Workshop on the rights of media workers
Next Wednesday, CWA Canada is holding a free two-hour workshop to share information for media workers about basic employment rights.
The event, scheduled for Wednesday November 26th from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at The Foundry in Toronto, is open to all media workers and will provide information about the rights of freelancers, interns and other types of media work. Snacks will be served.
Reserve your ticket and find more information about the event and the venue here.
And to learn about CWA Canada’s associate membership program for students, volunteers and precarious media workers, click here.
The Born Freelancer on Being a “Real” Freelancer
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.
I was talking to a freelance colleague of mine recently who was being dismissive of a fellow freelancer:
“Pffft! He isn’t a real freelancer; he’s only writes when he wants to write”.
In other words, he had another full-time job and only wrote what moved him to write. He was every bit as talented a writer as any full-time freelancer; he had just made his lifestyle choices early on in his career. He had decided to keep his work separate from his passions.
I’ve known lots of writers who feel the same way. One I knew years ago told me she’d rather work at any job for the money so she could keep her writing life separate. She still considered herself a professional freelancer (not a hobby writer) and expected to be paid when she did write but only when she had a project she felt sufficiently moved to undertake.
I would posit that contemporary freelancing is what you make of it. It takes on as many different forms as there are individuals engaged in it. Today I thought I would consider the pros and cons of some such modified freelancing options with the hope that it might help some of you clarify your own thoughts when facing similar choices.
So first, let’s start with the advantages of writing (or any creative act) as a full-time revenue stream.
Advantages of full-time freelancing
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer Nov 11-17
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:
- Thousands march in support of CBC and Radio-Canada [CBC]
- CBC/Radio Canada in danger of disappearing forever [Toronto Star]
- Shameless magazine celebrates 10th anniversary [J-Souce]
- Two ways to halt the decline of authorship in Canada [Globe and Mail]
- National study sheds light on journalists’ working conditions in the digital age [J-Source]
From the U.S. and beyond:
- How to not suck at email [Freelancers Union]
- Wrestling With the Ups and Downs of Freelancer Envy [The Freelancer]
- Condé Nast agrees to $5.8 mln settlement in suit over intern pay [Reuters]
- Pricing 101 – How To Price Yourself As A Freelancer [Career Foundry]
- Your Favorite Editor Just Left. Now What? [The Freelancer]
- On Location: A Professional Calling Card [Science Writers’ Handbook]
- How Do I Find Specialty Publications That Pay? [The Freelancer]
- Tips for Making Sure Editors Don’t Skip Over Your Email Pitch [Mediabistro]
- How Do Editors Really Feel When You Negotiate Rates? [The Freelancer]
Last week on Story Board:
- Unpaid Pan Am writing jobs raise ire: Last Thursday, Toronto freelance writer and investigative journalist Andrew Livingstone ran across a job ad posted by the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games…
- Motivation and its evil twin: procrastination: To make a go of it as a freelancer, an abundance of motivation is crucial. But as we all know and hate, motivation doesn’t come in steady waves. It tends to ebb and flow over time, sometimes waning when we need it the most. Procrastination is one of those nasty habits that sometimes gets in the way…
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.
Unpaid Pan Am Games writing jobs raise ire
The altered version of the Pan Am Games’ ad for unpaid feature writers.
Last Thursday, Toronto freelance writer and investigative journalist Andrew Livingstone ran across a job ad posted by the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games.
The ad was seeking five writers to produce feature content for websites, publications, newsletters and brochures. Duties included interviewing sources, fact checking and writing to deadline, as well as attending and covering events and activities. The educational requirements included a degree in journalism, communications or public relations.
The positions were unpaid.
Livingstone made his outrage known in a series of tweets that garnered more than 40,000 impressions over the course of the day. The tweets, and many of the responses he got to them, are collected here in a Storify. Thursday was the application deadline and by the end of the day the job posting had come down.
Livingstone says what bothers him most about the Pan Am Games asking writers to work for free is that the Games are a $1.5B operation funded with government money.
“It really irked me because of the high-paid staff members at the organization, a number who are on the province’s Sunshine List for making over $100,000 annually,” Livingstone told Story Board via email this week.
“The amount of money going into the project is incredible, and for them to try and get people to write for them without pay is just awful.”
Livingstone also pointed out that the listing gave no indication of what benefits a writer would receive from accepting such a position.
Read the rest of this post »
Motivation and its evil twin: procrastination
graphic and background image by Lesley Evans Ogden
by Lesley Evans Ogden
To make a go of it as a freelancer, an abundance of motivation is crucial. But as we all know and hate, motivation doesn’t come in steady waves. It tends to ebb and flow over time, sometimes waning when we need it the most. Procrastination is one of those nasty habits that sometimes gets in the way.
This summer, one of the sessions at Courage Camp, a Colorado-based workshop for freelancers, specifically delved into the prickly topics of motivation and procrastination. Julia Galef, President and Cofounder of the Center for Applied Rationality, led off the session by dispensing with some conventional wisdom about procrastination: that it exists because we are perfectionist overachievers. “Research,” says Galef, “has not borne this out.” One of the leading researchers in procrastination is Dr. Piers Steel, a Professor at Human Resources and Organizational Dynamics at the University of Calgary.
Steel has developed a “procrastination equation,” written a book by the same name, (and even provided tongue in cheek instructions for writing your very own article on procrastination).
As Steel describes it, motivation, the level of our readiness to take action, can be defined as follows:
What does this mean?
Read the rest of this post »
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer Nov 4-10
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:
- Can you afford to be a writer? [Toronto Star] (via @twuc)
- Legacy of a Legend [RRJ] (via @timfalconer)
- CBC executive calls Ghomeshi ‘egomaniacal’ and ‘tyrannical’ [Globe & Mail]
- Toronto Star to drop paywall and launch a new ad-driven tablet like La Presse [Canadian Magazines]
- Investigative reporting brought down Jian Ghomeshi [Rabble] (via @writersdotca)
- Jonathan Kay overseeing a new version of Canada’s daily conversation [Toronto Star]
- Jesse Brown’s open letter to fellow journalists [Storify]
- The more you write, the less you make [Globe & Mail] (via @CDNWritersGroup)
From the U.S. and beyond:
- Is a Coworking Space Better for Freelancers Than Working from Home? [The Write Life]
- Molly Crabapple’s 15 rules for creative success in the Internet age [BoingBoing]
- What Should the Ideal Freelance Schedule Look Like? [The Freelancer]
- 7 Pieces of Wisdom That Will Change the Way You Work [99U]
- Ask A Freelancer: How Do I Avoid Procrastinating When Working From Home? [The Freelancer]
- The numbers behind Jill Abramson and Steven Brill’s new media venture don’t add up [GigaOM]
- How 5 Famous Freelancers Got Their First Big Breaks [The Freelancer]
- When journalists take sides, what happens to reporting facts? [Journalism.co.uk]
Last week on Story Board:
- Journalists react to Pan Am Games’ ad for unpaid feature writers: Yesterday, Toronto freelance writer Andrew Livingstone ran across a job posting seeking volunteer writers to produce features and other promotional material for the 2015 Pan Am Games. Livingstone took to Twitter to voice his outrage. His tweets ignited an angry conversation about unpaid writing…
- The 5-Minute Freelancer Q&A #18 — Andrew Braithwaite: 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.
A Twitterstorm about unpaid writing… Storified
The 5-Minute Freelancer Q&A #18 — Andrew Braithwaite
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.
Andrew Braithwaite is a Canadian-born writer currently living in San Francisco. He’s written about food and wine, architecture, travel and culture for such publications as enRoute, Wine & Spirits, the Globe and Mail, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Walrus, and Reader’s Digest.
Andrew took the time to speak with Story Board this week about staying focused, the benefits of being a generalist, and the advantages of placing limits on certain aspects of your freelance career.
Do you think as a freelance writer that it’s better to be a specialist or generalist?
I’m definitely a generalist. For me, it’s the easiest way to stay motivated and excited about the things that I write about. Anytime I’m caught up in a lot of assignments on one topic, I get kind of bored. In terms of how to navigate the market, I don’t know whether being a specialist or a generalist is better. But in terms of actually getting the work done, it’s nice to have more subjects to write about just to keep yourself interested in sitting down at the computer every day.
Read the rest of this post »
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer Oct 29-Nov 3
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:
- What happened inside Parliament Hill during the shooting: Q&A with Justin Ling [J-Source]
- An interview with Jesse Brown, the crowdfunded journalist who helped get Jian Ghomeshi fired [Toronto Life]
- The Walrus has a new editor-in-chief [Masthead]
- Imagining journalism in the next 50 years [J-Source]
- Rick Mercer to host the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize gala [CBC Books]
- Meet Jesse Brown, The Man Who Broke The Explosive Allegations About Jian Ghomeshi [HuffPo]
- Blitz finds nearly half of companies with interns break law [Toronto Star] (via @LuigiBenetton)
From the U.S. and beyond:
- How to (professionally) miss a deadline [Mashable]
- Jill Abramson startup to advance writers up to $100k for longform work [Poynter]
- Top 8 Tools That Every Freelancer Should Use in Their Everyday Work [Lifehacker]
- As a Freelancer, Should You Charge by the Word, Hour, or Project? [Contently]
- The best invoice terms to get you paid faster [Freshbooks] (via @LuigiBenetton)
- Unpaid internships may prevent working-class reporters from entering journalism [coneillwrites]
- Ask a Freelancer: How Do I Negotiate Higher Rates? [Contently]
- Why Journaling the Past Can Help You Work Smarter in the Future [Contently]
- Contract Pushback [Pitch Publish Prosper] (via @janelangille)
Last week on Story Board:
- Mixer for emerging media workers November 12th: Students and emerging media workers in Toronto: mark your calendars. CWA Canada is holding a free event on November 12th at 6 PM at The Foundery (376 Bathurst St, just north of Dundas St W)…
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.
Mixer for emerging media workers November 12th
Students and emerging media workers in Toronto: mark your calendars. CWA Canada is holding a free event on November 12th at 6 PM at The Foundery (376 Bathurst St, just north of Dundas St W).
The media mixer will shine a spotlight on issues such as finding meaningful work, unpaid internships and diversity in the media.
The event will feature a Q&A with writer, editor and social and cultural critic Septembre Anderson and assistant professor and cultural labour researcher Nicole Cohen. There will also be a chance for informal conversation about the challenges of media work. Snacks and drinks will be served.
More details about the event are available on Eventbrite and Facebook. Get your ticket here. And you can click here for information about CWA Canada’s membership for media students, volunteers and precarious media workers.
