I also proposed a specific story, about a black church pastor in Palmetto (Manatee County) who is doing after-school and summer tutoring programs in an attempt to cut ignorance and therefore violence.

The phone message I got back from Ch10′s Wallace said he’d gotten over 500 responses to his citjourn pitch so far, but please email him with a coded subject line so he could get back to me.

Now, you’re right about skilled video stringers getting more like $250 per story than $20. Indeed, my typical shoot, including editing, actually runs closer to $600, but that’s typically for a 3 – 5 minute “mini-infomercial” or training video that runs on the client’s Web site.

But that’s all okay. A clip is just a clip, and I figure all I’d give Ch10 for $20 — or even $50 — is just that: a raw clip. And the real, complete story would then go on my personal site, which is currently ad-free but has enough traffic that I could make $500+ per month by adding Google or equivalent ads.

It’s all fun.