Pay-To-Play: The Gruesome World Of Paying For Interviews.

I have always been ignorant of Pay-To-Play. I just don’t get it. Especially when I used to play in bands. Why would I pay you to play for your audience? Just because you have four walls, lights and a stage? It doesn’t make sense… you make your money off the drinks. I keep them interested and sticking around to buy more drinks. 

It’s an old-fashioned model. Sometimes you pay me at the end of the night, if you think I did a good enough job, and other times you don’t. 

But when I don’t get paid, you waive certain rights. You don’t really get to tout yourself as a professional establishment anymore. We can talk. You lose credibility. And when it comes time to expect reciprocity, you lose that too. Because the truth is that you were never really supportive of the talent to begin with.

I’ve never paid for an interview before. Now you might say, hold on, that’s hypocritical. But I have a different take. Journalism is another is a similar relationship, except it’s talent exploiting talent. I interview you for content for my form of media and you get free attention. 

We’re day-trading attention. That’s all it is. And we’re both just hoping something hits. Someone either reads my article or hears my podcast and if you are interesting enough, they’ll buy tickets to your game or come see your show.

This all seems really obvious, and it makes sense to most parties - but then there’s some who want to play Hollywood. 

So if you don’t want the attention, that’s fine. Just say so. I can respect the nature of a J.D. Salinger. I give you credit for just saying “no thank you.” But when you want to play the numbers game and ask about my circulation, it feels like fighting words. 

We might not have 100,000 listeners yet, but we’re grinding. So give us a chance. Because when we do, it’ll be Jim Brandstatter and Denny McLain that we thank - you know, the guys that were down-to-earth enough to give us a little bit of their time in the first place. We might not be relevant enough yet, but we’re not stopping anytime soon. And in this industry, that’s all it takes. 

No, I’m not going to pay you $500 for a 20 minute interview. I don’t care how highly you think of yourself. And I don’t care if you were once the World’s Most Dangerous Man. 

Nah, I’m not bitter, but I do have a chip on my shoulder. That doesn’t make me a bad person, but it does drive me. And I will remember it when I’m important enough to help somebody else.

Money is nice but I’m not as motivated by it as I am knowing I could help somebody in some capacity. With that said, we'll have just about anyone on as a guest on our show, but we will not... I repeat, will NOT pay to interview them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Herschel

I’ll never get to interview Ty Cobb, but his grandson Herschel is still around. He’s still got quite a few grandchildren around from what I understand, but Herschel was willing to talk to us.  Now you can have Ruth, Gehrig, Johnson or even Mathewson. Sure, Wagner would’ve been cool to maybe ask about the whole t206 / tobacco controversy; and Shoeless Joe would make for a hell of a conversation on where his life was currently and what he still felt about the Black Sox scandal. But after that, my deepest curiosities about them are done. To me, Ty Cobb is a mythological figure. But to this guy, he was just this sweet old man. While I was enamoured with the countless stories and folklore behind the Georgia Peach, this was really just somebody’s grandfather.  Now if you told me I could go back in time and interview Ty Cobb, I still wouldn’t believe you… I’d find it beyond surreal. Just to give you an idea, that’d be like saying, “would you like to interview Paul Bunyan?” It just do...
Read more

The Thin Line Between Being Cool And Being Obnoxious.

  I think the biggest problem with collaborating with me is that I give homework. To a fault, I often expect people I work with to read articles, watch videos, read a book or maybe watch a movie to gain perspective. The difference between working with Andy Witucki and most other people I’ve worked on a project with is that he actually does that. He’s unabashedly invested in subject matter. Natural curiosity is an underrated trait in society these days. One of the first times I met Witucki, he told me he was helping a friend’s band with promotion. He was printing off flyers and papering local businesses with their upcoming gigs and basically preaching the gospel of how great these guys were. I didn’t buy it. Just another local metal band as far as I was concerned. Yet, he was this regular guy toting the talents of another man. Just cause they were friends.   And I was jealous. Because I’m a musician too and I wanted a dude like him on my team. I wanted someone willin...
Read more

Vaudeville

Imagine you live in a different time. Same planet, different world… if that makes sense. There’s less to worry about because we know most of us aren’t living past 50. The threat of disease or war surrounds you but you’re not fully aware of that. Maybe you make a living working at a gas station, or you own a grocery store, or maybe you’re a master of a trade. Electrician or plumber or something mundane. And you’re happy.  Talking to girls is fairly easy. You meet her at a dance, tell her she’s beautiful, propose to her on maybe the first or second date, because you know she’s the one and you both know there’s not much time. And she believes in you. Life is pretty simple.  You’re an average sized guy, but you’re young so you’ve got a lot of energy. You decide to try your hand at this new game they call “baseball.” It’s fun because you get to entertain people. There’s pranks, there’s hijinx, there’s fun and games within the game. And they pay you a little for this nonsense. Not...
Read more