Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 15:33:17 -0700
From: Saul Steier <sauls-AT-sfsu.edu>
Subject: Re: postcolonial-digest V2 #2222


Salil
  I really don't want to get involved in an on-line argument., I type 
far too slowly ..I cant buy the newspaper for 55p a day nor can my 
students. I never claimed that Fisk was or could be "Independent" and 
know that it is not easy to keep a newspaper afloat but still cannot 
be convinced that in this set of circumstances making the 
economically rather than the politically correct choice was the right 
thing to do. Paper folds-no one reads Fisk, charge for articles- 
almost no one reads Fisk. save for those, with resources who already 
share his beliefs.The result is essentially the same. The most 
important thing given the political situation in the world today is 
that everyone should read Fisk
It's that simple.

>Saul,



>Fisk cannot be independent from The Independent. Even if the $1 per 
>article fee, or whatever access charge the newspaper levies for 
>Fisk's pieces does not go to Fisk directly, it contributes to the 
>resources available for the Independent to continue to spend on 
>quality journalism and its dissemination. It has to spend for the IT 
>infrastructure to manage its website, it also has to spend to hire 
>sub-editors (or copy editors in North Americanese) who will lay out 
>the article and make sure it is formatted properly, and to 
>disseminate it through print means (which I contribute to by 
>spending 55 pence a day, buying the newspaper) or electronic means 
>(to pay for its computers, machines, software legally-bought, and 
>electricity) ... for all of that the Indy needs resources.  I don't 
>know how familiar you are with the British newspaper industry, but 
>the Independent has the least circulation among the broadsheets, and 
>has to be rescued financially twice. There's no guarantee it will 
>remain in business. Whether Mr. Fisk is financially-independent is 
>irrelevant. If he were, he'd have started disseminating his articles 
>directly to the Internet. The fact he chooses not to do so, and 
>wishes to retain his association with the Independent, shows that he 
>needs the infrastructure that the Independent provides -- this 
>includes someone to make his flight bookings, someone to pay for his 
>insurance (operating as a foreign correspondent, not being embedded, 
>during a war in Baghdad, entails huge insurance premia), someone to 
>pick up his hotel and phone bills -- and he needs to stay in a five 
>star hotel not because he likes comforts, but because five star 
>hotels have their own generators which guarantee power supply and 
>they have phone lines that work, providing internet connectivity, 
>and five star hotels are centrally-located places where it is easier 
>to meet other journalists and newsmakers..... Mr. Fisk is not a 
>pencil-wiending, letter-pad-carrying reporter in the trenches, 
>although unlike many fly-by-night correspondents, he goes as soon as 
>possible where the action is. To function effectively, a cottage 
>industry is needed to support him. As Sarojini Naidu (I think) said 
>of the Mahatma: Keeping Gandhiji in poverty is an expensive business.
>
>Much of foreign correspondentship is mundane, requiring a lot of 
>material support from so-called "capitalist" tools and agencies. 
>Those things cost money, and someone, usually consumers who claim to 
>value that output, should pay for it. Some consumers are privileged 
>enough to work in first world university campuses and can get free 
>access; many others, who don't even have access to computers, can't. 
>So if you value that output, and if the cost is worth the intrinsic 
>value, you should pay for it. Or depend on the largesse of others, 
>who'll disseminate it via the Internet. But if you want Mr. Fisk to 
>continue to operate effectively and write articles from his unique 
>perspective, you would need to bear some of the cost (55p a day, in 
>my case). If you have nothing but contempt for the Independent's 
>stockholders and owners, they'll at some point go out of business, 
>making it even harder for Mr. Fisk to operate the way he prefers 
>(and there's nothing wrong with the way he wishes to operate).
>
>Salil
>
>
>
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