What Is Your Journalism Challenge?

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  WHAT PROBLEM ARE YOU WORKING TO SOLVE?

Like every industry, journalism has a labor problem. As media companies have grappled with digital disruption, they’ve responded by cutting jobs and salaries, but not necessarily cutting “content.” That work has instead been assigned to a growing legion of freelancers and contractors — independent work that has always existed, but that has taken on a more vital role to the survival of many cash-strapped media institutions, both new and legacy.

With so many opportunities yet so few resources, freelancers are by nature pitted against one another in a race to the bottom. This doesn’t work particularly well for anyone: for editors, who need a consistent and high-quality pool of writing, staffers, who risk being undercut at their jobs, or readers, who want to support living wages for workers.

This is not to say that freelance journalism can’t work! But it can’t work like this.

How Would Solving This Problem Help Journalism?

While the Internet has done much to lower the entry barrier to media work — which is great — it’s also lowered the standards of that work — which is not great. Many freelancers report that they receive little to no editing or fact-checking. In a race to pump out more “content,” this has the potential to result in huge errors — and to promote a different kinds of journalism altogether.

In an industry that prides itself on transparency and ethics, there are no standards as to how these workers or their work should be treated. Living wages and ethical work standards are in everyone’s best interest.

Who Is Tackling A Similar Problem And How Is Your Approach Different?

There are many efforts aimed at supporting independent workers across industries. Projects specific to journalism — such as Contently, Beacon and WordRates — have largely centered on gig-matching, which has its own strengths, but does not address many of the issues facing freelancers.

A single tool or platform can’t fix such a complex problem. I believe organizing of freelancers is best done in small cooperative affinity guilds, where problems such as lack of administrative and legal assistance, libel insurance, press passes, and tools, and service fees can be better solved. The first step toward this vision is promoting more transparency and cooperation in a field that’s traditionally very individualistic and competitive. I plan to negotiate with writers, editors, and publishers to find common ground on these issues. I’m also talking to creators of digital payment and publishing tools about how those might better work for independent journalists.

What Are The First Questions You Plan To Pursue?

  • Is this employment shift in media to more contracts and fewer jobs actually indicative of and part of a larger shift in work across industries? If so, what does that mean for freelance journalists, and how might we work in solidarity with freelancers in other industries?
  • Who are the freelance journalists working in the U.S. today? Where are they, how are they working, and for how much?
  • In what ways does contract journalism work and not work for editors and publishers? How do they perceive freelancers? Who do they think we are, and how do they think we work?

What Are The First Steps You Plan To Take In Working On Your Challenge?

I’m interviewing freelancers, editors and publishers about these labor issues and will be publishing some of that work on Patreon for my subscribers. Those funds will support some of my more ambitious plans for this project. The first batch will go toward making Who Pays Writers, a project of Manjula Martin and Scratch Magazine, into a searchable database.

Who Pays is an unmatched resource for freelancers — users submit not just rates, but also information about how long payment took, the terms of their contracts, and any other issues that arose. Overall, this data shows that there are no standard terms or rates for writers, even at the same publication.

We also have some more ambitious plans for using this data to better promote wage transparency.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Having been a paid free lancer writer for the last 6 years while primarily supporting myself through other activities, I assure you that most publishers can not afford to pay my standard rate. I write because I enjoy writing. I charge a fee to write to justify the amount of time it takes to create original content. I do however feel it is a tragedy that print media has come under such economic pressures that they can’t afford to employ full time writers at a living wage.

    An element in our country is crying out for a $15 per hour minimum wage. Keep in mind that minimum wage buys minimum skills and minimum work ethic. There are plenty of news writers who are not paid $15 an hour now but burger flippers are getting all of the love. This is just another case of misdirected attention.

    • Mr. Wallace, one thing I am aware of is places like Evansville front a work force that is completely outclassed in percentages of STEM programs in other locations globally. A real drive to provide the basic sciences in that area would help. “Science isn’t playing with your preferred device and being a little techie”. The openness of science to drive innovation is being pursued in other regions and countries. Look work, is really work, and striving to set and understand ones objectives requires knowledge and perseverance, and steadfast tenacity to work through and find advanced solutions to our worlds challenges today and on into the future. When the knowledge of the sciences is present and established, the living wage jobs will follow.

  2. JOE:
    The problem is information technology and job-function technology.
    Technology is replacing jobs at a faster rate than society can evolve and adapt.
    Tech offerings and workplace tech-efficiencies are destroying human society and culture.
    (I don’t really believe that, but when I hear it, it is a struggle to to deny it.)

  3. What does the term “Journalism” or “Journalist” mean?— I personally assign little value to the word, and believe it is overused, and obsolete as a definition in the era of the Internet Stage. Today assuming the title of “Journalist” by most writers, is a attempt to try and bring legitimacy to drivel that is really nothing more than Their “Opinion”, —the value of opinion is dubious,– and That’s my Two Cents worth. Ha, Ha

      • Ha, Ha, I admire your Moxie GL, it’s very refreshing, you bring a lot to the table whenever you speak up about the issues in hand. I will not however, throw you in the arena with the wolves of “Journalism”. You tower above them.

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