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update:

A job with USA Voice would not be unlike a telemarketing job. It wouldn’t be much like a journalism job, either. I’ve completed the application process for this apparently fraudulant publication (all the way up to, but not including, the contract, which I never signed).

The “interview” was a teleconference, and the “teleconference” was more like a powerpoint lecture. Feedback on the line was so awful that the question and answer portion of the teleconference was promptly cut short. I was able to ascertain quite a lot about the company and the job, so I thought I would share that knowledge for the benefit of anyone else considering this.

More information is also collected in a mediabistro conversation entitled Who is usavoice.org?

Here’s how you get paid if you work for USAVoice

You get a share of some google ad revenue if you write for them. That’s the deal.

Reporters at USAVoice will receive 40% of income generated by advertising on USAVoice. Each reporter will earn a percentage of that revenue equivalent to the percentage of total “page views” generated by his/her stories appearing on USAVoice.

They take the total # of page hits, and the total $ of revenue for a pay period, and calculate the value of one page hit. 40% of that is divided among the reportes, who are paid for each page hit generated by any of their articles. (Obviously, this means that page hits including ad hits are more valuable, whereas page hits without ad hits lessen the value of the revenue. How often do you follow internet ad links?)

You’re not paid by the hour, or paid by the word, or compensated for any of your expenses, or your time, and your “press pass” is understandably worthless — so what’s the incentive?! I suppose I could just get a google ad account and put ads on my blog. That way, at least, I’d get the entire profits.

Here’s the work you would do for USAVoice

To help generate readership, you’re required to, in their words “Create Mailing List of people you know to build traffic to your stories” essentially spamming your friends. (Kinda makes you wonder what else is going on with that mailing list…. )

The other way you’re employed to generate readership, and thus the chances of revenue, is to post your “articles” or links to them on any/all of a huge list of forums that the company has collected. (So, you spam the forums basically.)

If anyone out there reading this is involved in this application process, and would like to ask questions, the address is questions@usavoice.org

I set out to resolve a bout of ennui, and applied for a variety of writing positions. Thanks to Yahoo’s illustrious HotJobs classified service, I discovered a new newspaper that has yet to begin its publication called “USA Voice“. The paper describes itself:

USA Voice is poised to become the largest peer-to-peer news organization in the world.  USA Voice is to the news industry what CNN once was, namely:

• We are independent
• We are not governed by corporate politics
• We are international

As it happens, they’re looking for an entry level reporter to write for their books section. I applied with excitement. To my amazement, the reply says that I am a strong candidate for the position. They asked me to participate in a telephone conference interview, and to be prepared with a list of questions. I wondered, “now what do I do!”

I figured any good journalist would start with research. I dashed off a set of emails to people I respect: journalists, publishers, English professors, asking for advice for “the big day”. Then, I set to work learning all I could about the company. I composed the following questions along the way.

My Questions for USA Voice

The home page for USA Voice states “The Editor in each market has total autonomy to run the stories he or she feels are relevant and newsworthy.” Reader feedback is clearly important here, and we’re also told that “Reporters are judged based on their feedback and traffic of their stories.” My question is: as reporters, would we have access to any account of that reader feedback? How are we to know the reading trends?

I understand that your newspaper will be structured in such a way that reporters will receive a percentage of the revenue if readers click on ads next to their stories. Are reporters compensated in any other way?

Please explain why the USAVoice publication has reset its launch date several times, and is this related to the incomplete state of your website, and what about the technical problems besetting the application process thusfar?

The Saint Petersburg Times recently reported suspicions of your company’s fraudulent activity, mentioning that all 1200 job ads for USA Voice have been removed from Yahoo’s job postings lists. I was also able to determine that at least one report has been filed against your company with the federal trade commission. How do you answer to these accusations?

Too Good to be True?

There’s a lot of talk on the internet about the USA Voice Newspaper, and speculation that it might be a fraudulent scam. There is not, however, any proof. So what am I to do?

I’ll feel vulnerable, cheated, embarrassed, and stupid if this turns out to be a scam. The omens are bad.

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