As usual, I've spent today making plans for the magazine.
Tomorrow I'm interviewing Rat Scabies, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm trying to resist the temptation to read previous interviews because that never helps, it only convinces you that everything's already been asked. Still, I don't feel completely lost going into this one as I have something most music journalists do not: a background in early medieval literature.
Specifically the Arthurian romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I wasn't sure that would ever come in handy in my life as a journalist, but lo--!
Very excited, and equally chuffed to be working on some questions for Kate Smurthwaite of Cruella Blog. She's a fantastic writer and in this case, the trouble isn't knowing what to ask, it's limiting the questions.
Reading the blog (which I highly recommend) is making me think of the Old Days* with Teen Council and the always inspiring Jess H. In 11th grade I published her practical How-To guide to staging protests, but I never got to use the advice myself. Not long after that, I was in Britain, and it seemed like the issues were less pressing. It was an illusion, of course, but not every issue is as obvious as nearly getting hit by a missile aimed at a Planned Parenthood.
A year ago I covered a pro-choice rally in Cardiff. I thought I'd interview a couple of people and take some pictures, but I ended up hijacking the microphone and following a crowd of like-minded people to the police station to complain when a photographer was taken into custody for taking pictures of the event. Naturally, everyone took pictures of the arrest, and that's the great thing about Citizen Journalism. Everybody's got a camera.
There are a lot of great things about Citizen Journalism, but I don't have to tell you that. The Antagonist owes everything to self-publishing. And what's wrong with that? Do investors and advertisers make something worthwhile? If anything, they invalidate a publication/station/object by compromising its interests and creating a dependency on approval. That's not healthy. Much better to say what you've got to with a stapler and a photocopier.
*2003
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Well, yeah - but there's something to be said for peer-review, too. At least olde worlde "Vanity Publishing" used to leave a few basic hurdles to jump, to weed out the lazy narcissists.
ReplyDeleteThen we done builded these internets, and they're so great for VP that Avenue Q nearly wrote a song about it. Bah!
("The Ant" can leap tall hurdles in a single bound, of course - even solid kryptonite ones.)