One of my favorite perspectives is on a bike. Riding around the city at a reasonable pace you catch glimpses of peoples lives, get some exercise, and the satisfaction of ringing a little bell at people.

For me, biking through city traffic is relaxing – the way it demands your attention and forces you to be aware of everything going on around you. I find the heightened awareness inspiring and therapeutic. In one of those theoretical situations, where you’re on an island and can only own three things, a bike would be one of them (the island would have to be manhattan and the other thing would be a suit case of money so I can actually afford to live there).

When I was living in Mexico City, I’d bike around a few hours each day. Man, I loved biking in Mexico City. The scenery and situations you’d see in 15 minutes on a bike was absolutely engaging to say the least. During the whole swine flu fiasco, I attempted documenting one of my bike rides with a mini video players duct taped to my sombrero (truth). After a few hours of biking, I went to watch the footage and it made me sick to my stomach.. (because it sucked, but also because everything was shaky and I get nauseous easily).

Now in Boston, and in a new attempt to capture visuals from my bike rides, I’ve been using a gorilla pod mounted with a mini camera and a shutter release button duct taped close to the brakes. I keep the camera on the entire bike ride and hit the release button every once in a while.

Here are a few photos from my bike commute. Expect another report with this process improving!

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A residential sewage leak has gone unrepaired in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale for nearly two years. I spent time with Ryan Degnan (pictured), who has lived above the leak since January. I was on a trial assignment for a job interview with the Riverdale Press.

Resume advice from an unemployed Journalist:

In between cashier shifts at the Whole Foods Market in TriBeCa—alongside artists trying to get by in a city full of art—I am trying to be a journalist in a city known for news.

It was beginning to feel like the watershed of New York City bound resumes and cover letters I was sending out were evaporating somewhere in cyberspace before reaching their destination, until one particular cover letter—sent to the Bronx-based Riverdale Press regarding an associate editor and political reporter position—got me a callback. The cover letter was gold. When I had finished writing I looked up at my similarly job-hungry roommate and said, “This is the one. Best cover letter ever.”

While the cover letter was perfect, my fudged resume eventually had consequences.

The interview (less than a week after my application) couldn’t have gone better—we spent an hour chatting and it consisted mostly of praise for my unique fit to the job—my online work, political reporting and time as feature editor of the UC San Diego Guardian. The whole time I was thinking, “How do they not realize how under-qualified I am?”

Let me qualify that: I am fit for the job, but on paper I lack “practical experience.”

I went from an award-winning student newspaper (though it will always be just a student paper to employers) to a local freelance job at San Diego Uptown News. I wrote often (Uptown News had no in-house writers) and was consistently alongside the editors’ bylines on the front page—usually with few edits (though I should thank my ex for her editorial input).

At Uptown News I was a general assignment reporter with a salary equal to a 15-year-old’s weekly allowance. But the distinction between freelance reporter and general assignment reporter drastically changes a resume.

It’s a bit like changing the UC San Diego Guardian into the San Diego Guardian.

Sounds a lot better now that it’s not a student paper doesn’t it? But that wouldn’t work on a resume.

Well, turns out my lack of distinction between a busy, underpaid freelancer and a semi-busy, way underpaid general assignment reporter was exactly what got me the interview at Riverdale Press. And the failure to clarify at the interview led to me traipsing through sewage during a “dry-run” reporting stint in Riverdale.

The day my article ran, the Riverdale Press editor called. It was already 3 p.m. and she didn’t want to keep me waiting, but if my references had good things to say—she was waiting for call backs—we would move forward. I decided a congratulations nap was in order.

My references had only good things to say.

Four hours later I woke up to a phone call. I lacked “practical experience” and somehow in the matter of four hours I had gone from perfect for the job to saddled with “a learning-curve” that would keep me from “diving right in to the job” without considerable training.

Too drowsy and shocked, I gave the phone equivalent of a nod, “yeah,” “yeah,” “ok,” and hung up.

The next day, with the words, “we haven’t found anyone yet, I wish it would have worked out” resounding in my head, I called the editor back. She wanted to talk in private, if I could call her cell phone.

To the chase. A freelancer is not a general assignment reporter.

She said I should change my resume, that while it wasn’t an intentional lie, it’s inaccurate and that I would not have been interviewed with my “lack of newsroom experience.” The Guardian is just a college paper.

Despite it all, I am freelancing for the Riverdale Press. My second article in as many issues (it’s a weekly) just went to print. And the photo editor hired me as well. I guess I’m a photographer—a hack of sorts—in the Bronx.

So here’s the lesson that took me so long to get to: If you want to get an interview, fudge your resume—no one is going to call you otherwise.

Also, apply for jobs that you have no business applying for.

My first article, and my first photo assignment.

For some actually helpful advice, see this handy job blog, “A Cover Letter is Not Expendable,” from the New York Times.

Judy Schaim, co-chair of San Diego Pride, shared her perspective on the Proposition 8 debacle with writer David Harvey. File photo by Will Parson

On Wednesday, August 4, I got a call from Todd Gloria, San Diego District 3 Councilmember, around 1:30 in the afternoon. Judge Vaughn Walker had just overturned Proposition 8—California’s ban on same-sex marriage—and I had missed it.

“Do you want me to call you back in a few minutes? Maybe you need some time to digest this,” he said, laughing.

I muttered something about expecting the results and asked him if he was surprised by the verdict. I asked him what he expected next and about the rulings significance and then I realized I was writing the same story as a thousand other reporters.

I recalled a recent blog from Columbia Journalism Review on localizing a story, and I wished I had been prepared.

In the end, I found a stock question, “What should San Diegans do while awaiting an appeal?” and I ran with it. I asked 14 or 15 community leaders that question, and I used it to shape my story.

But it also forced me to leave out some really great details that didn’t fit my theme.

So while I was doing my best to localize a story, to make it relevant to my readers and to come up with a message, I also found that I was losing some of the best parts.

Too often I find that no matter how I try to shape a story, or what I want to include, it forms organically and something good gets lost in the mix.

Judi Schaim, co-chair of San Diego Pride told me that she didn’t get married the first time around, because she didn’t want her marriage to be taken away over politics.

She also told me this: “I’m 66 years old and in my lifetime I never thought I would see that same sex couples could marry so for me to see a flashback of history and to realize this is actually happening, it’s unbelievable, it’s awesome, it’s a dream come true. And it means that maybe I’ll be able to marry.”

She didn’t make the final cut.

And neither did Rev. Canon Albert Ogle of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Equality California—whom I didn’t ask my topical question. He spoke at the Day of Decision Rally in the LGBT Center in Hillcrest, and my very brief interview with him afterward was interesting enough—and not for his charmingly subtle Irish accent and clerical collar—that I wrote this post on Meridian so I could share it:

*****

David Harvey: You discussed winning over the religious community, families and others that supported proposition 8 with this decision and by moving forward, can you speak a little more to that?

Albert Ogle: “I think the coming out process is a conversion process, we’re first of all converted, but we’re gay and we have to deal with that, then our families are converted, they often don’t get there in a weekend but it takes time.”

In many ways I look at my experience as being, you bring about societal transformation and institutional transformation by doing those kind of one on ones, then all the sudden there’s a tipping point.”

I think we [the gay community] actually have much more in common with the religious right for making marriages work and showing that we are not actually a threat to marriage.”

I’ve had a couple of debates with the yes on 8 people and in some ways we use the same marriage preparation work and they were kind of surprised that we were doing 40 hours of premarital counseling with couples. We’re not a threat to marriage and if we start engaging in those sort of conversations we move forward.”

DH: When Prop 8 was being debated, in some cases it drew people away from the religious community. Do you think the overturning of Prop 8 can help rebridge that divide?

AO: “I think the judges decision is going to be helpful to some people who may be in the middle, because what he’s done is really looked at the facts. And we’re now separating what people hold as their beliefs. There are some people that believe the earth was created in 5 days and it’s 6,000 years old and most of us when we look at science we don’t believe that and they’re entitled to their beliefs, but are we enforcing that onto all our school to teach that, no. The same thing applies, people are entitled to their religious beliefs, but they have no right to impose them or make them the law of the land.”

The decision was also a victory for democracy over theocracy and this country has teetered on that—especially during the Bush years—where the separation of church and state is not clear. Here in California you have religious people who were forcing their views on everybody and Judge Vaughn Walker’s position was clear that as a democracy we can’t do that.”

Globally, we’re dealing with fundamentalism, we’re dealing with it in Christianity, were dealing with it in Islam, and in Judaism and one manifestation of that was the work we had to do to fight Prop 8.”

I’m going to Uganda later this year, and talk about a number the Christian right has done on a country, where they’re going to send gays to jail for life and possibly put them to death. The same people who are creating prop 8 are creating the laws in Uganda. I see this not only as a local concern, but this is happening all over the world and we have to fight it.”

DH: What do you think is the best weapon in that fight?

AO: Education.

People need to learn that there are different ways of interpreting. Some of us have a very different view of what we call the difficult texts. There are texts in the bible that condone violence and slavery, the oppression of women as well as the oppression of gays. As religious leaders we have to talk about those and explain these things. In Africa, for example, the seminaries do not teach human sexuality so they’ve never heard of Alfred Kinsey, they’ve never heard of Stonewall. They have no idea what we’re talking about when we talk about gay stuff. So if the religious right is going in with lies and misinformation, there is nothing to counter it with.”

There’s a lot of work to do still.”

******

You can read the Canon’s Day of Decision speech online, for more great wisdom on the balance of faith and equality, as well as his figures that help to dispel the myth that the courts are acting out of tune with public opinion.

Read the Judge’s decision, along with his decision not to stay the original repeal of Prop 8 past Aug 18th, here.

And of course, my article is available in an updated print version online.

I learned journalism through those edits, and I remember all the new writers being proud when they got an unedited, published article back then.

We’ve all come to realize we’re not pros, but a curious thing happened a couple of months ago: The articles I wrote for my local paper stopped getting edited. Instead of being thrilled with my progress as a journalist, I began to worry even more about the quality of my work.

I have learned—and all credit goes to a beautiful and talented editor—that everyone’s work needs a second opinion, sometimes a third. If you know what good writing is, chances are you can find a few things to fix in a New Yorker or Esquire article, let alone in a local paper.

I often cringe while reading the La Jolla Light. The latest article I read pushed the bar: a reporter’s investigation into potholes involved nothing more than a drive along La Jolla Parkway to count them. Another story, at the tail end of racial tensions at UCSD, praised Chancellor Marye Anne Fox; it’s only source: Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. There is decent work in the paper too, but it gets buried under the mockable.

When editors run out of ink, from laziness or lack of skill, the readers suffer. But the writers suffer too, whether they know it or not.

There are times, as my work is being revised, that I cringe. A quote I like or a sentence I spent time on gets chopped and it feels like getting punched in the throat. When I’m asked for clarification, I get defensive—even when I know the fixes are easy to make.

I have heard so many new journalists like myself decry the terror their editors let loose on their babies. But the final product is always better than the original. Always.

We’re not getting cut and changed and asked for more information because of our editor’s politics, or because we’re too controversial, which are great reasons to be upset about edits. Our art isn’t being censored—it’s being refined. (And I haven’t even touched on how editing shaped our past or will be more important as all media goes digital: Read a snippet on that here.)

I have worked almost a year for a local newspaper. A paper I like to think is better than those I mock. But I still rip its stories apart. I still cringe as I catch things that should have been clarified or chopped, my own work included. And when it doesn’t get changed, I wonder how a better editor might have helped my writing.

Edit-free articles are something I hope for but don’t welcome. No new journalist should. Because if you’re not being edited, you’re not being taught, and chances are, your editor is letting you down.

Lashing out at all my University of California, San Diego writing professors (and journalists worldwide) lamenting the decline of the paid writer, I had shunned financial independence and turned to the Web. I wanted to survive on freelancing, even if it meant only eating rice and hot sauce and creating a permanent ass imprint on my couch.

Little did I know that I was well on my way to become an online sweatshop worker.

I had joined what Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at NYU, and other critics have been calling “content farms,” such as emerging Web behemoth Demand Media, and this may be the future of the paid writer. We don’t have to like it, but content writing is being outsourced to the poor and the desperate.

Off to Work We Go

In early November, I signed up for Demand Studios, the factory of parent Demand Media, which pays between $7.50 and $20 per article and provides a ready-made list of titles. In the month of November, I made $407.50 writing articles like “African Restaurants in San Diego,” “How to Identify Inedible Plants in Oregon,” and “How to Find a Wife in Bulgaria.” In December, I wrote about drug tests, checking accounts, flight regulations and kilts. In January, I narrowed my focus to hotels and restaurants, scouring obscure Web pages, reading hundreds of reviews and wandering the streets of distant cities using Google maps.

I branched out in January as well. I signed up for Odesk and Freelancer.com, which connect freelancers to clients that pay various rates, usually about $3 for every 400-500 word article — often less. One client was asking for 100 articles on Christmas traditions worldwide and the average bid was between $200 and $300. The best paying job was for a photographic step-by-step Kama Sutra. They wanted 350-400 shots of an attractive couple and were willing to pay up to $3,000, but I didn’t know anyone willing to model.

I was accepted at Suite 101 and Life 123, where providers are paid based on readership and ad revenue, but promoting my articles at social-networking sites like digg, stumbleupon, mixx, and reddit proved to be more work than actually writing an article. I was hired at WiseGeek, a site with set rates like Demand Studios, but I still haven’t managed to tackle the heavy research needed to write such technical titles as “What is an Isometric Contraction?” and “What is Follicular Unit Transplantation?” They want around 500 words and pay $10 an article. They pride themselves on assigning writers a “personal” editor.

Pay it Forward

Notes in my weekly planner show that I made roughly $3 per hour in the month of January, and after putting myself through hell trying to make a living, while keeping the standard of my work up (I would still never use any of my Demand Content as a writing sample), I am exhausted.

It’s not exactly working in an impersonal factory, as some critics have come to characterize these online content-providers; my couch is really nice. But there were times I was searching for references, came across a Demand Media piece, and cringed at the thought that some of my work might be equally as trite, or worse, poorly written. It’s easy to lose focus when you’re plugging out 10 unrelated pieces a day for less than $100, and the titles rush by on the conveyor belt of search-driven content.

After a month of eating rice and hot sauce and hardly finding time to distract myself by youtubing Lady Gaga videos, I was almost ready to try something more lucrative than writing, like selling crack to middle school kids — or worse — working in public relations.

I made $937 in January. Some of that I spent on food, less of it on whiskey. I am starting February — the shortest month — poorer than I was at the beginning of the year.

But I’m still looking for jobs, and while I dislike working in an online writing factory, where I can’t meet or even have dialogue with my “careful” editors or fellow writers, I don’t have a lot of other options.

I mean, to be honest, I don’t even know where to buy crack in San Diego, let alone where any of the middle school kids hang out.

(For a great profile of Demand media, check out Daniel Roth’s article in Wired magazine.)