Digest 10/12/2022

Overworked media workers reconsider the value of their labor as the market undergoes further contractions. But can freelance budgets keep up?

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THE BUCK STOPS HERE

There’s never really been a time when freelance writers aren’t complaining about rates, which are always and forever too damn low. As a professional class, writers have been chasing a buck-per-word since Teddy Roosevelt was offered that much to write about a post-presidency hunting trip. But more than a century later, only some web-based publications are hitting that bar. Today’s freelancers are still expected to work for yesterday’s wages while producing the stories of tomorrow.

Yes, some digital publications now pay $1 per word — like most Vox brands, and digital outlets including Cosmopolitan, Travel & Leisure, and Popular Science. But getting there feels like a symbolic victory when what you really need to do these days is snag one of the rare print contract jobs that can pay as much as $4 a word. That’s more true now than ever (or at least since the 1970s): with inflation nearly double what it was in 2008, everything costs so much more these days, from rent to groceries to gas. At the same time, the value of the dollar continues to plummet, as it has been doing for decades: adjusted for inflation, a dollar earned in 1913 could buy nearly $30 of goods today. 

It was clear that the rates complaints hit differently in 2022 after author Emma Marris tweeted about her own frustrations last week to a chorus of “same” from freelance Twitter. She posted screenshots of the polite dismissals she received from a few editors after asking for more pay —$1.50 or $2 per word — along with an image showing the $2,782 monthly mortgage payment for a $550,000 house in Portland, Oregon (even after a $110,000 down payment). “I don’t think I can do this anymore?” she wrote. The editors each said something about how they understood why Marris asked for more money but that ultimately they couldn’t provide it. 

Freelance writers who spoke to Study Hall are feeling squeezed, too. “The biggest lifestyle costs that have gone up are groceries and eating out,” said Katie Jane Fernelius, a freelance audio producer and journalist in New Orleans. “Like many people, I feel like I am spending more money than I used to even if I am living the same lifestyle.” Over the past few years she’s moved away from writing for alt-weeklies to working in podcasts and radio, which earns her a day rate between $500 and $750 — far more appealing than chasing smaller per-word fees. This year, she’s already raised her rate for one regular client by 10 percent “purely based on inflation,” she said.

Fernelius is writing less now, too, which is the case for many freelancers who are forced to treat their actual bylined work as a loss-leader. Calgary-based writer Christina Frangou told Study Hall that being a journalist increasingly feels like “self-harm,” and that she will take on copywriting jobs after closing big features to decompress both emotionally and financially. Writer and novelist Kat Rosenfield is working on two books, teaches yoga to supplement her income, and joked that she probably will not be showering this month due to a packed-to-the-brim freelance schedule. But being almost too busy doesn’t add up to much. “What’s happening now is yes, you’re being offered money,” Rosenfield said. “But it’s like pin money.”

“I think with inflation and with rising costs and economic uncertainty there has been a contraction of the freelance budget and I’ve heard that from editors,” Vancouver-based games writer and web producer Aidan Moher told Study Hall. There are also simply more freelancers out there now, too, thanks to successive waves of layoffs and publications closing over the past two-and-a-half years, making everything more competitive. “It’s awful that these places are closing,” Moher said. “But if you don’t have a relationship with an editor who’s going to assign work to freelancers, it’s just getting harder and harder if you don’t have a homerun pitch.”

So while yes, freelancing has always been bad, the consensus is that 2022-bad is really, really bad — and people want out. Writer and journalist s.e. Smith, who was a full-time freelancer from 2004 to 2018, recently returned to the freelance pool after an editing stint at TalkPoverty and said that the industry feels more toxic and implausible than ever. “Just recently an editor offered me $250. I said ‘$500’ and we agreed on $350 because both of us knew I wasn’t gonna walk away from the commission,” they said. Smith had just $39 dollars in their bank account when they started at TalkPoverty, and feels apprehensive that their decision to leave to pursue more writing and reporting time will put them back in the hole.With a looming recession and the reported “solution” to inflation being to essentially increase the unemployment rate, many more writers will be out there grasping for the golden buck-a-word standard to pay for inflated living expenses for months or even years to come. Emma Marris, the writer who sparked the recent rates dialogue, declined to speak with Study Hall for this article but responded to an email query with: “Out of curiosity, how much are you getting paid for the piece? If it is less than $2 a word, I hope you complain about it in the story! That would be awesome.” I’m getting .79 cents a word; in a moment of panic just this week I Googled “tech jobs BK” — and the market is hot.

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COMINGS AND GOINGS

— Murray Clark is now Senior Style Editor at British GQ. You can pitch him emergent or untold stories about the British fashion industry. 

— Kat Downs Mulder is leaving her position as managing editor of The Washington Post for Yahoo News.

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EVERYTHING ELSE

— Representatives from Meta, formerly Facebook, are alleging that documents published in a report by The Wire India are fabricated. Journalist Shoshana Wodinsky, who previously contributed reporting to a story about the Facebook Papers, even poked holes in The Wire’s coverage, noting that URLs and email addresses listed in the piece did not match Meta’s conventions. 

— Unionized staff at The Dodo, which was acquired by Vox Media in March, are demanding a ratification bonus to offset the financial toll that transitioning into a Vox property has imparted to workers.

— A media shuttering that workers can celebrate: CNN announced it would be closing Vault, the NFT market it launched last year. 

— Even the most progressive publications won’t pay you to complete an extensive edit test in the hiring process. Be careful out there!