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Radiohead Journalism

January 21

What with the speed of things these days, experimentation with DIY writing, subverted financial models and open copyright is hardly front page news. However, it is interesting to see that such practices are slowly becoming more and more commonplace. Just think of Helen DeWitt, Cory Doctorow, Kickstarter.com or even the love-it-or-loathe it Huffington Post. Whether you think such schemes are brave, inventive or just plain odd, I do wonder what general opinion will be like in say five years time, and how closely the arts will start to align itself with the ethos of charity.

Earlier this month Paige Williams, an American journalist who has had work published in the New York Times, Washington Post and the Financial Times, and won the National Magazine Award, put forward a model that she dubbed Radiohead journalism. The story goes like this:

Not so long ago, Williams tracked down and wrote a feature on Dolly Freed – a woman who had written a book called Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With (almost) No Money during the recession in 1978. Freed was just eighteen at the time and published under a pseudonym, though she did reach a certain level of fame. Usually, journalists try and find a publisher before embarking on a full story but Williams was so inspired that she went ahead anyway. Luckily, the piece was eventually accepted by the New York Times. Not so luckily, they wanted to run it without the pseudonym. Freed, however, had asked that her real name not be revealed as the book had several controversial points (recommendations that you eat cats and dogs for example, or make turtles into soup, boycott taxes and brew moonshine). While Freed had changed her opinion somewhat she still lived frugally and, what’s more, wanted to protect her family from public scrutiny. On her website, Williams describes the dispute like so:

I had told the Times from the start that “Dolly” was a pseudonym, but apparently I had failed to make it clear that I’d not be reneging on my word to Dolly and her family that I wouldn’t violate her decision to remain anonymous. The Times didn’t make it clear that they expected me to. In agreeing to tell her story and have her book reissued, Dolly sought a balance between being helpful and maintaining her privacy. She doesn’t want kooks showing up at her home. When I told her that people will probably figure out her identity eventually, she said, “Maybe, but I don’t have to make it easy for them.”

The Times pulled the piece two days before publication.

Williams wrote that she had long wanted to try a self-publishing model with a feature piece and so decided to turn the setback into an opportunity. She found an editor, copyeditor, fact-checker, photographer and a designer and turned the small feature into a 6000 word essay. She also spent quite a sum of her own money while doing so:

Between April and December, I sank $2,000 into the piece hard money (and most of it while unemployed): travel to Texas, car rental, hotel, photographer, fact checker, and the website, which was launched specifically for this project. The $2K doesn’t include reporting and writing time.

Williams made ‘Finding Dolly Freed’ available on her website, stated her mandate and asked readers to pay whatever they wanted via Paypal (mirroring Radiohead’s move with the release of their album In Rainbows, hence the name). So far, according to Galleycat, she’s raised upwards of $420(US).

Online culture is very much a double-edged sword – while we have almost immeasurable freedom to self-publish, collaborate and voice our opinions, we are also entering a time when financial obligations are blurry. It is, for better or worse, seen as largely acceptable not to pay bloggers or contributors and this means many are left with little or no income (more on that topic here). The response so far has been varied, but like Williams and like Doctorow, many writers are turning to their readers for support, whether financial or simply providing other services such as promotion or free cover designs etc. Already, many publications and small presses rely at least in part on outside funding and I wonder if this reliance will only be accentuated as we move further into the digital era, perhaps with an emphasis on the goodwill of readers. Will the arts increasingly begin to follow charitable models in order to generate income, and the book and writing industry with it? Will commence follow a read-then-pay-or-don't-pay method, and how will this affect the ways in which we think about the profession and the industry?

Possum Living has also recently been re-released by Tin House in the US. Freed has her own blog, here.

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