was covering people considered "Eco-Terrorists" by Trans-Canada. She knew she was running the risk of not only loosing money covering the story, but of being disappeared. It's gotten crazier and crazier - but, that makes me want to do it more. Steve asks how many social web services has Julie been working to build up her contact lists? Julie says she uses Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Google Plus. And she taps into people who have a good network by inboxing photos on certain stories because she knows when they share them she'll get at least a thousand hits. Anything she shoots on the Gulf Coast or on Tar Sands get out pretty far. She got 20,000 hits on a story about walking the Mississippi beaches. She's trying to build it up. Steve said he was hoping she had gotten out beyond Facebook. Julie says she emails personally people she knows don't use Facebook. She knows you only reach about 35 of your people. She understands pro pages get to more people. Julie says it is certainly better than when we didn't have these services. She is a huge fan of the Internet. She advises to reach people by phone, although she hates to do it. If you have work they need they will take your call and if you leave a message they will call back. Photo Editors have less power than the Editors. If you call the editors, they will sometimes build a story around the work you have. Or start writing, which is what she's doing now. Her career wouldn't be anything if she wasn't writing. A self-assigned photo story is good for self-promotion, but that's all. She got in because she writes the story around her photos and calls Editors, not the Photo Editors. At the Atlantic it was just that, a phone call - she had shots of Bush and Clinton in Haiti, she called, left messages and it worked. Emory says he got frustrated doing that. Long ago, when he organized a good pitch, he'd never hear "no." Then they started downsizing, firing Editors and he started getting Editors saying things like Julie heard - no more David vs Goliath stories. The Editors became less enlightened, less interested in doing news. No matter how powerful the pitch, they had their own agenda. Julie agrees, the third week of Sandy, she was told they didn't want anymore Sandy stories. It was shocking. She thinks any story that was worth telling in the first place, is worth following up. As a free-lancer, you create the whole package, do their work for them and to have them dismiss you is frustrating. Emory says he's doing fiction now, doesn't have to call anyone, doesn't have to argue over the elements of the story - it's another kind of tightrope he's walking, but he prefers this one. He once had the opportunity to hangout with the singer Little Jimmy Scott who had a medical condition that caused him to always be a soprano. A great influence on many singers, including Billi Holiday, it was the weekend of his 80th birthday. A movie of his life was premiering one night and the next night he was headlining a tribute to Billie Holiday at the Hollywood Bowl. Emory called his Editor at the LA Times who asked, "why is he news?" Wow! It was so defeating. Julie says now they wouldn't even get back to you! David King joined the call. Steve says he loves David's new CD, "Man About Midnight." David's songs with him giving late night DJ patter between songs. David said a friend described his DJ character as "a kinder, gentler Wolfman." Allan has another question for Julie, "Do you think that fund-raising on the Internet has been worth it for you? Would you do it again? Would you make any changes?" Julie says it has been worth it, she got half the money she asked for - more than she'll get from selling her story. She'll try it again, but doesn't think it can be a model for making a living as a journalist. "Maybe I'm wrong." What she had been doing wasn't working - fighting and begging while on the road to get her work published, then seeing it butchered in the editing, and getting crap money. Now, she'll do the story for the funders who want it, put her heart into it, if one of her clients want it, that's fine, but if they over-edit it, she'll say, "no thanks." That's a good feeling. She'll take it one story at a time. She can't expect everybody to throw down the kind of money they did for this one every time she hits the road. Emory says the stories she's tackling are so enormous and full of weighty details requires you to learn about things you don't know. Julie says the topics she tackles are things she knows about. When she dives in she learns more. She knew about the Keystone XL pipeline when she started to cover it, but had to learn so much more. That's the artist in her to want to know everything about it. Through her work on natural history and going out looking at the natural world, she's built up a lot about climate change - a hot topic. She has quite an archive on Corbis Images but the market is so bad, she got her first foreign agent sale for under $1 - she told them to exclude her images from such sale, she doesn't ever want her images going out for that. The Guardian will use her images but she gets only $10 for them. New York Magazine got her images of the New Jersey roller coaster under water for under $10. She's contemplating a tell-all story about the crap you get. She's not sure if it will piss off her clients - but, it's really bad. Sometimes, she not even happy to see her work being used. Steve asks Ferrie how his promotion of VAPTU 1918 The Unimaginable is going. Ferrie reports the project has been submitted to sixteen film festivals. He's continuing to promote the project. In Holland, a well known film maker, Johan Ronlow, has a festival Ferrie has submitted the work to. There is a prize. They asked him to submit a DVD. Almost like a record from a hundred years ago. The project is in full HD, a DVD version would be degraded to one third the quality. He told them to either take the video at full quality or leave it. They did accept it. Steve says of the artist he knows, Ferrie has the largest Internet presence, he's everywhere and really working it everyday. "What all do you do to build and maintain your audience." "No, Ferrie says, "I just do because I like it,

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