
Journalism's dependence on part-time freelancers - jbegley
https://newrepublic.com/article/153744/gig-economy
======
pemulis
I majored in creative writing, but the MFA career path looked like a pyramid
scheme, so I switched to web development. After working in the field for
several years, I started running the technical side of a local leaks platform
called BayLeaks. (It's defunct now, but was cutting edge at the time,
basically the third SecureDrop instance after The New Yorker and Wired.) I got
more involved in the research and writing side, since it turned out the big
problem in journalism wasn't a lack of technology, it was a lack of time and
money to do research.

Eventually, I made the switch to full-time freelance investigative reporting.
It was hugely rewarding at a personal level and made a positive impact on
people's lives, but it was also a financial catastrophe that I'm still paying
for. I could no longer justify as I was approaching my 30s and planning to get
married.

I switched back to programming, eventually landed my current full-time job
doing blockchain stuff, and really enjoy it. I miss investigative reporting,
but still do a bit of research for activist friends in my free time.
Eventually I'd like to make enough from my technology work to become the
publisher of a small investigative outlet where I could pay other people to
research and write. Given the dire economics of journalism, making a bunch of
tech money to subsidize a publication would be more impactful than slogging
away in poverty on my own.

There's a lot of evidence that the costs of government go up as local
journalism recedes, because there is no one to objectively report on waste,
corruption, and inefficiency. I think that tax dollars should be set aside to
fund journalism, since journalism ultimately saves money for everyone. I don't
see any other big solutions that would solve this systemic problem. We're
moving to a state where only the rich can afford good information and everyone
else is in the dark.

~~~
alexkavon
> We're moving to a state where only the rich can afford good information and
> everyone else is in the dark.

Please explain this dramatic conclusion more.

~~~
pemulis
The first newspapers were expensive niche publications that provided
businesspeople, politicians, and other elites with the information they
needed. Mass market newspapers (and ultimately the mass market news industry)
relied on advertising dollars to subsidize the costs of news production. With
advertising dollars moving away from news production, there is no longer
enough incentive to produce news for the average person. There has to be some
subsidy in place to pay for news that regular people can't pay for. This is
particularly bad in local markets, where news deserts are spreading. Without
beat reporters, there's no way to know basic facts about what's going on
around you.

[https://www.cjr.org/local_news/american-news-deserts-
donuts-...](https://www.cjr.org/local_news/american-news-deserts-donuts-
local.php)

Mass market news allowed for the professionalization of journalism, with a set
of ethics that demanded (attempts at) objectivity. With mass market news
dying, there isn't enough money to support a large professional journalism
class. In its absence, we are left with propagandists that publish publicly
for free or at discounted rates and consultants that publish objective
information privately at high rates that only businesses, politicians, or the
wealthy can afford.

~~~
stefkors
What you are forgetting is that advertising is moving away because readers
are. People came for the value they are no longer getting. Advertisers are
just the result of that

------
ALittleLight
While it's certainly a shame that freelancers struggle with being underpaid -
I'm more concerned with how this impoverishes the culture.

If these jobs pay so poorly, it follows that many potential journalists will
do something else instead. The best potential journalists will likely have the
best chance of finding more lucrative careers. What this means is that we will
be left with hobbyists or less capable people doing journalism.

Ideally, journalism would serve a coordination function for the culture -
spreading important facts and starting important discussions. If this task is
being done by the less capable, or by those who are distracted by poverty,
that seems problematic - like finding out your brain isn't getting enough
nutrients and so will be operating at a deficit.

For the author in particular, my first thoughts were that, if he could bring
in two hundred thousand dollars worth of traffic consistently for the
publications he writes for, then he should be able to bring in a sizable
portion of that to his own website surely, and keep a higher percentage for
himself. On the other hand, if this were a random article on someone's blog,
would I have read it? Well, yes, probably so if it were on the front page of
hackernews - but would it have got there? Hard to say.

Confusing but grim news. Tough way to start the morning...

~~~
weberc2
> If this task is being done by the less capable, or by those who are
> distracted by poverty, that seems problematic

Or worse--by companies or individuals who are incentivized/motivated to
mislead in order to push an agenda or sow discord rather than start important
conversations or share important facts.

------
newswriter99
If you're from the working class and too introverted to network properly,
don't try freelancing.

I got out of school in 2012 at the peak of newspapers bleeding to death. All
my contacts (a small pool given my non-flagship university) suggested I
freelance for a living because I was young and mobile.

But trying to be a freelance reporter in a hyper-competitive industry PLUS
being an introvert PLUS being based in Texas PLUS not having credentials from
the state's major journalism school (University of Texas in Austin) meant I
was in an uphill battle.

Unlike most would-be journalists I didn't have rich parents to send me money
while I played newspaper reporter. So between getting offers to write for free
"a great chance to pad my clips" I ended up doing low-skill blue collar jobs.

Eventually I got hired by a small-town newspaper in a city you never heard of.
It was worse than the blue collar jobs. Lasted about three months.

Fast forward five years and I write business news. It's more money than I've
ever made, it's real, impactful content, and it's in a major metropolis.

Freelancing these days is for trust-fund kiddos like the author of the story.
There's no place for working-class writers who are too socially introverted to
play the network game.

~~~
ridicter
This was more or less my situation. I took an unpaid internship at Frontline
on PBS while in college, accrued credit card debt, and realized this was a
path for my richer peers--not me. They could afford to work their ways up to a
financially sustainable role in the media hierarchy over the next decade of
their lives; I needed something financially sustainable _now_.

Having "only" your parents as a financial failsafe sucks, as in the case of
this author. Having no failsafe sucks more. The latter situation is what the
the vast majority of Americans experience--it's just that those of us in the
prestige occupations or well-paying ones never really rub shoulders with these
people.

Props to the author. He's struggling mightily with the industry-wide decline,
but still admitted his privilege within his situation.

------
mikekchar
When I grew up I wanted to be a writer. Even now I spend at least an hour a
day writing, usually a lot more. You can't really tell because my writing
style is pretty awful, but I've developed an ability to explain things pretty
well. I should probably write How to books :-) My parents (especially my
father) were absolutely against the idea and since I _also_ spent insane
amount of times programming, I became a programmer (with a very insane and
fleeting period in university where I thought it might be a good idea to be a
physicist...)

It's one of those things where you always wonder in the back of your head if
it was the right choice. What would it have been like if I had studied writing
and literature instead of computer science in school. Very likely, I think I
would be writing something similar to this article. It's a tough gig and it's
getting tougher by the day.

I can't help but think, though, that I've met a fair number of programmers who
find themselves in a similar situation. They get out of a job, go for a while
and then just can't seem to get back in. Then what? Do you struggle to make
it? Do you cut your losses and try something else? What if that doesn't work?
It's a scary thing to contemplate.

~~~
turk73
Your parents were right--every dipshit English major with no talent thinks
they can be a writer. It's a crowded field and hard to break out with so many
competing products looking for eyeballs. The irony is it has never been
cheaper to get a book published and find an audience, but that just opened the
floodgates.

For example, my neighbor wrote a couple of fantasy novels that he sells on
Amazon as e-books. I don't think he has sold many copies. But you can make a
start if you desire to. It's like starting a band.

Anyways, don't feel bad because coding is creative work.

BTW, I have been semi-successful at writing--I was a sports writer for a local
newspaper before I went to college. Later on, I had a chapter in a compendium
on Internet privacy that was a top seller on Amazon. That's a tiny taste of
success, right? It's not the same as fiction, I know. Do journal publications
count? I have tons of those...

I got paid by the word for the sports articles. I did the book chapter for
free. The rest was grant-funded.

I gave up when I shouldn't have, but it was right when my first child was born
and the free time wasn't there anymore.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
> _The irony is it has never been cheaper to get a book published and find an
> audience, but that just opened the floodgates._

It's actually true that it's never been cheaper to get a book published and
find an audience. But when you're self publishing, you're no longer purely a
writer in the truest sense. In order for your work to succeed, you must pick
up the slack that a publishing company would ordinarily do for you. You must
market your work, design an attactive cover, preferrably have a professional
editor tear your piece asunder, and build your reputation among the general
fanbase of your genre as a producer of enjoyable pieces. Given the above it's
"easier" than ever to become a full time self published author (dependent on
your genre- fantasy is one of the few genres that has a relatively high chance
of succeeding on pure self-publish basis. The best chance is as a romance
author).

------
Gimpei
I started off in journalism just out of college in 2000. Even then, future
prospects were pretty bleak. People with 10 years more experience than me
(plus PhDs in comp lit) were basically deciding on comma placement. After two
years, I fled the field for a completely unrelated discipline. Probably the
best decision I ever made. All my friends from that time have struggled
through multiple rounds of layoffs and most have eventually moved on. It's
very sad because an active and well informed media is essential to a well
functioning democracy. Right now the most viable model increasingly looks to
be charity. I don't think this bodes well for governance, especially at the
local level where journalism really has imploded.

------
daear
I'm a writer myself, and somehow I've managed to maintain a steady freelance
career for 15+ years. This article hits uncomfortably close to home. The low
pay, the uncertainty, the bending of your ethics to pay rent. There are
upsides, of course, including the fact that I've been a remote worker for most
of my adult life, but there are days when I have to convince myself the pros
outweigh the cons.

The push towards clickbait makes it easier for gig writers to pick up work,
while the lower cost of hiring them means publications can create more of it.
Journalism does indeed suffer from this cycle, but how do we break it? I have
a few ideas from my own time contributing to this monster, but implementing
them isn't easy, nor guaranteed.

Like several in the comments, I tried the web dev route, learned to code, etc.
It didn't take, it just wasn't satisfying, and I was competing with people who
lived and breathed this stuff. Maybe if I had stuck with it for a few more
years I would learn to like it, but I just felt like I was purposefully
ignoring what I enjoyed.

I would love to toss my current mid-grade writing contracts and get back into
real investigative journalism. Depth of reporting, of storytelling, is sorely
needed. But doing that means dedicating more time than the gig economy allows.
Hopping off the hamster wheel means falling ungraciously to the floor. Writing
rarely provides a financial safety net.

I'm sure other industries suffer somewhat from the gig economy, and I'm sure
they gain from it as well. I don't think it's going away, but we do need to
find a way to save and promote quality as we fight for quantity.

------
skilled
In areas that I freelance the most -- design, front-end, digital growth --
it's still fairly hard to find good, long-term clients. Sometimes, it takes a
year or two until an opportunity comes around that's actually worth your
while.

Content is in an extremely high-demand for many different niches, but the
problem is that brands/people never want to pay the price you set. I have
learned to simply ignore such people and keep looking for opportunities that
actually reward my time appropriately.

I recently had someone throw snarky comments at me because I told him that I
charge on a per-word basis. Mind you, my work can be found in HuffPo,
Entrepreneur, and I wouldn't be surprised if a few of you have read my stuff
across many different startup blogs.

But, apparently, it's me who doesn't know a thing!

~~~
corbet
At LWN we try to pay generously, and would love even to bring on somebody full
time. But we don't pay per word; we see that as being a lot like paying
developers per line of code. Words are _consumed_ to create an article, not
created, and we value conciseness. Giving authors an incentive to pad things
out just seems silly.

~~~
skilled
What do you mean "pad things"? Most of my clients have a set word limit for
each article. _They_ set the limit, and I simply don't go over it, although
sometimes I do because there is a lot more to say. And sometimes I write a lot
less because there isn't much else to add to the topic.

I find that clients are more receptive to the per-word system because it gives
them some control over how much they have to pay.

If you write some bullshit articles about "1000 ways to be happy instantly
_must-see immediately_ " \-- then sure, pad away. Personally, I take great
pride in my portfolio and want my content to be read, shared, promoted, etc.

It's an entirely different attitude. And certainly a lot less straining on
your brain.

------
Hard_Space
This certainly is how a freelance tech writer feels on a bad day, though
mostly we write articles like this and then think better of trying to get them
published (I certainly have done this).

I can live reasonably well in a paid-for apartment in Eastern Europe with the
casual pieces and (mostly) regular clients I have built up in the last two
years since I moved here, where I now live with my girlfriend.

But it would be a hard prospect in a full-fat western city. I mitigated some
of the problems by specializing in hard subjects like machine learning, NLP,
and other subjects in or near AI. However, when I started to hold out for
bylines and refuse ghostwriting work, frankly, my (also freelance) architect
girlfriend carried the monthly can for a while.

It's tough. I was a full-time editor of tech blogs in the UK, something I
could probably still walk back into, but the economics don't support it.

It's tougher yet if you turn down PR work as a freelancer, which is 95% of
what is on offer.

------
francisofascii
Know a family member who worked for a reputable magazine as a fact checker,
making about 35 K with good benefits. This was about 10 years ago. Fast
forward to today. Same company, working from home only as needed, $30/hour,
bringing in about 6K a year.

~~~
otoburb
>> _$30 /hour, bringing in about 6K a year._

Was that a typo where you meant to type "60K" a year? That would make more
sense, as $60K divided by $30/hr would be 2000 billable hours (40hrs/week * 50
weeks, not including 2 weeks vacation).

If that wasn't a typo, then 200 billable hours in an entire year (10% billable
utilization) is a pretty tough way to make a living even with full benefits at
the same company.

~~~
francisofascii
Not a typo. My point was supporting the notion that publishing houses are
doing away with employees and hiring 1099 contract workers from home on an as
needed basis. Work would come in randomly and be due in a week. Instead of
paying one FTE $35K plus benefits, they were paying presumably two contractors
$6K each per year. $12K per year vs $35K is a huge savings for them. Also, it
is more efficient, since the monthly magazine tended to have very busy periods
and very slow periods during the month.

------
spunker540
Annual revenue for newspapers is down something like 70% since 2006. I always
hear that Facebook and Google are largely to blame but isn’t it more just the
internet at large?

~~~
CM30
Yeah, it's more the internet and the social shift that came with it.
Newspapers did well when they were basically the only game in town, and a lot
of media is in a similar situation. They only did well because they were
gatekeepers, and one of a limited few sources in their field.

The internet's made it so anyone can open a media outlet, and say what they
like to pretty much anyone else, so we're in an endless race to the bottom
where outlets are only able to get traffic by offering their content for free,
and being competed against by legions of others who don't need to charge at
all.

~~~
pulisse
Print news isn't losing out because of competition from online media. The
dominant factor in the decline of newspapers is loss of ad revenue: Ad
spending that used to go to print ads has almost entirely moved online, and
online ad revenue is almost entirely captured by Google and Facebook. If you
look at a plot of print news ad revenue vs. Google ad revenue, the two trends
mirror each other, with Google ad revenue growing at basically the same rate
as newspaper ad revenue declines. (This story[0] has a chart that goes up to
2012 that illustrates the point.)

So it's true to say that newspapers used to have a viable business model
because they were "the only game in town", but what they were gatekeepers of
was not content but ad space.

[0] [https://www.jgsullivan.com/2012/11/14/google-ad-revenue-
vs-p...](https://www.jgsullivan.com/2012/11/14/google-ad-revenue-vs-print-ad-
revenue/)

~~~
CM30
Well, in part it's due to competition, few people are exactly buying
newspapers any more. There's a whole lot less of a reason to subscribe or buy
them from shops any more, so that revenue isn't coming back any time soon.

But I guess the ad revenue made up more of their income. That's definitely
been hit by Google and Facebook.

Still, not sure what can really happen there. At the end of the day, Google
and Facebook are better for advertisers than newspapers are. They let you
track impressions, clicks, stats, etc better, they let you target users in a
more fine grained way, etc. Oh, and users visit them more often too.

------
jtr1
I've always been curious if a variation on a the cooperative model might work.
I'm imagining something like a "stakeholder-owned media cooperative" where
producers (journalists, editors, etc) would share some kind of ownership stake
with a base of dedicated subscribers.

Paying $20/mo in dues, 300 subscriber-owners could support one journalist at
$72,000. The incentive to join as a dues-paying member would be a voting stake
in the editorial direction of the outlet. Most subscribers probably wouldn't
want regular involvement in those decisions, but you might be able to pull off
some kind of liquid democracy arrangement where subscribers could empower
certain instantly recallable representatives on the editorial board.

You could play with the variables to balance power/compensation in a way that
is appealing to both parties: perhaps producer-owners get veto power, or can
limit the set of options for editorial direction, or perhaps votes are
weighted toward one party or the other.

The primary goals would be twofold: 1) fund journalistm 2) generate trust by
aligning the incentives of readership/editorial. The wider the base of
subscribers, the more public buy-in, the more funding to expand the newsroom.
You might even produce a positive externality: news that can also be consumed
by passive readers, who could apply to become subscriber-owners if they become
invested in the editorial direction.

It'd be tough to bootstrap an organization like this without an injection of
capital and loss of control. It'd be cool if a kickstarter-like platform
existed where a threshold of supporters could sign on before the project
kicked into gear.

------
pbronez
I think journalism is a great skill set. You have to organize your thoughts,
write well, learn new things quickly, interface with humans, etc. It’s
disappointing that the publishing industry under-values these.

I’d love to hire someone with a background in tech journalism for a full-time
tech analysis role.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
It's refreshing to hear that! From my experience, it's not a widespread
opinion but it is starting to crop up.

~~~
pbronez
If you’re interested, email me! Address in profile. :-)

------
Tsubasachan
I don't know how the job market is in the US but here nobody gets a long term
contract anymore. Yes I too want to have a steady job for 40 years with a nice
pension plan. Sadly its 2019 not 1957.

------
justideas
Not to get too ideological, but the ideal of journalism as a public service is
just fundamentally misaligned with the incentives of the market. We keep
bemoaning (rightfully so, IMO) the downward pressure on journalists' wages,
the distorting effects of ad revenue, and the crushing power of
centralization. If a for-profit model is incapable of delivering this critical
piece of democratic infrastructure, what alteratives exist?

I can think of two other models: philanthropically-backed and state-sponsored.
Both have readily apparent issues guaranteeing trust in their independence
from their source of funding.

We can certainly tinker around with any of these models, but I've been kicking
an idea for alternative model. I've been searching in vain for an example of
this, but it'd be a variant on a worker-owned cooperative. Let's imagine
something called a "stakeholder-owned media cooperative" with three tiers of
engagement:

1) Producer-owners (journalists, editors, etc) 2) Subscribers-owners (readers
who pay dues in exchange for editorial input) 3) Readers

Just to spitball some numbers: at $20/mo in dues, 300 subscriber-owners could
support one producer-owner at $72,000. The incentive to join as a dues-paying
member would be a voting stake in the editorial direction of the outlet. You
could play with the variables to balance power in a way that is appealing to
both parties: perhaps producer-owners get veto power, or can limit the set of
options for editorial direction, or perhaps weight the votes.

The primary goals would be twofold: 1) more closely align editorial incentives
of news producers and owners 2) produce a positive externality: news that can
also be consumed by passive readers, who could apply to become subscriber-
owners if they cared about the editorial direction.

As far as I know, nothing like this exists, but it'd be really interesting to
have a kickstart-like platform for jumpstarting this sort of organization: if
a certain threshold of subscriber-owners signs on (with their credit card,
perhaps paying a year's subscription up front to limit financial uncertainty)
then the organization is free to begin building.

Anyhow, just one potential model. I'd be fascinated to find anyone who's tried
something like this

~~~
marmadukester39
I did - it was called Uncoverage. Happy to talk over what we learned. Also see
Beacon, another failed project. Civil is not that far off from what you
describe with their newsroom concept today, but they have some blockchain
baggage. I think the other platforms may have been ahead of their time. I
think it needs a pretty significant awareness campaign about the larger
problem to work, as the value proposition is difficult for most people to grok
without an understanding of the industry situation.

------
mensetmanusman
The ideal setup seems to be a move by journalism to editorial and logistics
management, and the writing moving to freelancers.

Those freelancers can be subject matter experts and speak volumes more than a
random journalist jumping into a topic. Also, these can be graduate students
who are often world experts who would like more publications and extra cash.

I would rather move away from a system where the journalists are supposed to
be polyglots.

------
kristianc
Maybe it's a supply and demand problem - that there's an oversupply of long
tedious rants on the state of the 'gig economy' and not enough demand to pay
for them?

Journalists famously grouse about not being able to pay the bills with
'exposure' but very often choose the ego boost of a 'viral column' and a
Verified Twitter over the possibility of being gainfully employed doing
something else.

~~~
cwmma
in the article you'll note that his log tedious rant on the state of the 'gig
economy' is one of his better paying articles he's gotten.

------
alain94040
Freelance doesn't pay much at all. When I was doing it for real (many years
ago), I'd get paid 20 cents per character (yes, print media pays by the
character, not the word -- and no, don't use long words).

More recently, famous tech blogs only pay around $50 per post. Think about
that. I was lucky in tech there are other options.

------
bradleyjg
Seems kind hypocritical to have this posted on a site that has a little “web”
button so rich techies can bypass paywalls.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

