CWA Canada releases project on media worker rights and labour reporting
by Emily Katz
Media Works launch panelists Arman Aghbali, Sara Tatelman, Maggie Reid, Haseena Manek, Errol Salamon. Photo © Moush Sara John
Labour stories are getting lost. At least, that’s what research for the recently launched Media Works: A Labour Rights and Reporting Project has discovered. At a time when people in Canada are spending more hours than ever traveling to, thinking about, and simply being at work, this is concerning. As handbook co-writer Haseena Manek said, “It’s not that labour issues are disappearing, but in the Canadian media landscape, labour stories are disappearing.”
CWA Canada Organizer Katherine Lapointe explained, “We’re in a period where the nature of work is shifting and becoming more precarious, existing labour and employment laws no longer protect most workers, and union density is declining. We need labour reporting that critically investigates the impacts of these shifts on our society, and that explores how workers are finding new ways to collectively organize to improve their work and home lives.”
The Media Works project has two components: fourteen labour reporting audio documentaries, long-form articles and graphic journalism pieces, and a handbook that aims to inform media workers of their rights and to encourage and improve labour reporting.
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The Globe and Mail urged to “pay the writers”
A small campaign has blossomed on Facebook over the past few hours as freelance writers press The Globe and Mail to pay the writers of their popular Facts & Arguments essay. In the comments section of a Facebook post celebrating the essay’s 25th anniversary writers have been complaining that the paper does not offer any compensation for accepted submissions.
Toronto writer and editor Jaclyn Law started the string of comments, asking simply “Why not pay the writers?”
The post has since had over a dozen more comments, including one from Canadian journalist, journalism instructor, and former Editor-in-Chief of Chatelaine magazine Kim Pittaway, who notes that writers used to be paid for the Facts & Arguments column.
“When F&A launched, I was actually paid $200 or $250 for an essay. Then it dropped to $100. Then it dropped to nothing. Hey Globe and Mail, as Jaclyn Law says, how about paying the writers?” says Pittaway’s comment.
When contacted via Facebook for further comment, Law said “writers should be paid for their work, even if they aren’t professionals.”
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer April 28-May 4
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:
- Postmedia launches new advertising division [J-Source]
- Global safety recommendations fail to arm freelancers with necessary supports [J-Source]
- Desmond Cole on writing about the skin he’s in [J-Source]
- 5 Seriously Dumb Myths About Copyright the Media Should Stop Repeating [Medium]
- 2015 Kenneth R. Wilson awards nominees announced [J-Source]
- Western Magazine Awards suspended? [Canadian Magazines]
From The U.S. and beyond:
- How self-publishing on LinkedIn can elevate your professional profile [Mashable]
- Indemnity clauses leave freelancers open to lawsuits [Poynter]
- 7 questions to answer BEFORE you crowdfund your art [Freelancers Union]
- How to Overcome Social Anxiety When You Work From Home [The Write Life]
- 5 tips every first-time freelancer needs to know [Freelancers Union]
- Ask a Freelancer: My Work Just Dried Up. What Do I Do? [The Freelancer]
- Financial tips for freelancers who don’t like dealing with finance [Freelancers Union]
- What Literary Agents Want to See Before Signing With a Writer [The Write Life]
Last week on Story Board:
- Writer Scott Carney launches WordRates & PitchLab Kickstarter: Last Friday, Scott Carney launched a Kickstarter campaign for a two-pronged website project called WordRates & PitchLab, which aims to improve working conditions and rates for freelance writers…
- Business Skills For Your Arts Career weekend workshop: The business side of a creative career can be difficult to manage. But if you’re a CMG Freelance member in Toronto, there’s an upcoming weekend workshop on business skills for self-employed artists that will help…
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.
Writer Scott Carney launches WordRates & PitchLab Kickstarter
by Rachel Sanders
Scott Carney figures he’s beaten the odds and come out the other side: he’s become a successful freelance writer. What was his first clue? Everyone kept asking for his advice.
“I get emails and phone calls and letters from writers around the country all the time asking for advice on how to negotiate contracts or how to get a better deal,” the Colorado-based writer told Story Board during a phone call earlier this week.
Carney has written for some of the top American magazines and has sold three books (his second, A Death on Diamond Mountain, was published last month). And it’s from this position of career success that he’s decided to try and shake things up for freelance writers in the magazine world.
Last Friday, Carney launched a Kickstarter campaign for a two-pronged website project called WordRates & PitchLab, which aims to improve working conditions and rates for freelance writers. The Kickstarter’s subtitle is “Fixing Journalism since mid-2015.” It’s an ambitious goal, but this is a project that Carney has been mulling over for years — ever since he started noticing that reprint rights and copyrights were being cut from writers’ contracts.
“I noticed that certain rights that were standard in the boilerplates that were being taken away from my Wired contract and various Condé Nast contracts were actually incredibly valuable,” Carney told Story Board during a phone interview earlier this week.
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Business Skills for Your Arts Career weekend workshop
Edit (May 8, 2015): Members of CMG Freelance and other organizations affiliated with AFBS have so far had exclusive access to this workshop. However, as of Monday May 11, registration will be opened to the general public for a registration fee of $80. Click here for registration info.
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The business side of a creative career can be difficult to manage. But if you’re a CMG Freelance member in Toronto, there’s an upcoming weekend workshop on business skills for self-employed artists that will help. The workshop is scheduled for Friday, June 12th from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm, and Saturday and Sunday June 13th and 14th from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at OCAD University.
The weekend-long seminar is being offered by Artists’ Health Alliance in partnership with AFBS. Registration is currently limited to the membership of organizations who are part of the AFBS Writers’ Coalition Program. The workshop registration fee is only $50 — for a workshop that the Artists’ Health Alliance says is worth $350.
Artists’ Health Alliance’s Meg Moran says the seminar was inspired by a recent survey of artists in the GTA which revealed that most artists experience challenges when it comes to managing the business side of their careers.
“This seminar is the perfect opportunity to help artists bolster their knowledge, skills and confidence and learn the essentials needed to support their passion,” she says.
The seminar facilitator is Jack Cunningham, a Career and Employment Consultant, Curriculum Designer, Educator and Artist.
Click this link to go to the registration page for the event. If you are not a CMG Freelance member but would like to learn more about the benefits of membership, visit this page on the CMG Freelance website.
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer April 21-27
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:
- Press Council investigates complaint against journalists blocking reader on Twitter [J-Source]
- BuzzFeed hires author of award-winning book on journalistic errors to head Canadian team [Globe and Mail]
- Ryerson Review of Journalism examines its options for the future [J-Source]
- Harper Brings CBC to Heel [J-Source]
- Establish These Routines To Make Your Freelance Business Run Smoothly [The Freelance Hustle]
From The U.S. and beyond:
- How to Get Clients as a Freelance Writer: 10 Brilliant Strategies [The Write Life]
- For the safety of journalists [Scott Carney]
- Will Gawker employees’ decision to organize make unions cool again? [Fast Company]
- 21 Places to Find Blogging Jobs: An Essential Resource for Freelance Bloggers [The Write Life]
- I Created a Writers Group, and It Changed My Freelancing Life [Contently]
- You should break these 5 freelancer rules [Freelancers Union]
- Journalists shouldn’t lose their rights in their move to private platforms [Nieman Lab]
- Why ‘Write What You Know’ Is Terrible Advice [The Freelancer]
Last week on Story Board:
- CWA Canada Votes to Protect Interns: At CWA Canada’s National Representative Council (NRC) meeting on April 17, voting members unanimously agreed to endorse two documents, both of which aim to protect media interns in the workplace…
- The Born Freelancer Interviews Young Adult and Children’s Author Erin Thomas: Twelve years ago, Whitby, Ontario based freelancer Erin Thomas was a technical writer with a degree in English literature, taking college night courses towards technical writing and editing qualifications…
- The 5-Minute Freelancer Q&A #20 — Tom Sandborn: In this regular feature, Story Board asks Canadian writers to share a few details about their work habits and their strategies for navigating the ups and downs of freelance 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.
CWA Canada Votes to Protect Interns
by Kayla Perry
At CWA Canada’s National Representative Council (NRC) meeting on April 17, voting members unanimously agreed to endorse two documents, both of which aim to protect media interns in the workplace.
The first document presented to the NRC by the CWA Canada Associate Member Steering Committee was a policy statement on the equitable use of interns. This document states that all interns should receive compensation, with the exception of students from an accredited post-secondary educational institutions on a short-term educational placement, and that equitable terms of employment should be outlined in the collective agreement.
The policy also states that CWA Canada has a role to play in advocating for employers to compensate students, and outlines that all interns must receive a signed contract outlining the responsibilities of the intern and employer, avenues of recourse for the intern, the length of the contract, the hours of work, and the requirement of regular feedback and mentoring.
CWA Canada Associate Members—a form of union membership for student, volunteer and precarious media workers—developed this policy out of concern that unpaid internships are making careers in the media inaccessible to people from historically-marginalized communities, place young people further at risk of harassment and unsafe work conditions, and teach emerging media workers not to value their labour.
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The Born Freelancer Interviews Young Adult & Children’s Author Erin Thomas
This series of posts by the Born Freelancer shares personal experiences and thoughts on issues relevant to freelancers. Have something to add to the conversation? Your input is welcome in the comments.
Twelve years ago, Whitby, Ontario based freelancer Erin Thomas was a technical writer with a degree in English literature, taking college night courses towards technical writing and editing qualifications.
She says she “stumbled into a course in writing for children and has never looked back”.
An avid reader all her life, “Forcing the Ace,” published by Orca last fall as part of their Limelights series, was her seventh book for children.
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What inspires you? What motivates you creatively?
I read widely — lots of contemporary children’s literature, but also adult fiction and a strange assortment of non-fiction. Good writing inspires me; it doesn’t matter what genre. This year I’ve read and loved “Station Eleven”, “The Martian” and “Orphan Train”.
Do you derive any significant inspiration from sources other than books?
I don’t get out to plays and concerts as often as I’d like, but that’s always an inspiring experience. I have huge respect for the work that goes on behind the scenes. When I see someone do something beautifully, I’m not thinking that they’re gifted or naturally talented, although they may well be. I’m thinking about the hours of rehearsal they put in to make that happen. To me, that’s the inspiring part. That’s the interesting thing – the passion that drives a person to become better at his or her craft.
That’s what makes me want to work harder.
The 5-Minute Freelancer Q&A #20 — Tom Sandborn
In this regular feature, Story Board asks Canadian writers to share a few details about their work habits and their strategies for navigating the ups and downs of freelance life.
Tom Sandborn is a Vancouver freelance writer who also works as a fundraiser and consultant. He has been involved in community activism since the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. He has written about subjects such as labour, health policy and social policy for publications like the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, the Tyee and the Georgia Straight.
He took the time to speak with Story Board recently about journalism, the labour movement and the importance of living by your words.
How have things changed since you started freelancing?
I think that in that period of time, in my lifetime, we saw an enormously exciting emergence of alternative journalism, things like the Georgia Straight here in town. Underground newspapers everywhere, underground radio stations everywhere. Much of that has been tamed and subsumed in the way that the other insurgent impulses of the counter culture were. Exciting expose journalism got turned into shock rock radio and all of the effluvia that’s available online.
I think that the funding base for independent journalism has diminished enormously and media concentration has spiked in a way that works inversely with that. More and more concentrated control by big corporations and less and less funding for independent journalism.
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Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer April 14-20
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:
- Latest round of cuts at CBC represents massive upheaval in newsgathering capacity [CMG]
- CBC says conclusions from Ghomeshi report “troubling and disappointing” [J-Source]
- What CBC employees are saying about the latest layoffs [J-Source]
- Jian Ghomeshi scandal report leads to CBC ‘severing ties’ with ex-head of radio, HR director [Toronto Star]
- Report on Ghomeshi scandal by workplace laywer Janice Rubin [CBC]
- Whoa, Tyee readers pledge more than $75,000 for election journalism [Tyee]
- Map: Toronto resources for emerging media workers [CMG Freelance]
- Recording interviews using a digital voice recorder [Luigi Benetton]
- Global News Kills Koch Brothers Story, Fires Journalist [Canadaland]
- More contract work and internships mean new journalists must learn their rights [J-Source]
From The U.S. and beyond:
- Gawker is making unionizing look easy [Washington Post]
- Why We’ve Decided to Organize [Gawker]
- How to Handle 5 Sticky Situations With Sources [The Freelancer]
- How a Freelance Journalist Used Content Marketing to Double Her Income [The Write Life]
- 6 Months Into Freelancing, 6 Lessons Learned (the hard way) [The Life of M]
- 5 Books About Writing Every Freelancer Should Read [The Freelancer]
- 5 things you need to work from home (without going bananas) [Freelancers Union]
- Freelancers are *still* trying to get paid by HudsonMOD publisher [Romenesko]
Last week on Story Board:
- Media Works launch party April 29th: A media/labour project that has been in the works for several months is now ready to go, and there’s going to be a party to celebrate…
- Unpaid internships — A moral dilemma for journalism students and the media community: Journalism students across Ontario are struggling with the moral dilemma of participating in unpaid internships while trying to build experience for their portfolios…
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.
