Yellow Pages Canada offering content mill rates for app writing work
CMG Freelance is advising freelance writers across Canada not to accept work from Yellow Pages that pays in the range of 6 to 9 cents per word. Story Board has heard from several highly experienced writers who were approached by Yellow Pages Canada last week with an offer to write “Smart Lists” for Yellow Pages’ […]
The Born Freelancer on Interning for Free
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. Whenever I read stories about corporate media insisting they have no money to pay their hard working interns (such as Derek Finkle’s […]
The Unpaid Internship Conspiracy
Why Toronto Life’s first intern backs the Ontario labour ministry in shutting down the magazine’s twenty-one-year-old internship program and others that don’t pay by Derek Finkle I won’t lie: when John Macfarlane called me in May of 1993 and offered me a four-month internship at Toronto Life, the magazine he then edited, I was overcome. I […]
Crackdown on unpaid internships a positive step, but the collective struggle must continue
This week, the Ontario Ministry of Labour told The Walrus and Toronto Life to bring their internship programs into compliance with the Employment Standards Act (ESA). Both publications had a long history of offering full time, months-long, unpaid internships for contributing to the main work of the publication. Instead of apologizing and figuring out […]
What to charge for your writing
by Rachel Sanders When you’re offered a juicy writing assignment, sometimes the fee seems less important than the experience, the enjoyment, or the byline you’re expecting to get out of it. But as you move along in your writing career, it’s important to consider what your time is worth. If you want to freelance full-time, […]
Pay the Writers (and other ideas on the potential of the Internet)
by Andrea Hoff The Internet is not only a place of connectivity, it is also a place that is constantly morphing and changing. That is something as writers we can use to our advantage. If we can use the Internet in solidarity, we have the ability to change the current conversation. This was one […]
Yes, we are worthy: making it in the freelance world
Hey you lucky, lucky Toronto freelancers, there’s another great event coming up for you in September. Yes, we are worthy: making it in the freelance world will be an evening of discussion with bestselling author Ann Douglas (writer of the popular Story Board post “Why I Am No Longer Writing The Column I Loved for The Toronto Star“) and Nicole […]
Canadian Intern Association holds first Vancouver meeting
The Canadian Intern Association is holding its first Vancouver meeting tonight at the Firehall Branch of the public library. The Association was founded last year by University of Ottawa law student Claire Seaborn, who noticed a dearth of advocacy groups to address the growing problem of illegal unpaid internships. Over the past year, the group has launched a Claim Back […]
Unpaid internships under the microscope at last
It seems as though the issue of unpaid internships has reached a breaking point this summer. The watershed Black Swan ruling last month appears to have led to a flood of lawsuits by former interns alleging breach of labour laws. U.S. publishers Gawker and Condé Nast have been hit with intern lawsuits over the past few weeks. And here […]
Striking Saint John 7 hit one-year anniversary
Today is a big day for the Saint John 7. One year ago — on June 25, 2012 — the seven radio employees began their strike against the Halifax-based Maritime Broadcasting System after trying for almost a year to negotiate a fair wage. Lise Lareau, National Vice-President of the Canadian Media Guild, wrote a post […]
