May/091
Soda Driven Writing
It was bound to happen: your girl has gotten herself a sponsor. Well, kind of. The Pepsi Corporation has now earned a strange place in my life as a company that somehow likes what I'm selling. First, they picked me as one of their 20 finalists for the SXSW "What's Your Pitch?" contest (which I just found out I didn't win, instead going to TeeCycle). My idea was for an internet safety advocacy organization, focused more on legal advocacy for people getting harassed online (since the current legal system is inadequate) and training programs for kids, namey what to do with boys to teach them not to post photos of their ex-girlfriends online to get back at them. Anyway, that's one idea that will have to come alive later on in life.
The second way is that I was chosen as part of a group of people to cover Internet Week New York, a kind of week long schedule of events to talk about the Internet, new media, social networking and all those buzz words you love. One of the things I get out of it (besides access to some pretty incredible events) was a fancy Flip HD (ultra, even!) camera. And yes, an honorarium, which is nice. Thanks Pepsi, for paying your contributors. Intrigued by what the online peanut gallery could possibly be saying about this, I found a few blog posts decrying the sponsorship deal and the fact that they were looking for both journalists and journalism students. I find the latter attitude to be a typical sense of entitlement from "real" journalists. To that I say: times have changed and you need to get used to it. Whereas 10 or 20 years ago, working writers may have gotten their start working at a small town newspaper or working their way up a newsroom, now we get started on blogs. I've called writing my b5media blog, BravoFan "writing boot camp" because that's exactly what it is, constant writing, not to mention I am fact checker, copy editor, and image editor all in one (and yes, I do fact check & I do research, even on my little celebrity gossip blog. I don't get off on posting unfounded rumors as fact like many of my brethren). My first job as a writer, for a trade blog called CMSWire taught me how to look for good stories, to never just copy and paste the press release, and to always ask questions.I think the reason it's not fair to compare blogging to traditional journalism is we don't have the access, staff or time. Yet.
The other thing is that we are soda sponsored contributers. Without going into any confidential details, I will say that this isn't a project where I have to constantly talk about Pepsi and how much I love it. So, don't look for me to tweet anything like: OMG I LOVE PEPSI!!! Like say, Julia Allison and her sudden love of Sea World. Or Heidi Montag's constant tweeting about pizza hut. But, here's the thing: we're getting paid and that is nice. This is a job that is so devalued and it's nice to see someone actually paying people for contributions. I'm not opposed to writing for free, not at all, but for a person/company I really care about or for myself.
Really, Molly McAleer said it best when posting about about advertising and sponsorship on her personal blog because, as she puts it, "it's what makes shit possible." I disagree with her about disclosure, I think you should tell people when someone hooks you up with something, but that's me.
In any case, thanks Pepsi. My blog posts about Internet Week will go on a site that I can't share just yet, but I'll be linking to them on my Twitter. And Tumblr. So, if you're interested, that's where I'll be. This is the very first time I'll be doing much with video, which will be interesting. I'm going to be on the hunt for a tripod this weekend for the Flip and taking some (likely humilating) test videos which I will post here.
And now, a final word from our (starting on June 1 and ending on June 8 ) sponsor:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tign09D5IgE]