I have been quiet for some time. Thinking. I have been running The Insider single-handedly for 34 years. The month of August was, therefore, a time to reflect on my writing career as I turned 72. I was forced to re-examine my writing career after the country’s leading media houses- Zimbabwe Newspapers, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, Zimind Publishers and Business Times– warned content aggregators to desist from any future unauthorised republication, distribution, circulation and sharing of content.
This hasn’t stopped, though, as far as I know.
I have been a victim too. I started The Insider as an exclusive newsletter in December 1990 but after one year in circulation I decided to turn it into a subscription only newsletter because I had run huge losses by selling it on the open market. I was able to pay off my debts and even started two magazines that were short lived- the Zimbabwe Products Digest and Agri-business.
I was, however, forced to abandon the printed newsletter in 2003 after inflation rocketed and became so unpredictable that annual subscriptions could be wiped out by one issue. It has been online since. I have often been irritated when online publications republish my stories without acknowledging. Yes, the content is free, but basic journalism principles say you must attribute what you publish if the content is not yours. I have used material from other publications, but rarely from the four media houses above, and I always credit the source though I rarely seek permission to republish.
It was after reading the statement from the four publishers that I started asking myself whether it made any sense to continue in the rat race of chasing clicks after 50 years of writing. After all, my website has never made any real money. Stories that I wrote in the first 29 years of my career are scattered all over in the publications that I wrote for. Even the stories that I wrote for The Insider, especially in the first 13 years, are not all on the website.
Did it not make sense to start collecting all my stories from wherever they are and put them on my website? I asked myself. I was not going to make any money. I had not been making money from the website anyway, but at least I would have a one-stop for anyone who wanted to look at my work.
My first article was published by the then weekly, Moto, in 1974 but I cannot remember the month or what it was about. I had just completed a correspondence course in journalism and was putting what I had learnt into practice. Sadly the newspaper was banned shortly afterwards.
I was working for the Department of Water Development then as one of the first blacks recruited to become water supply operators. But my heart was into journalism. I just couldn’t get a job as a journalist.
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