
A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist - duck
http://natethayer.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-freelance-journalist-2013/
======
jdietrich
It's basic supply and demand. There's a glut of skilled writers willing to
work for free and a dearth of people willing to pay for journalism, either
through subscriptions or advertising. There's an idea that this is the cynical
exploitation of journalists by publishers, but that simply wouldn't be
possible if demand for writing outstripped supply.

Personally, I think we'll come to accept the idea that, for the most part,
writing is a leisure activity and not a profession. It's not unreasonable to
imagine that the profitability of writing and publishing was just a temporary
blip, as a result of a peculiar set of technological and economic conditions.

Photography is the clear forerunner. Many newspapers have trained their
journalists in photography and have them double up; Others are doing most of
their photography through interns or very poorly-paid student freelancers. The
microstock phenomenon has collapsed the value of stock images, to the point
that only a small number of highly efficient studios are making good money
from stock. There are just too many amateurs happy to shoot for free or for
just their expenses, and they're producing images of perfectly satisfactory
quality.

The real villains are educational institutions, who wilfully deceive students
as to the job prospects for creative careers. There are essentially no jobs
whatsoever in the studio recording industry, but many thousands of graduates
with degrees in related subjects. There's an implicit deceit on the part of
educators, who simply "neglect" to mention that they're training students for
jobs that haven't existed for twenty years. The demand for creative workers is
static or in decline, while enrolment rates for related courses continues to
increase steeply.

~~~
benev
As a journalist, I may be biased, but I disagree.

There is a glut of low quality journalism, but high quality journalism is
still expensive and time consuming to produce. Doing research, finding new
angles, interviewing people -- these are what take time, not simply putting
words on paper (though doing that well still takes time and more expertise
than most people realize).

This trend towards free journalism is driving down standards to the point
where 'journalism' is often now just re-hashing work with little fact
checking. This could lead to real problems as it's been the journalism
industry that traditionally has been the watchdog for the people. They've
investigated and exposed nefarious activity in just about every sphere.

More and more, I see skilled journalists leaving the profession to work in PR.
The people who were checking up on businesses and politicians are now being
paid by them to stop new amateur journalists finding out what's going on.

~~~
warnhardcode
In your opinion as a journalist, what do you consider to be sources for high
quality journalism?

~~~
kobrako
My startup Scoopinion does try to find the high quality journalism, this is
how we do it: Take a set of sites that 1) Have an editor and or are
established blogs. 2) Publish content that you can show to your mother 3)

Then we have a community of readers with "Scrobbling" browser add-on that
measures reading speed and read through percentage. Whenever they read, they
implicitly rate the article with their behavior. Later the articles are
recommended to people who read same sources, topics and journalists. This has
worked pretty well, at least what we hear from our users. If someone has
better definitions of quality journalism, would love to hear those.

~~~
msrpotus
I really like it! Definitely works out well although it seems British- and
maybe Australian-centric. Is that just based on who is using the Scoopinion
now?

------
willholloway
This is a despicable trend. This devaluing of labor is happening in many
fields. The offer is always the same: exposure, it's good for your career.

The Huffington Post was built on this business model. Most of the writers
weren't paid at all but of course Arianna cashed in to the tune of $315
million.

The comedian and podcaster Duncan Trussell was invited to do a set at SXSW,
for free and without even airfare being provided. Their only offer was to let
him sleep on a volunteer's couch.

His response was hilarious:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ6eMG-dfas>

And also and importantly SXSW enjoys a large, free labor force in the form of
volunteers.

Millenials really have gotten a raw deal. Many can't afford rent or savings,
they are rarely offered cash as compensation for jobs their parents were
happily paid for.

These practices are worse than those of textile sweatshops.

~~~
jrajav
> This is a despicable trend.

> These practices are worse than those of textile sweatshops.

I think this is a pretty harmful way of portraying the issue. Don't use up all
your shocking words on something like this. Sweatshop practices and child
labor are truly despicable and deserve more attention. People being less
willing to pay a premium for a certain product or skill in a free market? Not
so much. If it is actually a product or skill that merits the money in a
changing market, and if the specific one being offered is of good quality, in
the long run it will harm the one unwilling to pay. If it is not, it will harm
the one offering the product or skill. There is nothing evil happening on
either end of this.

~~~
willholloway
> There is nothing evil happening on either end of this.

I am speaking in pure material terms. I am not injecting morality.

This is a despicable trend because we are seeing emergent, widespread
immiseration in advanced, developed countries.

The quality of our journalism is suffering, and journalism is a bulwark
against corruption in a democracy. Corruption is bad not because it is immoral
but because it leads to waste, which reduces our material well being. David
Simon, the creator of The Wire has spoken about how important local papers
were in catching corruption at the city and state level of government.

I said that this is worse than sweatshops because at least in a sweatshop the
workers earn subsistence wages.

> If it is actually a product or skill that merits the money in a changing
> market, and if the specific one being offered is of good quality, in the
> long run it will harm the one unwilling to pay.

The product and skills are valuable. There is a demand for them. What we are
witnessing is deflation. The demand is strong, the ability for the creators to
be credited is what has broken down.

I will not just be a passive observer in all of this. The end game to this
scenario is obvious. We are looking down the barrel of a new feudalism, and I
do not want a period of reduced living standards and stagnation.

An entire generation has had it's prospects diminished, and the trend is only
accelerating.

Perhaps all that is needed here for the market to correct this is for
consumers to be educated. This is a new trend, and I would like to draw
people's attention to it.

Do you still feel warm, fuzzy and excited when you buy a ticket to SXSW? When
you know the festival organizers, bars, restaurants and hotels are all making
money, the only people not making money are the performers and the volunteers
that draw the crowds and make everything run?

In the absence of knowledge about how SXSW works the organizers are able to
exploit the performers. I am not going to keep their secret for them.

I'm boycotting SXSW until their labor practices change. Who's with me?

~~~
nutate
> I will not just be a passive observer in all of this.

What journalism outlets do you pay money to subscribe to?

~~~
willholloway
I think you are trolling but I gave it a hard look anyway. My cable
subscription helps fund several TV news operations and I buy the paper edition
of the NY Times frequently.

That is not enough, and point taken. If you have any recommendations for a
high quality subscription only journalism operation please tell me.

Where I have changed considerably though is with video entertainment.

In my younger days I used to use bittorrent, and megavideo et al... and rarely
pay for movies/tv shows.

Jaron Lanier changed my mind about all of this. I now pay for a lot of
movies/tv with my Netflix/Amazon Prime subscription and by renting/buying on
iTunes and Amazon.

I even went so far as to create an app to facilitate this. My problem with not
pirating movies is that the catalog of these online services are incomplete.
You have to search a few, and sometimes a particular title is not available at
all.

I built <http://streamjoy.tv> as an abstraction layer above Netflix, iTunes,
and Amazon. Search in one place, compare availability and price.

That is how I am putting my coding skills behind my economic philosophy.

When the machines do most of our jobs, my hope is we can still find
meaningful, gainful employment in creative projects. In the current economic
context the creators need a mechanism to be compensated.

~~~
nutate
Good on you, that is a good looking site and it fills a niche for people like
you and I who pay for content. I really hope there can be a tip system
(bitcoin, ripple, paypal, dwolla) that can be a click at the end of a good
article. I could imagine dropping $0.25 on 4 good articles a day.

Like TV, video, music, books, if you give the people an extremely convenient
way to pay for your content, a good number of them will.

Little known fact, my gf is a journalist, an editor, at a certain publication
named after a body of water, who may or may not be in her second week on the
job and already embroiled in a bit of controversy. :-o

~~~
willholloway
Well, thank you. I like the site too.

I really hope that everything works out well for your gf, and the Atlantic. I
called trading exposure for work a despicable trend because it's happening in
so many fields. Its unfair to place all the blame on the Atlantic.

People should go easy on The Atlantic. This new phenomenon needs more society-
wide awareness and technologies for micro-payments.

My understanding is that regulations have stymied micro-payments. If that is
the case legislation should be adopted to correct this.

Journalism is extremely tough, and has much more of my sympathy. I have total
disdain for operations like SXSW that are very profitable and still stiff
their talent.

EDIT:

After posting this I thought about how your gf may or may not be embroiled in
this controversy. I think the issue of free work/immiseration of the creative
class would make a good piece. The Atlantic could acknowledge that it has
succumbed to economic (and perhaps social) pressure, do some human interest
pieces on people that have been effected, people that have found ways to be
viable despite the economic changes, and maybe regulatory reforms that might
make micro-payments feasible.

I could see a continuing series on this topic being well received. This issue
made it to the top of HN today, I think that validates the market.

~~~
nutate
I told her she should write about it (I just created this account, she doesn't
know I'm commenting on it here) ...

If she had asked him for an interview on the topic (for free obviously) this
would've been a non-issue. But she thought she would give him a byline, not
knowing of his fame.

He became famous for interviewing pol pot when she was about a year old, and
although he is well known in south east asia circles, he's not exactly a
household name. The article is freely available now (if you care to read about
basketball in NK), she just wanted to offer a wider audience with near zero
extra work on his part. With the offer of $100 for a future online effort.

So she asked and got put on blast.

It's interesting how that works. It was a weird way to wake up this morning
though.

TO YOUR POINT ON MICROPAYMENTS:

Yes, I think there is a per transaction fee for credit cards. Bitcoin couldn't
work flat out because it only supports 350,000 total transactions a day and
piddly little tips would eventually crush the blockchain. I think paypal could
do it if you just tipped out of your paypal balance. Dwolla.com _does_ do
it... but no one has an account.

I have to say I agree with the people who argue people should be doing a lot
of this for the love, but love doesn't pay the bills. I really like Stewart
Lee's take on it here:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqMA4YRQCk>

Long listen, but he advocates for a lot of government funding for the arts.
Likewise a lot of in the trenches journalism is sponsored by small orgs (pro
publica, xyz foundations, etc) The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, etc just chip in
a bit extra to publish some of that work.

This specific case was about already written, already available content.

If this was huffpo they would've just thrown quotes around it and put it up
with a little link.

/rant

------
beatpanda
Thanks to the Internet, there is a huge glut of awful, cliched writing that
leaves you no smarter than you were before you started reading. Journalism
school calls this "pumping out copy", and it's something you used to be able
to build a career on.

There is a _frightening dearth_ of well-produced content from a variety of
perspectives that seeks to _measurably increase understanding_ as opposed to
hit a word limit and generate pageviews.

People talk about this all the time — the first question people ask me when I
tell them I have a journalism degree is "what news sources do you recommend?",
because the vast majority of what's out there and popular is _complete
garbage_ , and everyone knows it, and there still, in 2013, isn't a good way
to verify sources or tell good journalism from propaganda.

I believe people will pay for compelling content that leaves them better-
informed, that they have a good reason to _trust_ , and I believe we can use
technology to go far beyond what's been possible up to this point with static,
narrative storytelling. We're still terrible at providing _context_ ,
_perspective_ , and _verifiability_ , all things the Internet has made
possible, but nobody has done well yet.

Nobody should pay for what, for instance, the Associated Press produces.
Robots will replace them one day and that day can't come soon enough. There is
very little value in what they do.

But there _is_ value in content that leaves you smarter than when you started.
The methods of producing it haven't caught up with the baseline of knowledge
the Internet makes possible for everyone, or the stunningly beautiful display
of information that's possible on the modern Web.

It hurts to see the skills gap up close - journalists in the grad program at
Stanford are still totally defeated by data mining, web design (a skill they
all know well for print), data visualization, non-linear storytelling,
multimedia production, and the kinds of things I believe will elevate
journalism in the 21st century, and nobody's paying well enough to poach the
people who do have those skills.

So what do we do?

~~~
DanBC
> journalists in the grad program at Stanford are still totally defeated by
> data mining, web design (a skill they all know well for print), data
> visualization, non-linear storytelling, multimedia production,

> So what do we do?

You get journalists together with other people to do the other stuff.

Journalists shouldn't be noodling around choosing fonts and colors or drawing
charts - they should be gathering information and talking to people and
writing best quality articles.

~~~
beatpanda
>Noodling around choosing fonts and colors or drawing charts

Yeah, 'noodling around', like this guy:
<http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html>

Design done well increases understanding. Data visualization done well
increases understanding. They are _integral_ to high-quality journalism, not a
decoration to place around it.

------
kevinalexbrown
I've been thinking about the supply-demand problem lately as it applies to
journalism. How is it different than other industries with willing pools of
suppliers, but people are still paid well?

There are many willing, raw-talented writers out there, and I also know that
high quality journalism requires a lot of work and dedication, so the number
of truly excellent writers is small. Likewise, there are many willing
professional basketball players, and only a very select few make it. But when
they do, they are extremely well compensated, despite a large pool of willing
players. What's the difference between basketball and journalism?

There is still a very strong demand for high quality basketball among the
public. Additionally, in this case, higher quality is relatively easy for
anyone to judge: you have better teams if they win more than other teams. In a
supply/demand context, many will play, but very few can do it well enough to
beat other professional teams so the real supply is actually small, so the
players' price is actually very high.

Comparing this with journalism, I wonder if there has been a decline in a)
demand for or b) ability to appreciate _high quality_ journalism or essayism.
The demand for journalism is probably still reasonably high, but the public
may be indiscriminate. This expands the real supply for writing from those few
truly-excellent ones to a larger pool of mediocre writers.

So if we lament the decay of journalism, we might wonder why we're not really
demanding it.

\----

I anticipate comments suggesting I am out of touch with the coming
journalistic transformation. I read and enjoy many blogs, even those put out
by magazines like the Economist, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, etc. But I
recently began reading the print versions of these magazines again and I was
astounded at what I had been missing: articles where I couldn't predict the
next paragraphs based on the headlines; articles that answered my objections
in the next paragraph; articles which clearly had taken a month to write. I
know there's nothing about print vis-a-vis html, but when you've worked for a
month on an essay instead of 10 hours on a blog post, it shows.

I also anticipate comments suggesting I am an elitist. In this sense, I am:
taste exists. I won't claim that only the truly-excellent should write. But I
think they should be appreciated, and more importantly, _aspired to_. I worry
that talented-but-not-yet-truly-excellent writers will think: I can work for
years to become _truly good_ at something no one will appreciate or I can just
blog my heart out at crappy journalism and make a living now.

~~~
beatpanda
I think there's probably more of a demand for high-quality journalism now than
there's ever been, but I definitely think people's ability to appreciate it
isn't there. Plenty of people would _like_ to be able to read a 5,000 word
essay, but simply can't.

And that's why I think focusing on the written word itself as _the_ vehicle
for high-quality journalism is a mistake. I don't think that's the only way to
do it.

~~~
klint
Another possibility: the demand for high quality journalism is as high, or
higher, than it's ever been. But the demand for tabloid journalism is also
higher than ever.

It's easier than ever to graze on low quality, tabloid journalism --
"linkbait," if you will. Sensational headlines and puff pieces have always
existed, and has always helped sell both tabloids and even more respected
publications. But the web and social media make it easier to indulge in this
sort of thing, and once you've clicked on one bit of linkbait -- or even a
serious news story -- you're presented with a list of additional linkbaity
stories.

Given the high demand, and low cost to produce, it's little wonder we see more
and more churnalism and linkbait.

------
petenixey
Both my sister and her husband are professional journalists at one of
Britain's broadsheets and they have a very tough job of it. My sister was a
freelance journalist for a couple of years looking for piece after piece
before finally getting a job.

We have a lot of discussions about payment for content and how journalists
should be compensated for their work and why they deserve to be compensated
well.

A professional journalist works very hard indeed, they have to produce content
on demand very quickly and to put aside their pride when sub-editors mash and
reshape it to what (they believe) the editor asked for. Journalists have to
create pieces out of events which are of little or no real interest and to do
so without flinching. It's a hard job.

The job of a freelance journalist is just as tough and in some ways even
tougher as the majority of it is selling and pitching. I was astonished when
my sister told me how often she was sending out pitch ideas to editors and how
she would engage multiple editors daily and of course be rejected by most of
them. Professional journalists whether freelance or retained earn their keep
and the majority of them (certainly the ones who haven't reached the confines
of seniority) work extremely hard.

However in all of this there is something that my sister and I disagree on. In
fact we've decided not to speak about it much because it's an understandably
emotional subject for her and one that I feel very strongly about. And that is
the topic of whether someone has a given right to receive compensation for
their work.

I find it very difficult to empathise with the sentiment that anyone's work
has a god-given value. Software is sometimes valuable in isolation as code, on
a disk but most often it's not. Years ago you could produce software and sell
it on cassettes, now many of our most successful companies are ones which
provide a more scalable, hosted five-nines uptime service for free than many
ever even charged for.

It frustrates me that writers should sit down and complain that nobody is
prepared to pay them for their work. Many other industrial workers and even
knowledge workers have found their skills devalued by the passage of time and
have had to deal with it.

Unlike all those other industries which got crushed under the wheels of time
though we still fundamentally need writers. We want good writers, we need
informed writers and good writing is still not in unlimited supply. The
survival skill writers need is not penmanship it's entrepreneurship. This may
be unpalatable but it's also unavoidable.

~~~
d4nt
I sense that, for a long time, the world of journalism has told itself that it
is a fundamental pillar of democratic society. While true, the implication is
that society owes it something. You might even extrapolate that a journalist
doing an investigation that did not result in a published story, has still
added value because they have kept the authorities in check.

However, the funding for this type of work only really existed as a quirk of
the technology that newspapers used and now that the public has the
opportunity to only pay for the stories they're interested in; I think society
will need more constitutional rights regarding access to government data and a
crowd-sourced monitoring effort to prevent corruption.

I, like you, don't feel a moral imperative to pay someone for putting in a
days work regardless of what they produce at the end of it. I would donate to
political campaigns regarding constitutional rights to open data though.

------
davidroberts
I've noticed an apparent decline in the quality of Atlantic recently. Maybe
this has something to do with it. When you go from putting high-quality
writers on retainer for $125,000 a year to trying to get them to work for
free, naturally quality suffers.

~~~
nutate
That offer was a decade ago, not a few years ago.

You could just not renew your subscription I suppose.

~~~
davidroberts
I already stopped subscribing. About three years ago. Probably around the time
they started paying $100 an article.

~~~
nutate
Which came first, that's the question, right?

------
netcan
I really wish the comments hear were a little more thought out. There's an
emotional reaction lashing out at The Bastards who stole the cheese. The
reality is that there isn't a villain. There are some fundamental changes in
the industry that have affected the amount of money and its flow. It's not
malicious. It's incidental.

The move online broke newspapers' business models, especially the dominant
'journalism as a delivery mechanism for ads' model. Turns out it was fragile.

It also may have changed consumer demand, I think. ADD online readers can be
attracted just as easily with reprinted headlines & fluff and their pageviews
are worth just as little.

The internet also changed supply. A lot of content is being produced for free.
They are doing it for fun, they are doing it for "exposure."

I have nothing against journalists. I respect the profession. I think it's
important. All this adds up to a worse deal for them then before. There is no
anti-journalist conspiracy now any more than there was a pro journalist
conspiracy before.

------
davidroberts
What good is exposure if it just exposes you to more people who will want you
to work for free?

~~~
vellum
If you already have something to promote, like a self-published ebook on North
Korea, and they let you put a few lines and an Amazon link at the end, then it
might be worth it.

Assuming: 30,000 page views, 2-5% conversion rate, $4.99 price (Amazon takes
30%, so $3.49 profit)

You could make $2095 - $5239.

~~~
lenazegher
I know you're just spitballing here, but 30k page views is probably pretty low
and a 2-5% conversion rate is definitely _extremely_ high.

~~~
vellum
I'm not sure what kind of traffic most Atlantic articles get. I used Gawker as
a reference for guesstimating pageviews. A lot of their self-reported
pageviews in the sidebar are around 30k or under.

You're right, 2-5% is high. But I do think an article that leads into a pitch
for a topical e-book would convert well with Atlantic traffic.

------
d4nt
It baffles me how journalism hopes to survive the disruption that the Internet
brings with stunts like this, and the odd pay wall.

I'm doing a bit of work with journalists at the moment, and while I think many
of the individuals would like to innovate, many of the structures and
institutions that exist do not seem willing, they insist in framing the issue
as "how can we get someone else to pay for us to keep operating as we are
now".

I long to see journalism freed from the constraints that a daily print run
onto dead tree once imposed on it, and re-imagined in an always evolving,
interactive and yes, paid for, model. Just don't make me buy a load of content
I'm not interested in, and don't try and charge me for a floor full of people
who're re-hashing syndicated stories or writing fluff pieces.

------
danbmil99
How is this different than, say, music? There are incredibly gifted composers
and musicians in the world today, but the general public seldom hears their
work. They are either independently wealthy, or more likely work at a cafe or,
if they are truly lucky, have some sort of low-level academic gig.

The general population has terrible taste in music, so talent is no longer
appreciated. Why should journalism be any different?

------
forgotAgain
I don't see it as simply an issue of supply and demand. It also has to do with
the ethics of publishers who stretch fair use to its boundaries and beyond.

The money quote for me in the article is: _I am sure you can do what is the
common practice these days and just have one of your interns rewrite the story
as it was published elsewhere, but hopefully stating that is how the
information was acquired._

That seems to be what most of journalism is about these days. You have sites
like a Business Insider whose forte is bright and colorful presentation of
work copied from other sites.

------
jagermo
I got a similar offer from "hackin9". One small difference: the contact
already had the article that i should have written planned for the next issue
even before she answered my e-mail in which i explained that my landlord sadly
doesn't want to be paid in "exposure". Contact ended abruptly

------
jwr
This will influence how I will view future articles from The Atlantic. I liked
a number of them, but this is likely not an isolated incident, and from now on
I will always wonder how the article was produced.

~~~
sixtypoundhound
You should also read up on the disputes they have had with Reddit about how
they promoted their content; earned them an official site-wide ban, if I
recall correctly..

~~~
MisterBastahrd
That's not shocking. Most people who head up these corporations made it up the
corporate ladder because of, not in spite of, an incredible lack of tact.

~~~
jseliger
The Atlantic is owned by David Bradley
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G._Bradley>), and it isn't a particularly
large corporation. It can't have that many employees, given that only 400,000
people subscribe to the magazine.

------
DrPizza
The only reason that people are willing to do it for free is because they
believe the "exposure" myth and think that it will lead to paid work.

What they don't realize is that in aggregate, their willingness to do it for
free jeopardizes their ability to do it for money in the future. It's a nice
little game theory problem. A single defector from the "only work for money"
strategy probably benefits; the rookie journalist gets his foot in the door,
gets the "exposure" and the industry connections, and so yields an advantage
over his peers.

But once all his peers defect from the paid strategy, the whole thing comes
crashing down. None of them achieve any advantage over any other. They just
drive the median compensation down towards zero.

The claim that there's an abundance of high quality journalism is hogwash.
There isn't. There's a glut of no-talent regurgitators. Most of them have poor
knowledge of the subject matter, don't bother checking facts, don't do any
original research, and generally offer little of value.

~~~
stdbrouw
But in your game, not everyone wins when the equilibrium is held intact. It
keeps journalism expensive which is bad for publishers and readers. All things
considered the pros might outweigh the cons, but you're suggesting it's a
lose-lose game which it is most certainly not. Instead it's classic
supply/demand: the only reason the equilibrium crumbles so easily is because
there's too much people wanting to be journalists in the first place.

------
sixtypoundhound
For those who practice SEO, there is a bit of irony here.

I suspect a couple of do-follow links from The Atlantic placed within the text
of the article would be relatively valuable from an SEO perspective...

The market value of "acquiring" those links from a highly reputable site is
likely far in excess of $100 / article; SEO considerations have disrupted
value creation in the lower end of the content market. An article is often
worth more for its links than readership / advertising. This was something
that popped out of a study I did a while back:

[http://www.marginhound.com/revenue-model-study-for-small-
web...](http://www.marginhound.com/revenue-model-study-for-small-websites/)

~~~
lenazegher
I used to write for a tiny outfit that scraped together a few thousand dollars
a month in revenue and paid me ~$50 for 1000 word articles.

They were approached almost daily being offered low $xxx figures to publish
articles with backlinks for SEO purposes (which they refused). And this was a
site with a few hundred pages of content and less than 100k uniques a month.

On that kind of scale, a backlink from the Atlantic would presumably be worth
thousands of dollars.

------
danso
Most of my entire professional career has been in traditional journalism.
However, I'm new/young enough that I've almost taken it for granted that
money-for-services is ancillary to exposure. Recently, a large media company
asked if they could use one of my photos for a commercial campaign...and I
almost said, "Sure, just take it" because it was a photo I've listed as
Creative Commons. But then I thought, well, they're big media and asked to see
their rate sheet...I about jumped when I saw they'd offer $1,000 for just a
year's usage...for a photo that I took years ago and that I've been sharing
online for free

------
kmfrk
Vote with your clicks; don't visit sites like The Atlantic and Huffington
Post.

------
nutate
Actually story this post is about: 3 tweets 5 facebook likes.

This story: 2K tweets 3K facebook likes.

Seems like people are about 1000 times more interested in behind the scenes of
freelancing than his research into NK basketball.

------
AlexMuir
I've been looking for someone to write interesting, in-depth articles on local
business. For money. I've yet to find anyone who a) wants to do it, and b) can
do it.

I've tried a few things - even contacting people who I know are doing unpaid
'internships' writing crappy press-release pieces. Very few even responded,
and of those that did, even fewer had any grasp of investigating something.

I gave up looking, and just do the writing myself - even though the
opportunity cost is massive.

------
nutate
(tried to post this on his site, but it is awaiting moderation)

I guess it always hurts to find out the going rate for your writing is $0. How
much did the venerable NK News pay him I wonder.

A 6 figure offer a few years ago? Sadly 2003 (when that Atlantic editor died)
is not a few years back, it’s a decade ago. Journalism has changed and the
freely accessible article on NK News would’ve gained slightly more traction on
the Atlantic with less typing than he spent on this blog post.

------
moron4hire
I liked this one commentor as well, "she did NOT have the budget 4 Dat, and
did I know anyone who would do it for FREE?"

I get this a lot from technical recruiters. "Your hourly rate is too high, but
do you know anyone else?" Dude, my friends are all pros and we all come at a
high price. And I'm certainly not going to do your job for you tracking them
down. GTFO.

Or when people in malls try to hand me flyers, "I'm not throwing your garbage
away for you."

------
iamdann
As a journalist myself, this is extremely depressing (although unsurprising).
It's also why I'm working hard to expand my portfolio of skills.

------
rakeshsharmak
I think Nate Thayer seems to have over-reacted to the situation. The news
requested by the global editor was commodity news; it wasn't exclusive
content.

The problem with commodity news is not one of quality but of quantity. Much
like any other commodity product, news is driven by volume. Unfortunately,
demand has far outstripped the supply. In the absence of clear
differentiators, organizations rely on SEO tactics, content marketing and
social media tools as new distribution channels for news.

Most technology-oriented solutions, however, put a different tack to the
problem. They approach it from the efficiency perspective. Acquiring news (or,
reporting and writing news) is an expensive activity. In fact, were it not for
journalists’ famously low salaries, the returns on investment for news
acquisition would be unsustainable.

------
davidroberts
A good friend of mine was earning a decent salary as a tech blogger for CNET.
In 2009, they let him go, and now he is barely making ends meet with some sort
of deal with another site where he earns commission based on page views. I
think it's a general trend.

------
codebeard
I went to J-school. I have the benefit of holding a degree from one of the
most prestigious schools in the world.

I've been out of school for six years and have yet to find a single job, in
spite of the half-dozen successful internships with various mega-media
corporations.

*A single media job.

------
heyitswin
Is this what's really happening at such major publications?

I'm starting my own online publication, and even though we're pre-revenue I'm
STILL paying our writers.

Why? Because I truly believe in craft and content. Good, fresh, original
content should definitely be compensated for.

~~~
lenazegher
I'm curious, would you describe your project a little?

~~~
heyitswin
Surely! InsertQuarterly.com, we believe gamers are growing up and gaming
'content' in general is feeling a little outdated. We're going to publish
original, fresh content from writers in the industry who are passionate about
what they do. We're just trying to focus on content (the stuff that matters).
Experience doesn't really matter to us, all we care about is if you have
something awesome, amazing, insightful, or fresh to share :)

~~~
jagermo
good luck, i think there is enough room for a decent gaming site (RPS is
living proof). Just don't get sucked into "we need to give xx percent", that
normally ruins the site.

------
patmcguire
To be fair, the editor has only been on the job a month.
[http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/the-atlantic-hires-
thr...](http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/the-atlantic-hires-three-makes-
editorial-changes_b75517)

------
gnosis
I wonder how many relatively wealthy HN users who are outraged about this are
going to rush out and pay money to Nate Thayer for this very article.

Boycotting _The Atlantic_ is easy (and free). Paying journalists for quality
content isn't.

~~~
nkozyra
Well he can put an Adsense ad on his blog and we'll do exactly that, whether
we read/enjoy it or not.

That's how most journalism works and has worked. The content is free to
consume, assuming you'll accept the advertising. Journalism/writing was always
the carrot, but the ads the stick.

So what's changed. Two things:

1\. There's so much more writing/journalism/creative arts in general being
produced that the valuation of these entities has declined

(coupled with)

2\. The Internet producing a culture that's less obsessed with quality,
correctness and robustness.

Which has led to new consumption patterns: we want a lot more in smaller
chunks and it's worth less to us (in aggregate).

~~~
gnosis
_"Well he can put an Adsense ad on his blog and we'll do exactly that, whether
we read/enjoy it or not. That's how most journalism works and has worked."_

So, in other words you don't want to pay for it. You want someone else to pay
for it.

~~~
nkozyra
Yes, that is how most news & information is - and has been - traditionally
subsidized for centuries.

It doesn't help that supply has far exceeded demand, but there is still a
convertible value to content.

------
youngtaff
It's not just journalism.

At least one major conference organizer / publisher is really skinny on
speaker expenses to the extent it costs speakers money to go talk at their
conferences.

------
flexie
No wonder mass media is of such poor quality if original, reported articles
consumed by up to 13M readers pays $100. Guess that's supply and demand (?)

~~~
eliben
According to the post, it also pays $125K / year for a full-time job with the
requirement to deliver _6 articles_. Doesn't sound very bad.

~~~
mayukh
That was atleast 9 years ago.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kelly_(editor)>

~~~
nutate
Exactly. Ad revenue of newspapers slipped over 50% during that time. The whole
market got eaten up and destroyed, worse than the music industry could've ever
dreamed.

There is still a great bunch of journalism out there, like Vice (who actually
did the original reporting) and then there are folks like this guy who wishes
for days of yore. The Atlantic puts out plenty of great content from great
writers who get little cash for their efforts.

The market changed drastically on this guy and he hopes he can get more PR
from this free blog post than a free byline on theatlantic.com

Good luck to him.

------
timack
The Atlantic have released at statement (of sorts) about this:
[https://www.magnetmail.net/actions/email_web_version.cfm?rec...](https://www.magnetmail.net/actions/email_web_version.cfm?recipient_id=699462885&message_id=2523507&user_id=NJG_Atlan&group_id=0&jobid=13303265)

------
expralitemonk
Maybe journalists need to be rebranded into "intelligence gatherers." Not many
people will pay for stories. They will pay for useful intel that isn't shared
with a wide audience. "They" being governments, corporations, investors.

------
eli
Wasn't this debated to death a few years ago regarding the Huffington Post?

------
nwzpaperman
Every entrepreneur should understand the value flow before proceeding with a
start-up, unless you're comfortable blowing-up investors like so many start-
ups! If you don't know who your customer is and WHY they will use (pay) for
your service, you have big problems ahead of you.

1) Bloganda (internet) has beaten the publishing houses for promulgating
corporate (group) memes.

2) Specialized internet platforms (ebay, CL, cars.com, autotrader.com, MLS
listings) match buyers and sellers more efficiently than print publications,
so that's where the money flows to now. As a consequence, prev(f)ailing
publishing houses can't afford to pay above market-value money for low/no-
demand content. Articles are the product of the writer and the information
content is what people value. A good name (brand) is a derivative (effect) of
regularly supplying the information desires of a non-trivial quantity of
information consumers (subscribers/readers).

3) The editorial structure of the prev(f)ailing publishing industry doesn't
scale outside of local/regional markets. The internet is global, right?

I've written an article about the economics of the prev(f)ailing publishing
industry, why it is a hopeless structure and where I believe the ball is
moving. HN hell-banned the site in week one post-beta launch, so I can't post
the url here. If you're interested you can search for:

"will people pay for news"

------
Spiritus
Seriously, what is this doing on _Hacker_ News? I'm sure there's a subreddit
for this.

~~~
Kurtz79
I found it very interesting, as it talks about how journalism has changed in
the age of the internet.

A good hacker should have a good grasp of how the world works, and how it
changes over time.

~~~
Spiritus
How does this help me in any way whatsoever at being a better hacker? Except
don't become a freelance journalist 2013, like that ever crossed my mind.

Might as well just rename the site to Random News and post stuff from every
field there is.

~~~
panzagl
You're right, hackers don't produce intellectual property, and they never have
issues with people not valuing it. If you think being able to sling code or
design a webpage makes you immune from this trend, then maybe you don't have
enough imagination to get the most out of this site.

