Blogging - The dirty little secret about sweatshops

The dirty little secret of the blogging world, beneath our pajamas and corpse skin tone, is that we are slaves in a sweatshop.  But it is one of our choosing, so?  At least that's the way I see the long hours seven days a week I put into my two syndicated blogs [the other one is here].  Confession: I am even grateful for my lot since it became so time-consuming and increasingly difficult to get my work published in mainstream media.  There's more: The unexpected success of my blogs has finally in my aging baby boomer years brought confidence.  Not too much psychotherapy, 8 years of Buddhism and/or earning in the top 5% of what writers make could do that.

But not everyone is counting the blessings of life in the sweatshop.  A stunning article appears in NEW YORK Magazine's October 22nd issue.  Written by Vanessa Grigoriadis, it's titled "Everybody Sucks: Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass."

According to Grigoriadis, whose wedding blurb in [old media] THE NEW YORK TIMES was lampooned by the folks at popular blogging site Gawker, the lion's share of the busy bees there posting away aren't happy.  First of all, they earn only $12 a post and have to cough up 12 of them daily.  Secondly, they seem to be painfully ambivalent about not being part of the Establishment and paid handsomely.  As Giroriadis calls them, they are a resentful "creative underclass."  The exception is the owner Nick Denton who has all the perks and money of the creative overclass.

Perhaps this no-have status is the reason for the bile the Gawker staff spews in their posts.  Of course, venom sells better than sugar.  However, venom can also get the writer typecast as a total miscontent and miscreant.  There aren't many slots on the career ladder for that.  Maureen Dowd already has one and doesn't seem ready to leave it.  Anyway, where would she go?

Gawker is great to have on a resume.  My advice for the Dowd wannabes is to take that credential and move on to learning another writing skill.  All the job forecasts predict that journalistic writing, no matter in what media, is doomed.  Yeah, it's satisfying, serves a public service, and most of us love it so much we hold day jobs to keep doing it.

It's a hard reality for the young to integrate but now and even back when I started as a professional writer in 1976, it is very challenging to earn a living that way.  To journalism, I added public relations writing and then executive communications.  Currently along with the PR writing and executive communications, I peddle social media services to organizations and individuals needing a low-cost, high-reach fast way to put themselves out there. 

Back in 1976, had I the confidence and Ivy League degrees [I didn't go to Harvard Law School until 1986], I might have penetrated elite media and worked my way up through fact-checking at TIME to having a byline.  Maybe.  But I didn't have the confidence or the credentials.  I took the road more traveled: A day job.  I still have a day job.  Blogging is a gift from the universe.  I expect nothing from it except access to an audience.