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Call first
Dear Republic:
Dan Crawford's article attacking
The Tyee's funding contest has some weight to it (issue 134), but it's
ultimately an example of passive-aggressive pseudo-journalism that I hope won't
be a regular feature of The Republic.
Crawford makes some strong claims
about The Tyee's motivations behind this contest. He says that the website and
its editor David Beers are out to steal ideas from beginning journalists. But
instead of conducting a proper interview with somebody from The Tyee, Crawford
engages in a backhanded email exchange in which he does not disclose his
intention to publish The Tyee's responses. The accusations that follow are all
based on Crawford trying to read between the lines of his email exchange rather
than just, gasp, picking up a phone and clarifying the situation by actually
talking to a human being. This is poor journalism and doesn't deserve to be
printed.
Crawford's assertions may have
some merit, but he comes off as poorly informed. Had he done a little more
research, he would know that there can be no copyright on ideas, only the
actual written form that an idea takes. He would also know that it is standard
practice for writers to sell one-time rights for their work and that contracts
and legal agreements are very rare in the world of journalism, making The
Tyee's arrangement very typical instead of shocking.
Crawford is right to ask the
questions he does. Do beginning writers' ideas get stolen? Should writers have
more legal documentation protecting them when selling their work? However, I
don't think I'm alone in hoping to see some real research and journalism behind
his answers rather than just conspiracy-theory speculation. If you're going to
accuse somebody of something, you should probably try actually talking to them
first in a fair and honest manner. It's what real journalists do.
—Jacques Durden, Vancouver
The Tyee replies
Dear Republic:
I am glad that Republic editor
Kevin Potvin has, in the electronic edition of his paper, changed an inaccurate
headline that, sadly, appeared in print in the last issue. The headline claimed
to have found “Scandal at The Tyee Fellowship Funds.”
There is no scandal, and the story
never makes the case that one exists.
Instead, there were some
suppositions and questions raised by the writer, Dan Crawford, and in this
letter I will clarify those issues—though I would have been happy to do
the same if he’d ever asked to speak to me directly, or ever identified
himself as a reporter making an honest effort to find out the facts. Instead,
posing as a possible applicant for the funds, he had an email exchange with my
assistant editor who addressed his concerns as best she could based on
conversations with me while I was away from the office, preoccupied with a family
illness.
The Tyee Fellowships were created
to support independent journalists in pursuing the in-depth research and
writing that require resources too few publications offer anymore. The funding
has been raised from our generous readers and philan-thropic donors, and
applications are independently adjudicated by a trio of seasoned journalists
who are now professors of journalism. If you want to learn more, please go to
The Tyee site and look for the notice on the home page. It’s a pretty
simple idea, meant to help freelance journalists do the quality work they want
to do, and to enhance public discussion of important issues in BC.
But Crawford preferred to float
the notion that the funds are an elaborate scheme to invite journalists’
ideas and then
steal them.
This is absurd on its face. The
Tyee already gets dozens of interesting queries a week from journalists, and of
course we either assign the stories to the query writers or decline; never
would we break ethics by stealing those ideas. Given this existing flow of
ideas into The Tyee, why would we go to the trouble to start two charitable
funds, then pay out up to $20,000 a year, in order to pilfer ideas from other
applicants and assign them to different reporters, whom we’d then need to
pay anyway? Further adding to the illogic of Crawford’s scenario is the
fact that the professors of journalism on the independent board of advisors
would be aware of the contents of all fellowship applications. Frankly, if I
were as evil as Crawford wants to imagine me, I couldn’t get way with
such theft. The advisors would know.
If I’m guilty of anything,
it is being a bit slow with the fine print that Crawford wished to peruse. In
fact it was in the works when his piece appeared. And by the time this letter
runs it will have been posted on the site well ahead of the fellowships
application deadline of April 9. Here are answers to the questions he raised:
“Does a journalist surrender
all rights to her story idea upon submission?” No, the journalist does
not surrender rights to her story or research ideas upon submission. However, The Tyee has no way of
guaranteeing that another freelance writer won’t at some time propose a
similar story to us, or arrive at a similar idea independently. Other than
informing the independent advisory board of the type of research and stories
that fit within the mission of the funds, no Tyee staff, myself included, will
be reading, assessing, or keeping any applications. That will be the job of the
advisory board. If an application isn’t chosen by the advisory group, the
applicant is of course free to re-pitch it to me as a regular Tyee story.
“Who handles the
submissions?” If emails are properly labelled as instructed, they are
merely collected, but not read, by a Tyee editor. The editor forwards them on
to the advisory group when we have enough to form a viable pool of applicants.
“Are the submissions
destroyed after the winners are chosen?” The submissions are not
destroyed, as they legally need to be kept to prove that a fair and competitive
submission and selection process was followed. However, the submissions will be
kept by the independent advisory board, not The Tyee.
“Or are they posted
online?” No.
“. . . handed over to Tyee
writers, or sold to other media outlets?” No, and no.
“And regarding the
submissions that are chosen: Who owns those publishing rights? Who owns the
research and who owns the data that comes out of the work?”
The Tyee Fellowship Funds are
charitable funds separate from The Tyee (which is not a charity). The funds are
held at and managed by Tides Canada Foundation—a national public
foundation. The independent advisory board that vets all the applications will
choose four fellows. Tides Canada, the charity, will disburse fellowship grants
from the two funds. Tides Canada owns the reports and publishing rights that
result from the fellows’ research, which, as required by Canadian charity
law, are intended for broad public education, therefore, the widest possible
public dissemination. The Tyee will be afforded first publica-tion rights to
those reports, and will then, on Tides Canada’s behalf, respond to
requests for republication.
The fellow, or author, owns the
ideas, data etc. gathered during the research and writing of the reports. After
the terms of the fellowship grant have been fulfilled, and the resulting
reports have been published, the fellow is free to produce new and different
content (articles, books, films, etc.) from that research and to sell that
content to whomever he or she wishes and keep all rights and proceeds.
Finally Crawford asks: “How
is all of this assured? Does a journalist have any recourse or rights available
to her if things unfold differently from what The Tyee says?” Such
assurances are posted on The Tyee and are guaranteed as part of the application
and awarding process, as well as in agreements signed by advisors. All terms
will be clearly outlined in the fellowship grant agreement sent to fellows by
Tides Canada Foundation.
As my assistant editor told
Crawford: The Tyee’s integrity is essential to our existence, tied as it
is to good will in our community. The corollary is that any freelancer would be
foolish to submit story ideas to a publication he or she doesn’t trust.
Which brings me to the other
out-of-the-blue, unfair assertion in Crawford’s piece. He “calls
into question” my “integrity” and charges that I
“possibly took another journalist’s idea and used it as [my] own
without giving credit.”
How does Crawford fabricate this
dark scenario?
In addressing a visiting panel of
senators on January 31, 2005, I briefly proposed, among various other ideas,
that government counter corporate media concentration with incentives for
cooperative structures of media ownership. Crawford claims the co-op idea is
one I stole from Kevin Potvin, editor of The Republic, who had circulated it by
email a month before to various media including, he says, The Tyee.
A bit of a reality check here. I
have worked off and on in non-corporate media for 25 years, in San Francisco
(Pacific News Service and Mother Jones) and here (The Tyee), and have been
published by alternative publications including The Nation, Alternet, and
Rabble.ca. Along the way, I’ve had many conversations with editors,
publishers, and civic leaders about the idea of cooperative ownership of media.
In Vancouver, where I have lived for 15 years, the institutions of Co-op Radio
and Mountain Equipment Co-op are visible for all to see, as is the success of
VanCity’s credit union model. VanCity veteran Bob Williams, who I know
helped educate Potvin about Italian co-ops, did the same with me when he and I
were on the Vancouver Planning Commission in 2002. Co-ops are an old, if good,
idea.
There is also the fact, confirmed
by Potvin in a phone call the day I’m writing this, that his circulated
idea was about creating a co-op of advertisers to support various media, while
I spoke of audience-owned media to the senators.
Regardless, The Tyee isn’t a
co-op and there are no plans to make it one. My crime? Passing on a general
idea, which Potvin and I happen to share, to interested senators when afforded
a chance.
Had Potvin or Crawford ever
contacted me to tell me of the accusation they were preparing to level, I could
have given them that context. They did not.
Soccer & condos
Dear Republic:
I always wondered what a naff,
raised soccer pitch was going to do on Vancouver's waterfront
(“Kerfoot’s plan,” issue 135). Now you have enlightened
me— it's leverage to build more condos. Keep up the good work.
—A Beddoes
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