How I Earned $100 Using Just My Smartphone
In my desperation to find paid work as a journalist, I discovered two separate apps that promised me the chance to do some professional journalism — without the experience usually needed. All I needed was a cameraphone.
Stringr and Fresco are smartphone applications that crowdsource news gathering: Professional outlets post requests for video of newsworthy events on a map you can see. When you accept an assignment, you can film and upload video of the event through the app, and if the outlet buys your video, you get paid the next day.
But let me bring it back to the present. I’m currently a student studying journalism at New York University. Between school and work, I never did follow through with the two apps until this assignment landed on my desk: Prepare and execute stunt journalism.
Aha, I thought smugly. The apps are largely unknown and untested, the story comes with an inbuilt journalism angle, and most importantly the apps were offering to pay. (As a student, more money never hurts.) After downloading — and after signing away all my personal data and privacy with a handy one-click-accept button — I was ready to make it.
There was just one catch. Nothing was happening.
***
It’s forgivable to think Stringr and Fresco were separated at birth. Both are first-of-their-kind applications that crowdsource news gathering and are willing to pay their users. Like Uber, the apps can even include specifications, for instance, one or two man on the street interviews, horizontal video, no panning or zooming. Crowdsourcing, increasingly popular, affects everything from the taxicab (Uber) to the home (Airbnb), and even the local bank (Kickstarter). Media gains an added benefit: why bother building an expensive network of affiliates when a mesh of amateurs and professionals can be activated at will? The best camera, after all, is the one you have with you.
***
It’s 8:55 PM on November 7th, the night before the election. I open both apps after class to check if there are any other last-minute pre-election assignments posted. Stringr is posting a request for video of the Clinton rally at Javits Center, near the 34th Street Hudson Yards subway station, and more importantly on my way back from school.
That’ll do.
I shoot and upload the video…and receive a series of text messages from an employee of Stringr. She tells me that a rotation of employees work the app during the day and communicate through the same text messaging number with individual Stringrs. I also learn the group is hoping for video of crowds at the Trump/Clinton rallies the night of the election. For an app — and an economy — that prides itself on automation, it’s a surprisingly human touch.
***
It’s the day of the elections, and true to her word an assignment is posted on Stringr: Film crowds protesting outside Trump Tower on 5th Avenue. I shoot video, load it up, and receive not one, but two notifications through email.
The payment arrives a day later via PayPal.
The apps do indeed work, but don’t draft up your resignation letter just yet. Since smartphone ownership is the only barrier to entry, competition increases with the number of users. In fact, by writing this article I have effectively widened the market, making it more difficult to earn money using the app (Sorry guys).
You can make a living (assuming you like PayPal). And you might find enough stories (assuming you both live in a large enough city and can get to the right places at the right time). But for aspiring journalists it winds up being a poor deal: you can’t actually build the bylines — and the reputation — that matters. Even if your video is purchased, you’re never told who the buyer is, if you’ll be given credit for the video, or where it might end up.
As a money machine it works (with caveats), but for those hoping to break into a field built largely on trust, where your name is your brand, it fails on that fundamental point. Use it with abandon if you want to make money. But do something else if you’re serious about journalism.
