The Born Freelancer on the Care & Ethical Treatment of Interviewees, Part 3
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.
Over the last couple posts I have discussed the importance of a freelancer’s interviewees and some of the techniques I have learned to maximize results while relating to them, ethically. I have had a few additional thoughts which emerged from those earlier posts that I want to share with you today.
The nonprofessional who has a tragic personal story
I have previously discussed the category of nonpro interviewees or “real life” people who are not professionally trained in PR or public speaking.
Nothing ticks me off as much as broadcasters sticking a mic in front of a real (nonprofessional) person’s face following a tragedy and asking, “How do you feel about losing your family, your life’s savings and your best friend”? How the hell would YOU feel? Such people in such extraordinary circumstances deserve to be treated with more compassion and understanding than that! I’m not saying you shouldn’t go after their story, I’m saying there are more appropriate methods and times to do so. With nonprofessional folk who have a personal story to tell (traumatic or otherwise) I have learned to accept that they may go from monosyllabic answers to a torrent of words once they are comfortable with me. Somewhere in that torrent, often in the first “gush” will be the quote I need to frame the story but I always try to allow them the opportunity to go on a bit more than is required. Again, it is partially the “organic” approach and it is partially just being a good human being.
Going into such an interview you must be prepared that there may be extra time required to extract the essentials of the story in a compassionate and appropriate way (unless you want to shove a mic in their face and file the type of story I despise). Perhaps you are short on time. Perhaps you have a deadline looming. Somehow, you must still take a moment to remember this is not just a job for your interviewee, this is an important perhaps once in a lifetime experience in their life. This may well be a time of grieving, and you may well become a prime conduit for that grieving. Well do I know this firsthand from the other point of view. Read the rest of this post »
How I Freelance with a Day Job
by Daniela DiStefano
For more than three years I’ve been a happy part-time freelancer. What started as a way to exercise my passion for writing and build my portfolio in University developed into a steady and profitable part-time business that’s now a highly rewarding part of my career.
I didn’t become a freelancer overnight. I started as an intern and volunteer contributor for a number of publications that eventually led to full-time employment opportunities as well as paid freelance work. This gave me the chance to explore different styles of writing, meet other freelancers and develop relationships with editors.
I first thought of part-time freelancing as a way to facilitate my goal of landing a full-time job in magazines, but realized keeping it up would help me to deepen my roots in the industry and prepare me to become my own boss should I choose to make the switch down the line. Now I work at a marketing agency by day while scheduling print features, copywriting, blogging and social media consulting into my evenings and weekends.
The beauty of freelancing it that it’s flexible, and although it’s hard to turn down work, part-timers need to be comfortable saying “no” when there’s just not enough free hours to get a job done or when an assignment is not worth the effort. Setting yearly and monthly or weekly goals and objectives helps me focus on booking assignments that will help reach those monetary and professional milestones.
Just as with full-time freelancing, generating income and setting rates is a big factor for achieving part-time success. It may seem harmless to charge lower than industry normal rates or to do things for free because you have a full-time paycheque to fall back on, but it won’t help you build the reputable and successful business you deserve and it has a detrimental effect on freelance rates overall. Putting your talent and expertise to work outside your day job can help earn extra funds towards mortgage payments or for your next vacation, and I’ve found that if I’m cutting into my free time out of the office, I want to be sure the work pays a competitive wage and will give me a byline that I’m proud of. Read the rest of this post »
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer May 7-13
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:
- Newspapers Canada considering a national press council [J-Source]
- Breaking News: Can the paywall save Canadian newspapers? [The Walrus]
- Crowd-funding journalism: A new financing model for freelancers? [J-Source]
- Guild: New budget bill gives government a “direct say in CBC journalism” [J-Source]
- Amanda Leduc: Detours [National Post] (via @twuc)
- Toronto Star reporters get mandatory training after newspaper publishes false allegations [J-Source]
- Canadian Women’s Foundation launches SHE magazine [Masthead]
- Vancouver Magazine leads Western Magazine Award finalists with 18 nominations [J-Source]
From the U.S. and beyond:
- What news orgs are learning from their ebook efforts [Poynter]
- This Is What Happens When Publishers Invest In Long Stories [Fast Company] (via @jayrosen_nyu)
- Is it the best of times or the worst of times for journalism? Yes. [PaidContent]
- Five Authors Who Prove It’s Never Too Late To Start Writing [Lit Reactor] (via @twuc)
- Why unpaid internships are harming creative business [PSFK] (via @paythewriters)
- Freelancing Rules of Thumb [The Freelancery] (via @freelancersu)
- Village Voice editors quit instead of laying off staff [Poynter]
- Charles Ramsey interviews reveal risks of jumping on a good story too soon [Poynter]
- This is the best moment to be in journalism [CJR] (via @jayrosen_nyu)
- 5 Sure-Fire Routes to Freelancing Success [Mashable]
- Media’s mobile future makes room for long-form journalism [Marketplace] (via @natalieturvey)
- New York Times launches web-only documentaries with Retro Report [PaidContent]
From Story Board last week:
- Writers Who Do Data Journalism Increasingly In Demand: Any freelance journalist has tools they rely on, whether it is a specific brand of pens or an addiction to Google News. But at the Ink + Beyond and Canadian Association of Journalists conference in Ottawa on May 2-4, Fred Vallance-Jones and David McKie encouraged writers to add a few new tools to their kit: those that help them understand and source data…
- Is the Canada Periodical Fund helping TC Media squeeze freelancers?: The Canadian Media Guild has sent a letter to Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore asking him to review the funding TC Media receives from Heritage Canada’s Periodical Fund in the wake of the new contract it tried to impose on freelancers this year. TC Media has received between $7.5 and $8.5 million from the fund each year for the past three years….
- Dave Greber Freelance Writers Awards: Have you done any social justice writing this year? If so, you’re invited to submit your work for the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award…
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.
Writers who do data journalism increasingly in demand
By H.G. Watson
Any freelance journalist has tools they rely on, whether it is a specific brand of pens or an addiction to Google News. But at the Ink + Beyond and Canadian Association of Journalists conference in Ottawa on May 2-4, Fred Vallance-Jones and David McKie encouraged writers to add a few new tools to their kit: those that help them understand and source data.
“Data journalism seems intimidating,” said Vallance-Jones, a professor at King’s College journalism program in Halifax. “[but you’re] taking computer skills and applying them to journalism.”
A growing number of news outlets are using data journalism to generate stories, whether it’s the research that’s behind a long form feature or the driving force behind a data visualization project. Both Vallance-Jones and McKie – a CBC reporter – pointed to stories like Global News “The Gardiner – Trouble overhead” as examples of stories that were built around large amounts of data. It was quickly made clear that journalists who have the skills and abilities to work with data will be desirable for many media outlets.
But how do you learn and practice those skills without going back to school? Vallance-Jones and McKie both pointed out a number of ways writers can start getting comfortable with data journalism.
- If you’re starting from square one, you might want a reference guide that helps you read spreadsheets. Vallance-Jones and McKie co-authored a book on computer assisted reporting that you can purchase online. There are also free, open-source data journalism books that you can use to ground yourself with the basics.
- Google offers several free programs that you can use to crunch data, such as the spreadsheet function in Google Docs. Google Fusion will take that data and allow you to create visualizations with it. For example, you could take the data from collisions at different intersections in your city and put them on a map using Fusion.
- Several municipalities, such as Waterloo, now post data resources on their websites. They serve as a great resource for stories or to simply get used to looking at large amounts of data.
- If you want to learn how to do advanced data applications such as scraping data from websites, you may want to learn how to do some basic coding. Many local colleges offer courses in simple languages like Python. Or you could use Codeacademy, a free, online education course that covers a number of computer tools.
While these tools are a great new source for writers, it’s important to remember that’s exactly what they are – a source. “It’s still about telling journalistic stories,” said Vallance-Jones. “Data is another kind of source for you.”
HG Watson is the Editor-in-Chief of the Cord Community Edition in Waterloo, On.
Is the Canada Periodical Fund helping TC Media squeeze freelancers?
By Katherine Lapointe
The Canadian Media Guild has sent a letter to Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore asking him to review the funding TC Media receives from Heritage Canada’s Periodical Fund in the wake of the new contract it tried to impose on freelancers this year. TC Media has received between $7.5 and $8.5 million from the fund each year for the past three years.
The Canada Periodical Fund was created in 2009 by James Moore to replace the Canadian Magazine Fund and the Publications Assistance Program. The stated purpose of the newer fund is to strengthen the Canadian cultural sector and to provide stability to the tens of thousands of employees in this industry. As Moore said in 2009, the fund exists “to offer Canadian publishers a simple and effective program so that they can continue to provide readers with a broad range of quality Canadian periodicals.”
In practice, the Canada Periodical Fund fails to support the Canadian cultural sector and its workers. While the total amount of funding available to publishers each year has remained the same – about $75.5 million – the new fund is only available to publications with a paid circulation of 5,000 copies or more. This makes it all but impossible for small, independent (often art, literary and scholarly) publications to qualify and the Support for Arts and Literary Magazines (SALM) program was discontinued. This means the fund favours large publications that typically contain a high number of ads and a relatively lower amount of Canadian content, prompting outcry at the time from a coalition of artists, freelancers and readers.
Instead of enriching the cultural sector and helping to stabilize employment, the latest TC Media contract demands that freelancers sign over all rights to their work, while offering no increase in pay rates. Under these terms, TC Media has the right to republish or alter the work without permission (including removing the byline) and without paying the freelancer another cent.
Recently, the Canadian Media Guild has learned that TC Media has told some freelancers that they do not have to sign this new contract and that they are making amendments to the agreement. A new version is expected in early summer.
“As we await the new contract from TC Media, it is an appropriate time for James Moore and Heritage Canada to look at whether the fund is actually serving to help strengthen the country’s cultural sector or whether it is, in fact, helping the big publishers make life even more difficult for cultural creators,” says Karen Wirsig of the Canadian Media Guild.
The Guild is encouraging freelancers and readers to contact their MPs and ask for a review of the Periodical Fund. You can find out more here.
Katherine Lapointe is the co-ordinator of the CWA Canada-Canadian University Press Associate Membership Program. You can reach her at cwa@cup.ca
Dave Greber Freelance Writers Awards
Have you done any social justice writing this year? 
If so, you’re invited to submit your work for the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award.
The award offers a $2000 magazine award as well as a $5000 book award and aims to provide support to writers who are pursuing social justice-related writing. Winning entries demonstrate excellence in research and storytelling.
Originally offered only to writers in Calgary, the awards were first given out in 2004. They were set up by Shirley Dunn in memory of her partner Dave Greber, a prolific freelancer who wrote extensively about social justice and the environment.
The submission deadline is June 14, 2013 at 5 pm. More information about the awards can be found on their call for submissions page.
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer April 30-May 6
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:
- The Coast takes CAJ’s top investigative award [J-Source]
- Toronto Star will hold training sessions for reporters following front-page apology [Poynter]
- Unpaid internships are just wrong [Globe and Mail] (via @youthandwork)
- Sexism, spite and Kirstine Stewart’s CBC legacy [Globe and Mail]
- Student internship opportunities shrinking across the country [J-Source]
- Toronto Life leads magazine award in total nominations [Canadian Magazines]
- Harper Government sets out plans to run CBC [CMG]
- Postmedia drops publishers [Globe and Mail]
- Toronto Star rejects union proposal to minimize page editor layoffs [J-Source]
- Canada’s only non-profit investigative centre shutting down [J-Source]
- The choices facing prospective j-students [J-Source]
- Stephen Trumper wins NMAF Outstanding Achievement Award [Magazine Awards]
- Freelancing advice from across the pond [Masthead]
- CBC Executive VP for English Services departs for job at Twitter [J-Source]
- Women’s sports media group calls Don Cherry’s comments ‘sexist’ [Globe and Mail]
From the U.S. and beyond:
- Seven ‘Stops’ To Get Your Freelance Career Going [Forbes]
- How Freelancers Are Transforming the Labor Market [Bloomberg] (via @freelancersu)
- Why I Gave Up Job Security to Go Freelance [Lifehacker]
- Why We Still Need World Press Freedom Day [PBS] (via @Mediagazer)
- 5 qualities of innovative leaders in today’s media [Poynter]
- Powerful Habits to Build Your Career Every Day [Fast Company] (via @freelancersu)
- Newsmodo website launches to help journalists sell work worldwide [Guardian] (via @NiemanLab)
From Story Board last week:
- Contently and the Rise of Content Marketing: Prospects seem rather gloomy for freelance writers these days. With dying weeklies, draconian magazine contracts, and endless cutbacks at daily papers and the CBC, it’s sometimes hard to see how freelancing can possibly remain a viable career path. But amid all the journalistic despair there is one area of growth for freelance writers. It’s called content marketing…
- The 5-Minute Freelancer Q&A #8 – Alison Garwood-Jones: 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.
Contently and the Rise of Content Marketing
Prospects seem rather gloomy for freelance writers these days. With dying weeklies, draconian magazine contracts, and endless cutbacks
at daily papers and the CBC, it’s sometimes hard to see how freelancing can possibly remain a viable career path. But amid all the journalistic despair there is one area of growth for freelance writers. It’s called content marketing.
With traditional advertising models faltering, companies are looking for ways to create and publish compelling content that will increase their visibility and their brand’s reputation. And there’s a young company in the U.S. that aims to match those companies up with freelance journalists.
Contently’s writer database
Based in New York, Contently was founded in 2010 in response to the disruption in traditional journalism. The company’s website now hosts 13,000 freelancer portfolios, 2500 of which have been upgraded to pro status. Sam Slaughter, the company’s Vice President of Content, says that any writer can set up a profile on Contently.
“We want writers to use that profile to find work other places if they can,” he said this week during a phone interview with Story Board.
“Our primary goal is to provide something that’s really easy and really effective as a home on the web for journalists and writers.”
Contently reviews writers’ profiles and adds those with high quality portfolios to their professional database which, for a monthly fee, is available to brands and publishers. Slaughter says their client list is growing quickly – he estimates 20% growth per month with approximately 100 companies and publishers currently on board. Read the rest of this post »
The 5-Minute Freelancer Q&A #8 – Alison Garwood-Jones
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.
1. What’s your strategy for generating story ideas?
A lot of it is just looking at the landscape and seeing what inspires me, what enrages me and seeing if I can respond to it in an engaging way. It comes from everything. I flit around from the computer to magazines, from print to digital, just trying to stay aware and trying to stay engaged myself an then seeing if I can spin it through my own sensibility on my blog. It’s everywhere. It’s based on what I see when I go to the AGO, it’s based on what I experience when I’m hanging out with friends at a restaurant, what are they talking about? What’s the latest app they’re using? My blog covers a wide range of topics, I put it under the umbrella of human nature, but I think what’s happening in the digital world is a good example of how human nature responds to new toys and new forms of communication.
And I’ve had several blog posts turn into pieces because editors have gotten in touch with me saying “that was really moving or really interesting, do you want to expand on that into a print piece?” I’ve always found that if something really gets me going, I’m probably not the only one.
2. What’s the most important thing you’ve done over the years to develop your writing skills?
Probably start blogging. I was reluctant in the beginning. I got into journalism late in my career. I had a whole other life as an art historian. And then I decided I wanted to be less of an academic and get into journalism and write for a broader audience. Write for the common reader, as Virginia Woolf said. I just wanted to engage on a more sort of visceral level with people through writing. The nice thing about getting into journalism in 2005 is that I was right on the tail end of the golden age of journalism. Read the rest of this post »
Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer April 23-29
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:
- Toronto Star union comes back with offer [Steve Ladurantaye]
- How to effectively interview sources [Networds] (via @jaclynlaw)
- Vancouver Sun, the Province offering employee buyouts [Globe and Mail]
- All the news an advertiser can pay for [Globe and Mail]
- Don’t put blame of the problems of the newspaper industry on reporters and editors [J-Source]
- Why being a news reporter is NOT the worst job in the world [J-Source]
- Montreal’s community weeklies must make do without journalists [Fagstein]
- CJF announces finalists for Excellence in Journalism Award [J-Source]
- The emergence of the market for data-journalism skills [J-Source]
- Fox News anchor: Canada “not great at the television” [J-Source]
- Globe and Mail announces voluntary separation program for staff [Globe and Mail]
- Born in adversity, Jewish paper succumbs to the Internet [Globe and Mail] (via @sladurantaye)
From the U.S. and beyond:
- The Pro’s Guide to Working Remotely [Mashable]
- Advice for Aspiring Children’s Book Authors [GalleyCat] (via @mediabistro)
- How the L.A. Times can stop the Kochs [Washington Post] (via @jayrosen_nyu)
- Really Annoying Things People Say to Freelance Writers [Freelance Strategist] (via @contently)
- How to: ride out the freelancing rollercoaster [Journalism.co.uk]
- Self-Publishing Is For Control Freaks [Forbes] (via @mediabistro)
- IFJ/EFJ Call for Global Fight Back Against Unfair Contracts [IFJ] (via @paythewriter)
- Newspaper reporter is worst job in 2013, study says [Poynter]
From Story Board last week:
- The Born Freelance on the Care and Ethical Treatment of Interviewees, Part 2: In my last post, I wrote about caring for and ethically treating one of our most important freelance career assets, interviewees. In this post I would like to add a few more thoughts to the discussion…
- Content farms and the decline of long form: Want to get hits on your website? Easy. Just feature a list. “Here are the Best Dumb Things Ryan Lochte Said on His Reality Show,” or “10 Reasons Duke the Corgi Has the Potential To Be One of America’s Next Top Corgis” are actual articles you can find on the sites Gawker and BuzzFeed, respectively, right now…
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.
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