I’ve been thinking recently of the extra pressures thrown on freelance journalists today. With everywhere from TV and radio stations to newspaper and magazine desks more squeezed than ever before, in-house editors are demanding more of freelance journalists (and sometimes PRs are too, of which I’ll talk about later).
First off, let’s rant about the ever-increasing amount of admin (something everyone reading can no doubt agree with). The long-winded contracts that waive all our rights that we’re now asked to wade through and sign. And don’t get me started about the complicated publisher payment systems we’re increasingly being asked to join. Putting the combusting headache to one side, this can bring a myriad of different issues when going through the set-up stage (at least when you’re in-house, you’re getting paid for all the hours this can set you back). And then there's the invoice expectations depending on publisher – hey, please send that invoice to several people (which may change every few months), and as Word isn’t enough these days, please reformat that into a PDF. Oh, and the endless patience as we wait (through gritted teeth) for a PO code to appear. For one publisher, we now don't just have to send an invoice but we face a new obstacle course involving logging onto their systems to accept a booking and going through a whole other process.
And…(I’m on one now) all the times we have to chase invoices and find that invoices haven’t been put through. (I’ve whinged here before about how payment is often on publication, which means we can often be waiting months and months before we see the money for that work land in our bank account).
Also, journalists regularly talk about being ghosted by editors. Not all, of course, but with desks more streamlined, editors have less time to respond to everyone (plus just ‘ghosting’ culture has probably set in).
We might send our expenses through but then we’re asking to put them in a spreadsheet and then send a separate folder for photos/copies of the receipts.
Meanwhile, images need to be captioned and put in certain folders.
The admin is forever increasing.
On a PR front, one PR regularly asks me to send over the questions for sections we’ve worked on again and again and asks the same questions. I have told her numerous times to save the email and refer to it rather than contact me over it again and again. It doesn’t seem to work.
Another asks me to send PDFs of articles I’ve written. I always think, if your client is regularly getting into these sections, then you should be subscribing and supporting journalism.
Of course, 99% of the times we’re not paid for this extra workload. Rather it just means we’re giving more and more for not much in return – and all in order to maintain relationships.
I'm flagging this up to encourage you to have more understanding and empathy for freelancers who are going through one of the worst throes of journalism right now. I’ve probably said before that some pieces can take weeks or months to work on and all for a sum that was even considered dire in 2009.
And now we seem to be increasingly fighting against unverified freelancers who are pitching successfully despite not even existing. One report from Press Gazette said four such ‘journalists’ were found to have written for sites such as Forbes, Entrepreneur and Information Age. More here.
I’ve also just recently come across freelancers who have discovered that they’re being impersonated online. Science journalist Caroline Williams said on LinkedIn last week that an imposter is pitching stories to titles such as Nature claiming to be her. “They are sending editors rambling and badly thought through pitches on subjects I care about, pointing editors to my book and my clips,” she posted on LinkedIn. “It took two experienced editors (one of whom I know personally!) multiple emails to suspect that something was up. That's terrifying - as a freelancer, you trade entirely on your reputation and if editors start to associate your name with time-wasting and bad ideas you're cooked.” She said she has contacted the person asking them to stop.
The pressure on freelancers feels all-encompassing at times. It can be difficult to keep on top of emails, respond to everyone, deal with increased editor requests, and then manage everything else we’re doing outside of journalism to survive, whether that’s running events or work completely outside of journalism (one journalist friend cleans an Airbnb, another was helping run a co-working space). I personally feel that my day could be filled with just life admin tasks and arranging quotes for long overdue work in my flat (oh yes, a plumber is coming by today).
I’ve discussed this in past blogs and in my workshops but the PRs who are smooth to work with and do everything to help us are the ones we want to return to.
Support us, give us a helping hand, and don’t add to the stress.