CMG Freelance is planning a day-long social media workshop in Vancouver with Katt Stearns, recipient of the 2015 Canadian Digital Marketer of the Year Award. Katt can help you focus your social media energies in the most efficient way possible.
But we want to know what you really need help with the most…and if you’d come to our workshop in March! Please click on this link to fill out our survey. We’re also planning a live webinar series with Katt so there are questions about that as well.
We’ll draw 3 names from the survey participants and give each of the winners a choice of a $50 gift card from Staples (for your stationery), Starbucks (to keep you caffeinated) or The Bay (to keep you stylin’!).
Survey deadline is Friday, January 20th.
*Access to the workshop and webinars is for CMG Freelance members only. Memberships start from as little as $15/month and there are discounts for members of our like-minded associations.
Check out the CMG Freelance website for more information.
Off the Page is a regular interview series featuring National Magazine Award winners. Recently we caught up with photojournalist Marta Iwanek, who in 2016 was named Canada’s Best New Magazine Photographer from the National Magazine Awards Foundation, in addition to winning the Gold Medal for Photojournalism & Photo Essay for her incredible reporting of the 2013-2014 Ukrainian crisis, titled “The Maidan” (Maisonneuve).
NMAF: In your award-winning photo essay, “The Maidan,” you take the reader on a journey to a winter in Kyiv, where thousands of Ukrainians gathered to take a courageous stand against their government. You capture the Maidan as a place of fear and uncertainty, but also of community and solidarity. How did you get a sense of the place when you arrived, and what were the human emotions that spoke to you as a photographer?
Marta: I first arrived in Kyiv in early November (2013) before any of the protests had started. I remember driving through the centre of the city and thinking what a bustling metropolis it was. Then I went out east to work on a film and returned in late November a little after the pro-European protests had begun. Everything was still calm at that point and there was a sense of hopefulness among the crowd.
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Once a week, we gather stories about the media business, journalism, writing, publishing, and freelancing—with a Canadian focus—and share them in Off the Wire. Who needs a water cooler?
From Canada:
From The U.S. and beyond:
Recently on Story Board:
- Writers’ Rights event in Toronto January 28: An optimistic view of the state of freelance journalism is a rare thing these days. But author and University of Toronto professor Nicole Cohen has one. She says that although it can be hard to stay positive in the face of challenging conditions for freelance workers, her research has demonstrated that there are some reasons to be hopeful…
Spot a story you think we should include in next week’s Off the Wire? Email the link to editor@thestoryboard.ca or tweet us at @storyboard_ca.
An optimistic view of the state of freelance journalism is a rare thing these days. But author and University of Toronto professor Nicole Cohen has one. She says that although it can be hard to stay positive in the face of challenging conditions for freelance workers, her research has demonstrated that there are some reasons to be hopeful.
Cohen’s new book, Writers’ Rights: Freelance Journalism in a Digital Age will be the focus of an afternoon event later this month hosted by CMG Freelance and PWAC Toronto. The discussion is scheduled for January 28th from 1 to 3 p.m. at Metro Hall in Toronto. Tickets are free, but attendees are asked to register here.
The book explores working conditions for freelancers and looks to the future of journalism. Freelance work is increasingly precarious and is often associated with poor pay, heavy workloads and lack of access to social protections. But Cohen says the rise of freelance organizations and campaigns that push back against exploitative publishers challenges the idea that low pay and precarity are inevitable facts of freelance life.
“I argue that the conditions freelancers find themselves in are the result of particular histories and decisions made by publishers and corporate executives of media companies about how to organize production, organize labour, use digital technologies, etcetera,” she says.
This perspective, she says, gives freelancers the agency to try and protect their autonomy and improve their working conditions. But they can’t do it alone.
Read the rest of this post »
Once a week, we gather stories about the media business, journalism, writing, publishing, and freelancing—with a Canadian focus—and share them in Off the Wire. Who needs a water cooler?
From Canada:
From The U.S. and beyond:
Recently on Story Board:
- Off the Page with Richard Kelly Kemick: Off the Page is a regular interview series featuring National Magazine Award winners. Recently we caught up with Richard Kelly Kemick, who was nominated for 2 National Magazine Awards in 2016…
Spot a story you think we should include in next week’s Off the Wire? Email the link to editor@thestoryboard.ca or tweet us at @storyboard_ca.
Off the Page is a regular interview series featuring National Magazine Award winners. Recently we caught up with Richard Kelly Kemick, who was nominated for 2 National Magazine Awards in 2016–winning the Gold Medal in One of a Kind for his story “Playing God” (The Walrus), a reflection on his singular obsession with building Christmas villages. The story also won him a nomination for Canada’s Best New Magazine Writer.
NMAF: “Playing God,” your story that won Gold in the One of a Kind category at last year’s NMAs, was developed at the Banff Centre for Literary Journalism. Can you describe your experience there, and how this somewhat unconventional idea was developed into an award-winning magazine story.
Richard: During my month at the Banff Centre––as every tagline on their website attests––I worked alongside some of the best editors and writers in the business (Ian Brown, Victor Dwyer, Charlotte Gill, to say nothing of the exceptional participants I was writing alongside). What I wasn’t expecting, however, was how affirming it would be for me as a writer.
Read the rest of this post »
Once a week, we gather stories about the media business, journalism, writing, publishing, and freelancing—with a Canadian focus—and share them in Off the Wire. Who needs a water cooler?
From Canada:
From The U.S. and beyond:
Recently on Story Board:
- Journalism interns – share your experiences!: Did you work as a journalism intern at a media company in Canada or the United States between 2013 and 2016? Researcher Errol Salamon would like to hear about your experiences…
- Webinar for members Jan 18 – Inbox Zero: How many emails are piled up in your inbox right now? Hundreds? Thousands? Is it stressing you out? Want to do something about it? Our next webinar for members is just what you need…
Spot a story you think we should include in next week’s Off the Wire? Email the link to editor@thestoryboard.ca or tweet us at @storyboard_ca.
Did you work as a journalism intern at a media company in Canada or the United States between 2013 and 2016? Researcher Errol Salamon would like to hear about your experiences. He’s working on a research project on journalism internships, and is interested in hearing about what was beneficial and what could have been improved about your internships.
If you’ve worked a media internship over the past three years, you’re invited to complete this short introductory questionnaire. Your responses will be kept confidential. They will become part of reports on the working conditions of interns in order to determine best practices for journalism internships.
Errol Salamon is a CWA Canada Associate Member, work and labour editor of J-Source and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.
Click through to the survey right here. If you have questions or concerns, you can email Errol at errolsalamon@gmail.com for more information.
How many emails are piled up in your inbox right now? Hundreds? Thousands? Is it stressing you out? Want to do something about it? Our next webinar for members is just what you need.
Scheduled forWednesday, January 18th, 2017 at 6pm ET, “Inbox Zero” will be presented by tech writer Luigi Benetton.
Luigi will explain the concept of Inbox Zero and provide usable tips you can use to reach and maintain an empty inbox, and the peace of mind that comes with it.
Says Luigi: “There are lots of great tools you can use to manage your information. Your email inbox is, sadly, not one of them. Every email you leave in your inbox at the end of the day is a loose piece of information that might come back to haunt you, Your inbox works better as a scorecard, where zero emails is the sign of an organized mind.”
Luigi is a technology and business writer. From technical manuals to white papers to articles to case studies, Luigi specializes in helping companies tell their stories in ways their audiences understand.
This webinar is free for both CWA Associate Members and members of CMG Freelance. If you’re already a member, you can register for the event on this page on our website. You’ll need your membership number to register. If you’re a new CMG Freelance member and haven’t yet received your membership card, you can contact freelance@cmg.ca to get your number.
CWA Associate Membership is free for students, volunteers and emerging media workers. You can sign up for membership right here.
For information about the price and benefits of CMG Freelance membership check out the CMG Freelance website.
If you’ve missed our previous webinars, they’re all archived online in the “For Members” section of the CMG Freelance website. Subjects of previous webinars include pitching and freelance finances. Most recently, members enjoyed “What Do You Do When The Game Changes?” — a webinar on social media storytelling hosted by BuzzFeed Canada’s Elamin Abdelmahmoud.
Once a week, we gather stories about the media business, journalism, writing, publishing, and freelancing—with a Canadian focus—and share them in Off the Wire. Who needs a water cooler?
From Canada:
From The U.S. and beyond:
Recently on Story Board:
- The Born Freelancer Reaches 100: Today marks my 100th post. This may not seem like anything special to you but I can clearly remember finishing my very first post only a few years ago and thinking, “What on earth do I write about next”…
- The Freelancer’s Guide to Content Marketing: Chances are, you didn’t become a freelancer because you wanted to learn how to write something called “native advertising.” Maybe you’re a graduate from a journalism school, or you’ve honed your freelance career by pitching, researching, and writing stories for magazines such as The Walrus, Canadian Business, or Toronto Life…
Spot a story you think we should include in next week’s Off the Wire? Email the link to editor@thestoryboard.ca or tweet us at @storyboard_ca.
