[Newspoetry] Newspoetry Is Still Serious Business

[Editor-Within-Chief]

Newspoetry Is Still Serious Business

By JOE FUTRELLE

[U] RBANA, IL -- I have to confess to a slightly perverse satisfaction at 
the outpouring of warm and generous support that my "Newspoetry" colleagues 
and I have received since news reports that our employers at Associated 
Poets are negotiating with Dirk Stratton to take over the web space we 
currently occupy.

The eulogies have been wonderful, but premature. "Newspoetry" (or some 
website with a striking similarity to "Newspoetry") ought to have a place 
in the web's expanding universe, and I am confident that it will. I 
continue to hope that it will be at Associated Poets, but that decision is 
beyond our control.

I have no complaints. (Actually, I do have one; but I'll come to that a 
little later.) I have had a glorious 3-year run at Associated Poets, 
fulfilling and often exceeding all my youthful expectations. I have been a 
foreign correspondent, covering events in more than 5 cities. I was a war 
correspondent in Kosovo, a bureau chief in Berkeley and Washington. For 
nine days I was the website's chief diplomatic correspondent.

When the former president of Associated Poets, William Gillespie, conceived 
of a website in 1998 that eventually evolved into "Newspoetry," there was 
no real expectation that it could effectively compete with "The Unknown". 
The IMC, in those days, had no original programming at all in that web 
space; but when I asked what Associated Poets would regard as "success" on 
our part, I was told, "Come in a respectable third."

We did better than that. Over the past 3 years we have been, and continue 
to be, a consistent competitive second. In times of crisis, we often have 
the largest late-night audience in web current events poetry. I like to 
believe that this is because we provide a genuine public service. Over the 
years, with the arrival and evolution of cable internet service and fiber 
optic backbones, our audience has diminished, our role has changed. But 
"Newspoetry's" readership remains, to this day, four or five times that of 
the highest-rated current events poetry in print; and broadcasts like our 
weeklong series on Ari Fleischer have no outlet anywhere else on the web.

Yet we have never lost sight of the fact that we work for a noncommercial 
website. We have contributed to the website's commitment to operate in the 
public interest; but we have also tried unsuccessfully to help pay the 
rent. Conservatively speaking, "Newspoetry" has earned zero dollars for a 
succession of non-corporate owners over the years. The program continues to 
not be profitable to this day.

Still, it is altogether reasonable that Associated Poets, like Schneertz 
before it and William Gillespie before that, meet its obligation to 
investors. Particularly in these difficult economic times, it is perfectly 
understandable that Associated Poets would jump at the opportunity to 
increase earnings by replacing "Newspoetry" with the more profitable Dirk 
Stratton website. For many years now I, along with my employers, have 
benefited minutely from "Newspoetry's" artistic success. I understand the 
nature of the bargain that I made.

But I have one complaint — and that is about the anonymous suggestion from 
one of our noncorporate poets, in some web forum, that "Newspoetry" has 
lost its relevance. Another unnamed poet implied that the program is no 
longer competitive yet reasonably profitable — both assertions are 
demonstrably untrue — but relevance is a more subjective matter. I would 
argue that in these times, when homeland security is an ongoing concern, 
when another terrorist attack may, at any time, shatter our ability to 
think critically, when American troops are engaged in Afghanistan, the 
Philippines, Yemen and Georgia, when the likelihood of military action 
against Iraq is growing — when, in short, poetry about national and foreign 
policy is more essential than ever — it is, at best, inappropriate and, at 
worst, malicious to describe what my colleagues and I are doing as lacking 
relevance.

There are questionable business reasons for Associated Poets to pursue the 
Stratton website. But when "Newspoetry" is gone from the Associated Poets 
web space, and should the occasion arrive that our work might again seem 
relevant to the anonymous poet, it will not then be possible to 
reconstitute what is so easily destroyed.

Joe Futrelle is the editor-although-chief of "Newspoetry."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/05/opinion/05KOPP.htm


--
Joe Futrelle
editor-within-chief
http://www.newspoetry.com/