THE OBENSON REPORT

Making videos for YouTube — for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers — is now a way to make a living.

One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to become “partners” and added advertising to their videos, the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the Web site. For some, like Michael Buckley, the self-taught host of a celebrity chatter show, filming funny videos is now a full-time job.

Mr. Buckley quit his day job in September after his online profits had greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company. His thrice-a-week online show “is silly,” he said, but it has helped him escape his credit-card debt.

Mr. Buckley, 33, was the part-time host of a weekly show on a Connecticut public access channel in the summer of 2006 when his cousin started posting snippets of the show on YouTube. The comical rants about celebrities attracted online viewers, and before long Mr. Buckley was tailoring his segments, called “What the Buck?” for the Web. Mr. Buckley knew that the show was “only going to go so far on public access.”

“But on YouTube,” he said, “I’ve had 100 million views. It’s crazy.”

[...]

Granted, building an audience online takes time. “I was spending 40 hours a week on YouTube for over a year before I made a dime,” Mr. Buckley said — but, at least in some cases, it is paying off.

Mr. Buckley is one of the original members of YouTube’s partner program, which now includes thousands of participants, from basement video makers to big media companies. YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, places advertisements within and around the partner videos and splits the revenues with the creators. “We wanted to turn these hobbies into businesses,” said Hunter Walk, a director of product management for the site, who called popular users like Mr. Buckley “unintentional media companies.”

YouTube declined to comment on how much money partners earned on average, partly because advertiser demand varies for different kinds of videos. But a spokesman, Aaron Zamost, said “hundreds of YouTube partners are making thousands of dollars a month.” 

[...]

Mr. Buckley, who majored in psychology in college and lives with his husband and four dogs in Connecticut, films his show from home. Each episode of “What the Buck?” is viewed an average of 200,000 times, and the more popular ones have reached up to three million people. He said that writing and recording five minutes’ worth of jokes about Britney Spears’s comeback tour and Miley Cyrus’s dancing abilities is not as easy as it looks. “I’ve really worked hard on honing my presentation and writing skills,” he said.

[...]

Cory Williams, 27, a YouTube producer in California, agrees. Mr. Williams, known as smpfilms on YouTube, has been dreaming up online videos since 2005, and he said his big break came in September 2007 with a music video parody called “The Mean Kitty Song.” The video, which introduces Mr. Williams’ evil feline companion, has been viewed more than 15 million times. On a recent day, the video included an advertisement from Coca-Cola.

Mr. Williams, who counts about 180,000 subscribers to his videos, said he was earning $17,000 to $20,000 a month via YouTube. Half of the profits come from YouTube’s advertisements, and the other half come from sponsorships and product placements within his videos, a model that he has borrowed from traditional media.

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“I didn’t start it to make money,” he said, “but what a lovely surprise.”

It's a controversial approach. Many ask why kids should be paid for something they are required to do?

On the other hand, kids in affluent homes are routinely paid allowances and given graduation trips of cars, trips and/or cash as rewards for acknowledgment of jobs well done. Fryer is simply determined to try anything to stem the out-of-control dropout rate and to close the achievement gap between black and white (and Asian) students.

Fryer's theory, to pay kids to do better in school, comes from many years of research and his own sense of desperation.

"The theory here is to try innovative things that will help children achieve," Fryer says. "In our urban centers, we're spending $12,000, $15,000 a kid, and we're not getting any results. So we must do something."

The scheme is still in its first year, but previously skeptical teachers have already begun to report marked improvements in their children's attendance and attention.

"I have to say that my first reaction when I heard of this project was, 'I can't believe they are doing this'," said Sheila Richards, the principal of the Brooklyn school. "I'm old school – I worked hard for good grades and no one ever gave me money."

Yet Richards has seen a "very good" increase in her students' grades and is thrilled that many of them are choosing to open bank accounts to save their earnings. "It's more than just an incentive," she said. "It has taught them the value of saving."

The reality for so many of our kids is that there are a lot of incentives to do all the wrong things out on the street, and we believe that having positive incentives for doing the right thing is a good counter balance to that.

NPR News announced Wednesday that it is canceling two daily radio programs — Day to Day and News and Notes — as part of a broader effort by the company to close a projected budget shortfall of $23 million for its current fiscal year. Overall, NPR will cut 7 percent of its work force and slash expenses further around the company.

The two shows will go off the air on March 20, and 22 journalists working for them will lose their jobs, including hosts Madeleine Brand and Farai Chideya. The shows are both based in Culver City, Calif., at NPR West, a major satellite operation.

Day to Day was designed as a midday complement to mainstays Morning Edition and All Things Considered, while News and Notes, a successor to The Tavis Smiley Show, was intended to draw more African-American listeners. Beyond the two shows, another 12 journalists will lose their jobs throughout NPR News.

Companywide, NPR is laying off 64 people and eliminating 21 other positions that are currently vacant. NPR News will still have more than 800 employees on staff, including about 300 journalists.

"It is important for you to understand why we chose to cancel 'News & Notes' and 'Day to Day,' and the implications for programming strategy and commitments," NPR's interim CEO Dennis Haarsager said in a memo to employees. "Neither program was attracting sufficient levels of audience or national underwriting necessary to sustain continued production under these tough financial circumstances."

In the town of Julia, the residents of the black neighborhood of Gospel Hill, are being forced out of their homes to make way for a multimillion-dollar golf course development.

Race relations are strained just as they were thirty years ago when Peter Malcolm (Samuel Jackson), a black civil rights activist, was assassinated. Dr. Ron Palmer (Giancarlo Esposito), an influential black community leader who runs the emergency clinic in Gospel Hill, is supporting the golf course development and helping to push people off their land.

Peter Malcolm's brother, John Malcolm (Danny Glover), withdrew from the community and the fight for civil rights after his brother's assassination, haunted by feelings of hatred for Jack Herrod (Tom Bower). Herrod, the towns bigoted, ex-sheriff, was responsible for letting the investigation of Peter's murder dissipate with no one charged.

Meanwhile, Sarah Malcolm (Angela Bassett), Johns wife, takes it upon herself to battle Dr. Palmer and reveal his profiteering to the whole town, exposing him for the greedy man he has become.

Jack's sons are Carl Herrod (Adam Baldwin), an iconoclastic lawyer, who is having an affair with the doctors' wife (Nia Long) and Joel Herrod (Taylor Kitsch), who has tried to distance himself from his father's name and reputation. Joel has a struggling landscaping business that flourishes when he begins to work for Dr. Palmer, but when he falls in love with Rosie (Julia Stiles), a school teacher helping Sarah fight Palmer, the conflict of interest becomes too present to ignore.

These characters lives intertwine as Dr. Palmer obtains real estate and pushes the development to the cities approval; Sarah struggles to get John involved as she fights to expose the doctor; Joel deals with his fathers increasing animosity; Jack Herrod, discovering he is terminally ill, has secretly reopened the case of Peter Malcolm's murder; and John Malcolm begins to realize that the fight for equality didn't die with his brother, that it continues in every breath the town takes, and he knows that if Sarah continues to stir the hornets nest that the town of Julia has become, he will be thrust into the position he shared with his brother thirty years ago.

Why have African-American women become so maligned by popular culture that we have a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Karen Hunter, writing a best seller seriously posing the question, "Are black women necessary?" And how has this shocking state of affairs affected the psyches of the sisters of the Hip-Hop Generation shaped during the dominance of gangsta' rap, an age marked by misogyny and an embracing of a European standard of beauty?

These are the questions posed by The Souls of Black Girls, a provocative documentary which suggests that African-American females are suffering from a form of self-image disorder. Produced and directed by Daphne Valerius, this provocative examination of a timely subject features sage contributions from such icons as actresses Regina King, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Juanita Jennings and Amelia Marshall, PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill, Public Enemy's Chuck D, BET producer Darlise Blount, Essence Magazine fashion editor Pamela Edwards, historian Dr. Lez Edmond and cultural critic Michaela Angela Davis.

These famous faces share screen time with several representatives of the demographic being discussed, articulate teens who weigh-in with their heartfelt feelings on hot-button issues ranging from their dating desirability to skin color preferences to hair straightening to absentee fathers to promiscuity to their weights and shapes.

Ms. King bemoans that we have "a whole generation of lost women who don't that it's okay to be you." Meanwhile, Jada reflects upon having herself gone "through a period of shame." Fortunately, the participants are ultimately optimistic and offer positive solutions, such as Ms. Ifill who proudly asserts "My beauty has value" and finds satisfaction when greeted by young aspiring journalists who see her as a role model.

My grandmother was really firm about how men are supposed to treat women... So for me, my worst nightmare is for an actress to... feel like I'm taking this opportunity to get a little quickie feel – you know, some legal cheating going on! I just need, specifically women, to feel comfortable around me... I just don't want to feel like I'm that dude.

Jada said, 'Listen, I know you're uncomfortable, but you better not embarrass me... She said, 'When you do that love scene, you better show 'em what you're working with!'