TO describe the website Examiner.com, in a recent Ad Age interview, former New York Observer editor Peter Kaplan referred to another sort of content production, the meat factory in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle":
"What these sites are producing....You know what it is? It's like sending unchecked meats out to the public."
It doesn't stop me from applying when I see a post on Craigslist advertising an entry-level reporter job for a site called "Mainstreet Connect," essentially a hyper-local version of the examiner, about to launch in my hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut.
The publisher emails me, asking that I call him at my earliest convenience. The next day at nine am we are talking on the phone. He tells me he is driving and on Bluetooth. He tells me he is just out of college. He describes the job to me: "This town is interesting. There's a lot of stuff to write about. I mean, you know Steve Young? I'm not sure how I know this, but his dad, is a member of the Greenwich YMCA and I heard that everyday he does something like 3,000 sit-ups. That's interesting! " He tells me he wants someone ASAP, who knows the town, and that he would be able to tell how serious I was about the job by how quickly I could turn around a test assignment.
I look online too get an idea of what they're looking for and see a
feature on a news site by the same publisher already launched in the neighboring town: "Osprey Alert: Pair Stakes Out Beach." The piece is about 40 words long:
Emilse Cardona and her husband, Oscar, have been watching Osprey at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk for about a month now. This afternoon they had the opportunity to watch as one of the osprey brought back sticks to add to their nest while the other stayed and cared for their young. Emilse and her husband expressed that watching the birds is a very enjoyable and fascinating pastime.
This gives me an idea of the kind of thing they will be looking for at
Greenwich Daily. I picture myself walking up to a couple just like Emilse and Oscar in my home-town while they are bird-watching and saying "Excuse me, but do you mind if I take a photo? Our editor is looking for content of any kind."
Twelve minutes later I've written a piece about a woman I know in my town who started a toy bear company. I send it in and get an almost immediate response. "This is exactly what we're looking for." In the next email, the editor gives me another test. I am to interview anyone I want in Greenwich, CT, and take a photo. A "Big, face shot," and suddenly the cynicism that had allowed me to write the first piece falls away as I am faced with the actual task of giving the editor what he wants. I sit around all morning and finally around five o'clock I leave my house and park my parent's car in the strip mall across the street from the McDonald's next to the one of the public housing units in Greenwich that no one ever really talks about. I prepare the kind of questions that I imagine Emilse and Oscar were asked and decide that what the editor will get is an interview with someone who works there.
Inside McDonald's it smells only faintly of food. The place is a circus. Families of seven or eight, just returned from a day of amusement fairs, have their faces painted like tigers. They mill around the restaurant filling up their drinks and getting napkins.
I stand in front of some potted plastic plants, pretending to read the Value Menu above the counter. I am scared out my wits that someone will discover I have no faith in what I am here to do and whom I represent. The main newspaper in this home-town of mine does a fine job and has their own website. Their bread and butter is the girls' lacrosse game. Isn't that already hyper-local? With the rare exceptions where the model is creating a newspaper where there had been none, this "fiesty" entrepreneurial business model that Jeff Jarvis thinks is going to save journalism is ultimately just a coupon flyer with faces in it, an SEO trap for local businessmen Googling themselves, an adsense platform with sophisticated market content. What am I doing here? I watch an employee at the take-out window concentrating on holding a gallon jug of liquid chocolate upside down over a super-sized drink. At the condiment counter an elderly woman with a stylish McDonald's beret and horn-rimmed glasses is throwing a pile of straws half-hazardly at the straw dispenser, and they are catching the wrong way and scattering. She breathes heavily and turns her head when she senses I am watching her. People keep walking in. It is 5:30 and dinner time in Connecticut and they want their burgers yesterday.
I am still standing in the plants and the cashiers are now asking me for my order. They ask me and then forget they've asked me and ask again and I keep shaking my head because because I don't want to tell them that I'm not here to eat and I'm a journalist just looking for "content".
I don't really say anything back, I just keep leaning against the plants. A slight man with two soccer daughters in cleats and shin-gaurds thinks I'm queueing and starts forming a line to the left of me, ushering his family behind him.
"Go ahead" I say.
"Oh, no!" He says. He is indignant with politeness. "You were here first!"
"NO. I need more time." I say.
I am sunk by grief and I can't decide who I hate more, the guy who is turning news into phone-book listing of everything that has ever happened here or myself for making a mockery of a job assignment and a full-time writing job with benefits. When the circus dies down, I walk up to a young Hispanic cashier wearing a red McDonald's shirt.
"Hi, Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? For
The Daily Greenwich, a site on Main Street Connect?" The words are out and I am consciously regretting their delivery.
"I don't know about that.... Hey Colleen…!" He is asking his manager. Super Size Me just came out on DVD and there is no question that a memo to "refer all journalists to McDonald's Public Relations" is posted behind the counter. Colleen comes out from behind a broiler and looks at me suspiciously. Why is a reporter in a McDonalds?
I try again, barely convincing myself.
"I am here with
Daily Greenwich and I want to interview people who work at the Greenwich McDonald's."
Colleen tells me to come back Monday. I don't insist. As I walk back to my car, I think of other story ideas for the day, but somehow, in what is perhaps a subconscious self-defense mechanism to keep me from getting this job, I don't allow them to make any sense. On the Post Road, there is an old Howard Johnson's motel with a sign that has been rubbed out to just say 'Johns'. It's my favorite thing in town. I could write about that. I pass by a tiny house with a hummer parked in the driveway. "That hummer was blocking the whole house," I think. "Funny. Maybe I could take a picture." And then I actually stop and try to. I stop and do a three-point turn and try to find the house again. But then I change my mind mid-way. A Volvo is in the intersection behind me.
"Go ahead" the driver motions to me.
"No you go ahead," I motion back. I need more time.
I go back home and look at the osprey article again. The next day I write to the editor and tell him thanks for the job opportunity but I think I'm going to pass.