Public Enemy hates chronic unemployment, too

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Public Enemy played the Pitchfork Music Festival here Friday night, on the 20th anniversary of their album, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. In keeping with Learning New Skills, I wedged myself up front to shoot pictures of the live show, images I hope are decent. If anyone hates keeping the people down, it’s Chuck D; if anyone supports taking on multiple jobs at once, it’s totally Flavor Flav.

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Building a toolbox

I shot a bunch of video last weekend while camping out with the Mister and family in Wisconsin. Since my fancy Mac + editing software (also entire Microsoft editing suite) went back to my former employers, I consulted Wired Journalists to see where to acquire the basics online.

Audacity it is for audio. Looks pretty standard so far. Good plug-ins to convert files to mp3’s. OpenOffice for writing and (finally!) building databases. Love that it’s the MySql peoples behind it all.

There’s no excuse now. All this software was free and easily downloaded. Armed with an Excel substitute and a way to play with sound, I feel more powerful already.

Guerrilla warfare takes to the Trees

Fighting back in this market – where America needs watchdogging reporters but hasn’t figured out how to pay for them – is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. Based on my own experience with corporate-owned media, I’m not too excited about hopping back onto any company that has more HR structure than reporters. Period. You’ve read about my plans and efforts to learn new skills; turns out some smarty guy with more experience than me is also trying to figure out how journalism survives corporate ownership and a transition from print to something else. It’s called the Treehouse Media Project, started by a guy with enough Philadelphia connex to inspire me, Rich Heidorn Jr.

Phase One of the TreeHouse Media Project will provide multimedia and entrepreneurial training. Together we will learn new ways to tell our stories and share best practices on revenue models that will support our work. We may collaborate on joint ventures. We will support our colleagues by telling our readers about the good work they are doing.

Current plans call for instruction in:

Multimedia & Technology

• Blogs & RSS feeds
• Video (reporting for the camera, shooting, editing, uploading to the web)
• Podcasting
• Web design
• Database design and deployment

Business and Marketing

• E-Commerce (shopping carts; marketing/advertising etc.)
• Marketing and advertising (e.g. Search engine optimization)
• Writing a business plan
• Legal issues: copyrights, fair use, choosing the right business structure, etc.)
• Creating revenue streams: a platform for book sales and speaking engagements; advertising; subscriptions; merchandise sales, etc.
• Finances / Accounting
• Sales (e.g. advertising)

Weekend seminars this fall in Philadelphia (where I have parents); You know I already signed up.

New skills

I spent the week negotiating theseverance offer my company made in eliminating my position — an exhausting thing to do, even with a great attorney. Sent the signed letter off today with a grand sense of accomplishment that those loose ends now are wrapped up, and I can stop looking back.

Time for the future. Time to consider that if I want to keep reporting for the public (as opposed to peddling gossipy crap, or writing for some insider mag), I’m going to have to use this time to learn some brand new skills and reinforce the basic audio and HTML I already know.

My mother in Philadelphia (whose reaction to my pink slip was, “What’s their fax number?”) sent me a stunning copy of Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production to read through and master. We’re spending the upcoming weekend in Wisconsin with the Mister’s family, and now I have something to read and savor — and maybe try out. The author is NPR’s training guru – Jonathan Kern. It’s a powerful tool in the toolbox.

Apt timing; today I finished an application to this audio training for print reporters right here in Chicago. Fingers crossed.