The LA Times is reporting on a not-so-secret secret of the media business: that the market for freelance writing has collapsed as a byproduct of the digital economy. We at Newcity have been as guilty as anyone in furthering this trend: our already rock-bottom rates had to be halved in order to survive about five years ago, and we still struggle to pay these new rates on any timely basis. That, in spite of the fact that we rely on freelancers more than ever.

This is a matter of considerable pain and sorrow for us, for we value the writer and artist above all. When we started Newcity as a print publication nearly twenty-four years ago, we had no revenue, no prospects. But we insisted on paying writers something for everything we published from day one, even though it was not unusual for small startups to operate on the efforts of “volunteers.” We were not a charity, and it seemed odd to try and build a business on the backs of folks working for free. (Interns are another matter, since there is a trade of education and career enhancement for their labors, which are defined by their temporary tenure.) Continue reading →

I’m no semantic prude: I actually have a fondness for new constructions, new etymologies. Word purists are square, man. But sometimes language can go so wrong. And lately I’ve been obsessing on the need to put an end to the use, any use, of the monstrosity “ginormous.” I’m hating on that word.

It started so harmless; a word to describe, well, burritos and things. Things in need of a bastardized version of the language, befitting their street-food/drunk-food idiom. Im OK with that. But all of a sudden, this frat-boy street slang has slipped into the “real” vernacular, the language. God help us, OED. So make this your new year’s resolution: this is not a word you should ever deploy. If anyone uses it, though, be nice. They are not to blame. After all, the Tribune thinks it’s the raw material of art reviews. Hell, I want a ginormous burrito right now. But I can’t help thinking  of those penis-enhancement ads. Is it really bigger than “gigantic?” “Enormous” is just too small? Really? Two thousand years of largeness are not enough? Or is maybe your largeness not so large? Maybe you should use, or make up a new word to cover, well, the somewhat smallness of what you have to offer?

I understand, trust me. It’s the sign of a decade just vacated. We need big big words, bigger words than ever before, to describe, well nothing. A decade of nothing. Of nothing, but a decade older. It was a ginormous decade.

Now do not use that word, ever again.