Violence UnSilenced

I'm ripping this headline from the headlines, since the blog by the same name has become an instant success. You might think success is a weird, even insensitive word to use for an online forum where victims and survivors of domestic violence share their stories.

But it's true. The blog is three days old and already averaging a thousand hits a day. Its founder, Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz, is one of my writers, and she began her journey (well, her public one anyway) to give voice to a silent epidemic in an article published in Madison Magazine in 2007. Then last year she worked with Domestic Abuse Intervention Services to find women who’d be willing to tell their stories publicly, which among other things threatens their safety. Last November we published her amazing article on seven local survivors.

Maggie didn’t stop there. She worked all winter to launch Violence Unsilenced, and for all you Internet smarties who know how to measure success in the blogosphere, this is the reaction to the site after 24 hours.

2,250 hits on violenceunsilenced.com
1,329 hits on okayfinedammit (where comments were closed)
106 comments
126 emails (not including the 44 between the designer and I)
51 mentions of the words 'violenceunsilenced' on Twitter -- (a fun illustration of this is to go to www.summize.com and type in 'violenceunsilenced' and also 'maggiedammit')
10 direct messages on twitter (a secondary email, like facebook emails)
22 new twitter followers
9 Facebook messages
an instant Technorati rank of 7 right out of the gates (wicked good)
a request for an interview on blog talk radio next week
a request for a Q&A on some blog I can't think of the name of right now
a guy actually made a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnxaSs4wZY
the editor of BlogNosh magazine requested a badge to put in rotation on her (megapopular) site for free
32 new survivor stories sitting in my inbox ready to publish
countless numbers of Diggs, Stumbles, and Google Reader shares (no way for me to track this)
#2 spot on Kirtsy.com for the day

Maggie has been writing a very popular blog from her home in rural southern Wisconsin for a few years, so her social networking universe is huge and paying off. Widely read blogs like Alltop and BlogNosh are noticing, but more importantly the word is spreading in an innovative way to reach a whole new audience of people who are touched by this, or who simply care.

Maggie knows viscerally how this kind of success turns your stomach when you think about it. It’s such a sad and frightening thing. But at the same time it’s beautiful and powerful, like the “Take Back the Night” marches designed in part to return the power abusers have deliberately taken away. And to begin the healing. And this writer/blogger Maggie who is not a social justice advocate but a journalist is using the power of words and now, the Internet, to try to heal deep wounds but even more importantly to prevent the first act of violence from ever happening. Take Back the Night 2.0.

You know when somebody like Sully, the guy who landed the plane in the Hudson, shies away from the word "hero" because through his lens he was just trying to help? That's Maggie. She's just trying to help. And so far she's had some terrific success.

Achy, Breaky Hearts

Madison Magazine contributing writer Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz blogged for a year, retired last month, then pulled a Favre last night and posted a blog at the behest of somebody named Amanda, who told her a web-zine named BlogNosh was featuring some of her oldies but goodies. I'm glad she's back honing her craft because she's one of the most gifted writers I've ever worked with and if we're lucky she's got, like, a hundred more years of journalism ahead of her.

I told Mags that while I'm delighted she's blogging again, I take issue with her lumping magazines in with the following comment:

"I keep reading about the death of newspapers, of magazines, of my field, the drying up, the washing out. My gut tells me there is something to this online community, this forum, that maybe my future lies not in the traditional journalism, but in a hybrid of sorts."

Magazines and magazine readership are fine, dammit!--and especially with younger readers: Madison Magazine boasts more people in the 18-34 age demographic than ever. Take that, all you advertisers flocking to the web!

Unfortunately, some of the same can't be said for newspapers, though the recent Editor & Publisher report that readership hasn't declined much at all since 2006 was a bright spot in an otherwise dark and dismal landscape. So bright that I blogged on about it two entries back.

But if you're like me and rooting for newspapers—and the journalists they're shedding like a dog's fur come fall—you'll appreciate this effort by the Columbia Journalism Review to capture the voices of the veteran reporters who've been downsized. Imagine how difficult it must be for those affected to see their lives, their livelihoods, and their loyalties change in an instant.

I forwarded the posts to some of my colleagues who've taken The Cap Times buyout or who've left their newspaper jobs of their own accord after seeing the writing on the newsroom wall. I hope they'll contribute. I'll keep checking the CJR posts—they're running one a day right now—in the hopes that I'll see a familiar byline. Madison's chapter in this ever-evolving book has gained national attention and our struggles need to continue to be told.

If I were writing a chapter in the story the nut graph would go something like this: Amid the age of Internet, wonderful, talented writers who happen to also be trained professionals are being asked to stop covering the news of our communities and our world. If they won't, who will? That's my biggest fear. Who will be fair and balanced? Who will accurately, ethically and with integrity report the news? Who will want to major in journalism and populate the news outlets left standing after all this said and done? Where's my next Maggie?

Fortunately, she's out there. I put an ad for writers on Craigslist and since have been inundated with strong resumes and interesting, well-written clips. (Mostly.) But that's only one leg of the stool that supports and sustains the good publications that will still have these talented folks. Citizen-consumers have to purchase and subscribe, and businesses have to advertise. And if a newspaper isn't the news, weather and information vehicle that we want to invest in anymore—though I hope it's not—then we have to choose something else.

I agree with Maggie that journalism's future will be a "hybrid of sorts." I'm just not smart enough to figure out what that will be. Whatever we end up with, we need those people that have little to do at the moment except pour their hearts out to CJR. I have faith, though. Journalists became journalists because they are curious, adventurous and enterprising. Look at The Politico. A couple of guys (and a very rich businessman) voluntarily left The Washington Post to start the Washington-centric website that, according to Wikipedia, "is rumored to get 14 million hits a day."

Oh, and it publishes a NEWSPAPER three days a week when Congress is in session, too. How novel. A newspaper.