I’ve been a member of two “talent” unions since I was 14 – and working part time as a DJ in Boston, my home town. In those days Boston was run by a powerful Democratic political machine – and it was definitely a union town. Virtually every radio and TV station – and anything shot on film - was union. So even a kid like me had to ante up the initiation fees and dues. I came from a show biz family and was used to it. My father - a pianist – was a member of the musicians’s union during its “don’t mess with us or we’ll bust your head” period under the now legendary national leadership of James Petrillo. My mother – a singer – was a member of AGVA – which covered night club entertainers. And in college - all of us aspiring actors were desperate to get into an Equity summer stock show - because you had to be in Equity to go to an Equity casting call – but you couldn’t get into Equity unless you were hired for a union show. A Catch 22 before any of us had ever heard of it.
Early on I gave up my dreams of life upon the wicked stage for the more prosaic – and attainable dream of network news. As it turned out – I had just enough acting ability to read and talk the news before the mic and the camera. I also had a questioning mind that was a lot more useful to a reporter than to a bit part actor who was only pretending she could also sing and dance.
For a long time, I worked only under AFTRA (www.aftra.org) union contracts. I was covered for medical benefits – and my employers were required to pay into my union-centered pension – whether I worked as a staff employee or was free lance. It was a good – and in a chaotic industry – a relatively orderly life.
Then – along came cable.
And AFTRA chose not to bother with cable -- figuring the money in these then niche networks was so insignificant it wasn't worth the organizing time. I know; I was on the local union board during that incubation period. Instead of dealing with real issues, our board members seemed mostly interested in making long speeches. Which is why I quit; it was a total waste of time.
So --- many years later -- here we are – in an age where unions in general are increasingly powerless and the companies they negotiate with are increasingly all-powerful and demanding. So what are the talent unions doing? AFTRA (the “live” and tape/recorded union) is fighting with SAG (the film union) –although at this point the craft designations have almost no meaning as digital and internet technology roll over all of us faster than we can pick ourselves up. (Granted the foolish fights seem to be mostly picked by SAG www.sag.org).
There are huge cable networks like the one I work for - CNBC - and of course CNN --the most obvious example - which are non-union. That means nothing is paid into the AFTRA pension and health funds.
For freelancers like me this is a terrible loss. Having medical and pension benefits centered in a union so wherever you work you still get benefits was a master stroke by all the talent unions as they began to gain leverage decades ago. But if eventually there are no organized media companies left to pay into them -- what's the point?
All of this was just brought home to me very powerfully; I did a one line voice-over as a newsperson for an HBO program more than a year ago. And HBO continues to operate under a pre-existing AFTRA contract. Not only did I get paid what to me is a very large sum for just 5 minutes of work --- I have so far gotten 2 residual checks from AFTRA for only slightly less than I was paid for the initial session.
Now I am a business reporter -- which might make me argue that this type of payment scale may be unsustainable in our new, digitally splintered media world. Except that most of those "splintered" media entities -- internet, cable, digital cable, mobile etc. -- are still owned by the top 10 media companies. Companies which in turn may be owned by even bigger international corporations.
Bottom line to all this: none of us really knows where our industry is going as technology continues to drive change. But as a newsperson it is pretty clear to me that we - certainly - will soon have no separate designations. Print journalists are doing video for newspaper websites; broadcast journalists are writing for websites and taking still photos and of course also increasingly shooting and editing video. We have too many separate unions for this scenario -- where there ARE unions left. It seems to me we have to join forces and our first job should be to unionize as many types of media operations as possible -- even if only for small money. We have to be ready for whatever technology -- and these huge corporations - throw at us.
And second -- we have to be sure our members get something useful out of belonging to a union. Of course salaries matter. But at CNBC, for instance, people get paid pretty much what they would at union operations. And working conditions are reasonable. It's how they’ve kept the unions (no technical unions either) out. So money isn't really the issue. It's benefits. It's some kind of job security. It's provision for medical leave or the like. Etc. But most of all, I think, it's offering ways for members to upgrade their skills at all levels and in all jurisdictions so we can compete with the 22 year old college graduate -- who HAS learned it all and is so comfortable with technology that he or she sees no rough edges. These folks just do whatever is needed and that is what all of us have to learn to do also. Years ago the technical unions used to have something we knew as "one machine, one operator". You ran a tape machine or turned a dial in master control. There were penalties for asking you to do more. Late lunch penalties. "Golden time" penalties.
Non-media companies came in during the 80's and early 90's and smashed that model to smithereens. Now the same thing is happening in the written and spoken media. Actors may be insulated right now -- but they may not be in the future. We are ALL going to HAVE to do more for less money. At least for now. Until our separate and entrenched leaderships realize that only one, huge and united craft union can wield enough power and leverage to fight back for all of us.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
A Tear in Life's Fabric
Something is happening. Maybe it happens to everyone eventually. It’s as if there’s a tear in the fabric of life, a break in the force field that holds us to this planet.
My friends, my colleagues, the people who have defined my life for so many years – they’re disappearing. One by one – dropping off like the leaves in the early part of fall. And you know what happens as fall deepens. The leaves become a blizzard. A blizzard of death.
Death. No amount of reasoning about nature and the way it is can make me fear that word any less. And in the past few weeks death seems to be stalking the streets I know, scooping up not only old people whose lives had shriveled up like their bodies – but much younger people who had everything to live for.
My friend and colleague Roger E. Hernandez died over the weekend. He was 53. Chalk up another one for the big C. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003847809
It’s not that I saw Roger or his wife Dianne every day. Or even every year. They are my neighbors, living with their children just one town over. The people you keep saying you must invite over to catch up – as time speeds up and runs off the clock. How many more friends and colleagues and family members are in that category. How many more people will be gone before I get around to saying hello?
Roger was a funny, nice, straightforward guy. Not someone you would easily forget. When I first met him he was an assignment editor at the TV station I went to work for - more than 20 years ago. He was old enough when he left Cuba with his parents to remember how it was – and to be a lifelong foe of Castro. The stuff of many good - shall we say - discussions. We would laugh at Roger’s slight accent; we could never understand his directions over the noisy police-type radios we all used then to communicate with the “desk” when we were out on a story. Roger, being Roger, would laugh as well. Sometimes.
We became a family at that TV station. Dianne and Roger moved on and got married. Some of us also moved on. But the family bond has held. We used to come together at odd times to see photos of babies just born or talk about new jobs - or old ones. And now – a much older family – we are coming together too often to cry instead of laugh. At wakes and funerals and memorial services.
Like Roger’s.
If he was looking down on us, he might have been surprised at how many people knew him, were shocked at his death and already missed him. Perhaps they too felt a little break in the force field, a tear in the fabric.
Because when there’s a tear here – and a break there – one day the force field disintegrates. The fabric shreds. And not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men (and women) can put Humpty Dumpty together again.
My friends, my colleagues, the people who have defined my life for so many years – they’re disappearing. One by one – dropping off like the leaves in the early part of fall. And you know what happens as fall deepens. The leaves become a blizzard. A blizzard of death.
Death. No amount of reasoning about nature and the way it is can make me fear that word any less. And in the past few weeks death seems to be stalking the streets I know, scooping up not only old people whose lives had shriveled up like their bodies – but much younger people who had everything to live for.
My friend and colleague Roger E. Hernandez died over the weekend. He was 53. Chalk up another one for the big C. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003847809
It’s not that I saw Roger or his wife Dianne every day. Or even every year. They are my neighbors, living with their children just one town over. The people you keep saying you must invite over to catch up – as time speeds up and runs off the clock. How many more friends and colleagues and family members are in that category. How many more people will be gone before I get around to saying hello?
Roger was a funny, nice, straightforward guy. Not someone you would easily forget. When I first met him he was an assignment editor at the TV station I went to work for - more than 20 years ago. He was old enough when he left Cuba with his parents to remember how it was – and to be a lifelong foe of Castro. The stuff of many good - shall we say - discussions. We would laugh at Roger’s slight accent; we could never understand his directions over the noisy police-type radios we all used then to communicate with the “desk” when we were out on a story. Roger, being Roger, would laugh as well. Sometimes.
We became a family at that TV station. Dianne and Roger moved on and got married. Some of us also moved on. But the family bond has held. We used to come together at odd times to see photos of babies just born or talk about new jobs - or old ones. And now – a much older family – we are coming together too often to cry instead of laugh. At wakes and funerals and memorial services.
Like Roger’s.
If he was looking down on us, he might have been surprised at how many people knew him, were shocked at his death and already missed him. Perhaps they too felt a little break in the force field, a tear in the fabric.
Because when there’s a tear here – and a break there – one day the force field disintegrates. The fabric shreds. And not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men (and women) can put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
LETTER FROM PRAGUE
July 21, 2008
The sun is just setting here in Prague. It’s Monday night. I’ve been here for almost 6 weeks now, teaching a summer course at the Anglo-American University in Prague (Anglo-americky Vysoka Skola). http://www.aauni.edu/ If you know anything about The New School in New York City --- AAU is that kind of place. Very small classes, lots of give and take between students and lecturers, lots of freedom to run your classes as you wish. A school for the free spirits and thinkers and questioners. I’m right at home.
I’m a TV-radio reporter and producer, not a professor. My “teaching” experience up to now has involved workshops for professional journalists in former Communist countries like Serbia and Albania – mostly working as second banana to a smart, funny and legitimate professor --- now emeritus – from Rutgers University in New Jersey – Jerome Aumente. But I’ve been lucky this summer. I have a very small class – 5 students. 4 of them are American young men, studying abroad for a semester, and mostly, I think, studying the Czech party, beer-drinking and summer rock festival scenes. My fifth student is a young woman from Slovakia --- getting her degree from AAU. No one seems to take the summer semester terribly seriously but then my class isn’t about War and Peace either. I’m teaching an introductory course in Broadcast News and Video – kind of an overview of broadcast journalism and how the internet is changing it. There’s a little about what makes a news story a news story. And how to write the story for TV, radio and the internet. How to shoot for news. And how to edit on a laptop. (I had to learn that myself, from my video editor husband).
I have found it a little odd to be teaching the fundamentals of news writing and production when most of the students (and I myself) have little access to understandable radio or TV news here. Without a yearly subscription to cable or an activated satellite dish --- there is only news in Czech. And one part-time BBC FM radio station. Most of my students don’t even have a TV set in the apartments they are renting for the summer. So it’s all what you seek out on the internet. I speak a little, very basic Czech after many years of coming here, but not enough to understand the fast-paced newscasters. I can, however watch the production. Which is somewhat calmer than ours at home – but otherwise perfectly recognizable.
Although we have just skimmed the surface of journalism, I was determined when I wrote up the syllabus (another newly learned word) that at least one class (and one reading assignment) would be devoted to ethics. After all – ethics are not unique to journalism and I figured wherever these students land in their careers – a dose of ethical living can’t hurt. Our text came from the SPJ http://www.spj.org and RTNDA http://www.rtnda.org ethics codes --- which I distributed to each student and which I hope they will reread now and then. We watched case histories from a special DVD put out by RTNDA. And the students read chapters from the accompanying RTNDA training book on newsroom ethics. We talked and discussed and questioned. I think my 5 students now know what “fair and balanced” really means. Despite its co-opting by Fox News. And they all had good answers to the ethics question on the mid term.
Prague is a fascinating city. It has some of the oldest and most beautiful buildings in Europe. They are meticulously maintained and virtually all survived World War 11 intact. A few hours drive to the north is Dresden --- which had the misfortune to be in Germany. Despite being considered the jewel of Europe – and despite the Germans being basically defeated - the Allies, led by the U.S., carpet-bombed Dresden and left most of it in ruins. My students have grown to appreciate all this – and have learned quite a bit about local politics and issues – thanks to assignments that required them to think in terms of news stories they could actually shoot here in Prague and get on the air that night.
Speaking of assignments -- my American students are all pretty good about doing them and about showing up for class. My Slovak student is somewhat more casual about her schooling. Over here young people typically take longer to get through the university system – dropping out for a year or so to work (or play). They are considered “students” (at least by the city transportation system) until they are 26 – getting cut rate student bus/tram/metro passes until then. Our college students should be so lucky
And then there is the ever rising Czech crown (koruna) and the ever falling dollar. This summer has seen a series of records set against both the dollar and the euro. My students have done the math and then done it based on what the dollar bought in crowns less than a year ago. And euros – because they have all traveled outside the Czech Republic this summer. Another useful lesson about currency trading, speculation and economic crises.
An interesting sidebar: a lot of Czechs have put their savings in dollars, pounds and euros (in Germany) because the interest rates are higher. But now when they need to convert back to crowns – the exchange rate is so low they are all losing money. There are also a lot of Americans, Brits and other Europeans on home country salaries who are really hurting. And many retirees - Czechs who became US citizens and now spend at least half a year over here - are finding their social security and pensions don't buy much at all.
Fortunately I am getting paid in Czech crowns and have a crown account to draw from -- money transfered when the exchange was much better. So I'm trying not to think of what I spend in dollar terms. Because when I do -- I throw up
Starbucks has come to Prague -- and opened not far from my university ---on a medieval square called Malestranske Namesti -- a big tourist area. You would not believe the prices! Forgetting the dollar -- I paid maybe half again as much as I normally do at a Wall Street area Starbucks for a muffin and a small (tall) black coffee. Not to mention McDonald’s which is also outrageous! But tourists love seeing a name they recognize -- and even Czechs will pay without complaint for a famous (and foreign) brand name.
And then there’s the ever-present grafitti, Oh not on the crown jewels – the 14th century churches and palaces in the old city. But everywhere else. It’s so bad even my students noticed – and chose to create a montage of graffiti for their field shooting and editing assignment. Last fall when I was here I wrote a letter to the Mayor of Prague (he has a pretty good, English language city website http://magistrat.praha-mesto.cz/lang/l2 ) complaining about the graffiti. I never got an answer. But just this summer Prague banned littering and introduced a leash law for the huge population of dogs in the city (Czechs simply adore their dogs). Oh – and the city has even banned public drinking in some heavily trafficked outdoor areas – an unheard of idea in a country where people believe having a beer (called pivo) just about anywhere – at any time – is a national birthright. But graffiti??? Not a word. Banning spray paint can sales to underage kids as New York City did in the 90’s? Faggetaboutit.
Wednesday is the final exam and the end of classes. My students must turn in a day-of-air news script for TV – with complete editing instructions. Unfortunately AAU doesn’t have production facilities so that is as far as they can go. There will also be an oral exam. I’ve given each student 5 to 7 minutes to defend their choice of the most important thing they’ve learned in the class. The head of the department will get the “exam” in mp3 files along with each student’s grade. I plan also to video each student and play it back at the end of class for a quick course in public speaking. Having such a small group allows, as I said, for a lot of creative thinking and feedback.
I hope we will all stay in touch through email and Skype. I guess I am enough of a teacher to hope also the class discussions will at the very least make news consumers of these 20 somethings. Having even 5 more news-savvy people in a world which knows less and less every day (despite having so much information at its mouse-tip) might just be the start of something big!
The sun is just setting here in Prague. It’s Monday night. I’ve been here for almost 6 weeks now, teaching a summer course at the Anglo-American University in Prague (Anglo-americky Vysoka Skola). http://www.aauni.edu/ If you know anything about The New School in New York City --- AAU is that kind of place. Very small classes, lots of give and take between students and lecturers, lots of freedom to run your classes as you wish. A school for the free spirits and thinkers and questioners. I’m right at home.
I’m a TV-radio reporter and producer, not a professor. My “teaching” experience up to now has involved workshops for professional journalists in former Communist countries like Serbia and Albania – mostly working as second banana to a smart, funny and legitimate professor --- now emeritus – from Rutgers University in New Jersey – Jerome Aumente. But I’ve been lucky this summer. I have a very small class – 5 students. 4 of them are American young men, studying abroad for a semester, and mostly, I think, studying the Czech party, beer-drinking and summer rock festival scenes. My fifth student is a young woman from Slovakia --- getting her degree from AAU. No one seems to take the summer semester terribly seriously but then my class isn’t about War and Peace either. I’m teaching an introductory course in Broadcast News and Video – kind of an overview of broadcast journalism and how the internet is changing it. There’s a little about what makes a news story a news story. And how to write the story for TV, radio and the internet. How to shoot for news. And how to edit on a laptop. (I had to learn that myself, from my video editor husband).
I have found it a little odd to be teaching the fundamentals of news writing and production when most of the students (and I myself) have little access to understandable radio or TV news here. Without a yearly subscription to cable or an activated satellite dish --- there is only news in Czech. And one part-time BBC FM radio station. Most of my students don’t even have a TV set in the apartments they are renting for the summer. So it’s all what you seek out on the internet. I speak a little, very basic Czech after many years of coming here, but not enough to understand the fast-paced newscasters. I can, however watch the production. Which is somewhat calmer than ours at home – but otherwise perfectly recognizable.
Although we have just skimmed the surface of journalism, I was determined when I wrote up the syllabus (another newly learned word) that at least one class (and one reading assignment) would be devoted to ethics. After all – ethics are not unique to journalism and I figured wherever these students land in their careers – a dose of ethical living can’t hurt. Our text came from the SPJ http://www.spj.org and RTNDA http://www.rtnda.org ethics codes --- which I distributed to each student and which I hope they will reread now and then. We watched case histories from a special DVD put out by RTNDA. And the students read chapters from the accompanying RTNDA training book on newsroom ethics. We talked and discussed and questioned. I think my 5 students now know what “fair and balanced” really means. Despite its co-opting by Fox News. And they all had good answers to the ethics question on the mid term.
Prague is a fascinating city. It has some of the oldest and most beautiful buildings in Europe. They are meticulously maintained and virtually all survived World War 11 intact. A few hours drive to the north is Dresden --- which had the misfortune to be in Germany. Despite being considered the jewel of Europe – and despite the Germans being basically defeated - the Allies, led by the U.S., carpet-bombed Dresden and left most of it in ruins. My students have grown to appreciate all this – and have learned quite a bit about local politics and issues – thanks to assignments that required them to think in terms of news stories they could actually shoot here in Prague and get on the air that night.
Speaking of assignments -- my American students are all pretty good about doing them and about showing up for class. My Slovak student is somewhat more casual about her schooling. Over here young people typically take longer to get through the university system – dropping out for a year or so to work (or play). They are considered “students” (at least by the city transportation system) until they are 26 – getting cut rate student bus/tram/metro passes until then. Our college students should be so lucky
And then there is the ever rising Czech crown (koruna) and the ever falling dollar. This summer has seen a series of records set against both the dollar and the euro. My students have done the math and then done it based on what the dollar bought in crowns less than a year ago. And euros – because they have all traveled outside the Czech Republic this summer. Another useful lesson about currency trading, speculation and economic crises.
An interesting sidebar: a lot of Czechs have put their savings in dollars, pounds and euros (in Germany) because the interest rates are higher. But now when they need to convert back to crowns – the exchange rate is so low they are all losing money. There are also a lot of Americans, Brits and other Europeans on home country salaries who are really hurting. And many retirees - Czechs who became US citizens and now spend at least half a year over here - are finding their social security and pensions don't buy much at all.
Fortunately I am getting paid in Czech crowns and have a crown account to draw from -- money transfered when the exchange was much better. So I'm trying not to think of what I spend in dollar terms. Because when I do -- I throw up
Starbucks has come to Prague -- and opened not far from my university ---on a medieval square called Malestranske Namesti -- a big tourist area. You would not believe the prices! Forgetting the dollar -- I paid maybe half again as much as I normally do at a Wall Street area Starbucks for a muffin and a small (tall) black coffee. Not to mention McDonald’s which is also outrageous! But tourists love seeing a name they recognize -- and even Czechs will pay without complaint for a famous (and foreign) brand name.
And then there’s the ever-present grafitti, Oh not on the crown jewels – the 14th century churches and palaces in the old city. But everywhere else. It’s so bad even my students noticed – and chose to create a montage of graffiti for their field shooting and editing assignment. Last fall when I was here I wrote a letter to the Mayor of Prague (he has a pretty good, English language city website http://magistrat.praha-mesto.cz/lang/l2 ) complaining about the graffiti. I never got an answer. But just this summer Prague banned littering and introduced a leash law for the huge population of dogs in the city (Czechs simply adore their dogs). Oh – and the city has even banned public drinking in some heavily trafficked outdoor areas – an unheard of idea in a country where people believe having a beer (called pivo) just about anywhere – at any time – is a national birthright. But graffiti??? Not a word. Banning spray paint can sales to underage kids as New York City did in the 90’s? Faggetaboutit.
Wednesday is the final exam and the end of classes. My students must turn in a day-of-air news script for TV – with complete editing instructions. Unfortunately AAU doesn’t have production facilities so that is as far as they can go. There will also be an oral exam. I’ve given each student 5 to 7 minutes to defend their choice of the most important thing they’ve learned in the class. The head of the department will get the “exam” in mp3 files along with each student’s grade. I plan also to video each student and play it back at the end of class for a quick course in public speaking. Having such a small group allows, as I said, for a lot of creative thinking and feedback.
I hope we will all stay in touch through email and Skype. I guess I am enough of a teacher to hope also the class discussions will at the very least make news consumers of these 20 somethings. Having even 5 more news-savvy people in a world which knows less and less every day (despite having so much information at its mouse-tip) might just be the start of something big!
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