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.”
on October 31, 2015 at 12:33 pm
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The powers that be are playing on the desperation (and egotism) of people who either have to accept whatever they can get or are simply happy to see their names in print in such a “prestigeous” publication.
As the world has opened up via the internet you find companies, unwilling to pay any more than they have to, constantly pushing payment downward. I don’t know if it is still going, but about 10 years ago there was (at least) one website that took a “Dutch auction” approach: requiring people to underbid one another for potential work. I for one refuse to write any article for fifty cents when the company rakes in millions.
But it goes farther. Every one who does not have an entrenched reputation and writes an uncompensated blog is writing for the ego or the hope of discovery, which the industry uses as further justification to lower or dispense with a fee. We have allowed ourselves to be boxed into this corner. We should seriously think about how we might get out. . .