So, I did not get Editor's Pick for my article: The British Monarchy Must Go!
But Lynne Sloan from KGO Radio San Francisco read it and loved it and I just finished a fifteen minuite radio show with them. I also received a request from two online magazines to reprint it.
Here is the exchange. I take this response to be both a tribute to OS and to my writing.
From KGO Radio:
We would like to briefly interview you regarding your views on the British Monarchy this morning between 9-9:40PDT for about 10 minutes on KGO Radio in San Francisco. (We like what you have to say, and we are asking the question "why a monarchy today?)
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
wendyo
Kevin Abel
Red Star
ronnierayjenkins
Mark Pritchard
Melissa Miles McCarter
Salon.com
Comments
I had the interview and it was wonderful. LOts of fun
Monte
Bob
Finally, someone for our group of OS writers is being acknowledged outside of our world which is not an easy thing to achieve.
Again, much congrats!!
All-Consuming Questions during the fall. (I think it was election day, or it might have been rescheduled for a day or two after.)
In that case perhaps because it was an Editor's Pick. They weren't picking me to pat me on the back about being picked, but it got me the visibility I needed to be noticed for the show, and is part of the reason I keep saying that for some of us being an EP really does matter.
It was an odd experience because I often write pieces that are intended to be thought-provoking and are written “just so” in order to make a point, but they aren't phrased in a way that I would explain things on another day. So sticking both to the real message I had and to the presentation in the story was tricky because the person interviewing me was working from the article. Still, it was fun, even if I was a bit nervous.
It didn't occur to me to post about it, figuring it was just blowing my own horn, but as I see your post, I don't perceive that's what you're doing, so maybe I should have just allowed the risk that someone would just poo-poo my apparent fit of ego and mentioned it in a post at the time.
There's an online audio transcript somewhere too. I guess I should link that up, too. I hope you will for yours if there is one.
Anyway, congratulations on getting your message out. I think that's what this site should be about.
And, incidentally, if the editors are listening: If they would invest in those of us with political messages, we would be the go-to place for people looking for interviews, and that would translate to page hits that would ultimately pay more. But if they don't do that, expect us to be the go-to place for fluff and to mostly not get invited anywhere except for these rare exceptions.
It's all about investment and taking a risk. I can see why going after the fluffy things feels like near-term reassurance that there will be cash, but Salon has a name and you don't build brand by diluting the name, you build it by reinforcing the name. If the brand fails, it will not be written in the history books that it just didn't get enough readers interested in fluff topics, it will be written that it didn't get enough solidity to its hard-political writing. Or that, at least, is my personal feeling. YMMV.
Sorry to run on, Jason. Congrats again. I'm happy you got seen. I just want that to be a more natural ocurrence.
But I bet monarchism makes a comeback in the sense of Spengler age of the Caesars.
Peece,
DJ
best
j