Brave New Cyberworld

I have just received a note from Joe Shea that says his e-mail account for the American Reporter has been shut down by its sponsor and that he, Joe Shea, is looking for work.

Before that, I heard he was two months behind in his rent and trying hard to drum up support for the Reporter, which, Joe says, was one of the first daily online newspapers in America.

Last month he won a Los Angeles Press Club award for the best Internet news story, and Editor & Publisher reported that the paper “has garnered a reputation among Web journalists for its unusually high-quality reporting.”

Good words, however, do not make a man rich, as I can fully attest. Joe is applying for a job with “Larry King Live” as a publicist, which as any journalist will tell you is a long drop from covering the news. The ability to smile and lie has never been looked upon with favor by those in the print media.

Although professionally stressed at the moment, Joe, who is 53, is otherwise happy. He met a woman on the Red Line subway, they fell in love and were married last March.

Her name is Mireya, she’s from Peru and doesn’t speak English, but that’s OK with Joe. He speaks Spanish and they get along just fine. I can tell you one thing--his house in Hollywood, which is also his office, is immaculate now, which is more than I can say of the place before his marriage. It was an unholy mess.

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The reason I mention Joe today is that in recent months I have been asked to participate in three online magazines, only one of which offered to pay for my freelance services.

I have written for magazines for years, but never for nothing. Joe at least offers his contributors shares in the American Reporter. As a result, it has about 300 owners, but I want to make it clear that I’m not one of them.

Among the other online publications that approached me, there’s one that was described as being “holistic.” When I asked what that meant, it came out sounding like a combination of transcendental meditation and faith healing.

I said I didn’t know how to write holistic and they said no problem, I could pretty much write what I wanted. When I mentioned money, they said we’ll get back to you, but never did. I guess money isn’t part of holistics.

An Australian online nudist magazine asked to use my piece on the shutting down of Topanga’s Elysium Fields. When I mentioned money, they mentioned $35. I don’t mean to sound elitist or, God help me, rich, but $35 is not money. It’s just something you wish you had a thousand times more of.

A magazine called Balize.Com, oriented toward Latinos who don’t speak Spanish, is the latest to call, but it has money and is run by talented professionals so I’m interested. I’m a Latino who doesn’t speak Spanish. Might as well cash in on it.

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I’d like to see Joe’s newspaper make it for a lot of reasons. Primary among them is that, unlike so many on the Net, his reporters are talented professionals. A few years ago, one was nominated for a Pulitzer for a story appearing in the Reporter. Since there’s no category for online Pulitzers, the nomination went nowhere, a fact our Mother Paper, the Chicago Tribune, viewed with regret in a story that prominently mentioned the Reporter.

Joe created American Reporter in 1995 as the first electronic daily newspaper with original content, as opposed to wire service-fed papers. He’s worked for print newspapers and has written for a lot of magazines, so he knew the territory.

Balding and paunchy, he doesn’t look like a hard-hitting editor but he puts out one hell of an e-paper. Those who write for him occupy news bureaus around the globe. One scooped the world by reporting that the Irish Republican Army would declare a cease-fire the next day, which it did.

His 45 full-time contributors are paid 1 cent a word equity in the newspaper, which, Joe feels, is owning a piece of the future. American Reporter has about 1,500 subscribers but only three clients that buy its content. That’s not enough.

Hold the e-presses: Joe has just informed me that he has e-mail back. It was all a big mistake. He’s at editor@american-reporter.com. Also, his father has donated $6,000 to the Reporter. “We’re still struggling,” Joe says, which is obvious since he can’t pay the rent and is looking for work with “Larry King Live.” “But we’ll make it.”

A couple of years ago, there were 2,000 online newspapers and now there are 8,000. Competition is hard. “But hey,” Joe says, working up a smile, “I figure you only have one life. If you want to make a difference, you have to work hard for what you believe in. That’s what makes you happy. And I’ve been a happy man for a very long time.”

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com.