In the past two days I have received a plea (actually two pleas) for information on freelancers.
The truth is, I have no information on what freelancers make at the Flint Journal or elsewhere for that matter. I have never freelanced, unless you call what I do now freelancing. Don't know about the lancing, but it certainly is free.
Late add here's a chance to 'pay' for an internship. (From Fading to Black blog).
From what I know about the Flint Journal in recent years, is that the rate is likely to vary from freelancer to freelancer. The new business model is to pay as little as the market will bear and some folks come cheaper than others.
I would be surprised if freelance work paid more than $50 to $100 an assignment, with the $100 probably being overly optimistic. As far as having any "negotiation room" I hate to sound cruel, but that's one of the funnier things ever posted here. From what I see over the past 18 months is that there isn't much negotiating going on. It's pretty much a one way conversation.
If you are assigned a story and complete it I assume you would get paid. If you are a freelancer, in the true sense of the word, you can submit work, but if they don't use it, you probably get bupkis.
Someone told me (and this is total rumor) that some folks were being offered $35 to cover township meetings and writing a story. That's an absurd amount, if true, and unless you are truly desperate for work no one should accept such an insult for payment.
So instead of running on with speculation and rumor I'll leave this thread open for some inside information on what freelancers are being offered and paid.
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When I was at the Bay City Times and was in charge of keeping track of and turning in freelancer pay, we paid $100 for stories that appeared on 1A or feature fronts; $50 for stories on inside pages; $25 for briefs; and $10 for news tips that led to stories. For some freelancers, it was a nice chunk of change. Of course, that was when they still paid regular employees a living wage. I'm sure they won't pay that now.
Typically a reporter is paid $75 and up for a freelance assignment/story, depending on the scope of the assignment and the size of the newspaper.
My understanding, from a pretty decent source, is that once the change comes, freelancers will be making $50 a story, no matter where it runs.
$50? $75? For freelance stories?Jim, I know for a fact that a friend who is a former Detroit News/Flint Journal veteran journalist was called a year or two by one of the Journal's suburban editors and asked if she would cover a local government meeting. The Journal's offer for her to spend two or three hours on a Monday night to cover a township board meeting? A whopping $25. Needless to say, she rejected this less-than-generous offer.
Maybe the new management ("meet the new boss, same as the old boss")can get a housewife or a senior citizen to cover the communities, like the Oakland Press is trying to do.
As I said in my post, I really don't have any information about freelancers. I posted what I heard, but would I doubt they were offering as low as $25. I wouldn't doubt anything anymore.
Word is that it's $35 to $50 for freelance work. I've also heard that interns in BC just took a $2 per hour cut and are now making $9 per hour. One of them allegedly quit on the spot. Meanwhile, the flames have just been spotted abord the Hindenburg.
One comment that has re-surfaced many times in the past several weeks is from one of the new "topic" editors, who told a reporter that they're going to find out "who really wants to work" after all the wage cuts.
What an incredibly moronic thing to say. Good, quality people thrown under the bus in the name of downsizing and many others who thought they'd be safe through this latest round of blood-letting, only to find out they weren't, and that's the attitude of these new "leaders?"
As much as most people loved these jobs - and there's a lot to love about doing what we do/did - we were like anyone else in every profession in that we wanted a fair wage. Tell me, is the one reporter now making $23,000 a year getting a fair wage?
When it comes to quality journalism, the papers will get what they pay for and the freelancers and subscribers will get ... screwed.
On the bright side, the attorneys should pick up some work when these inexperienced reporters/"citizen journalists" and careless editors start letting libelous content onto the internet or in the printed paper.
I used to freelance for the Flint Community Newspapers and have tried to get on with them full time on several occasions. I was paid $60 for a front-page article, $40 for a secondary article and $25 per photo used.
Slave wages? It's a king's ransom compared to many of the rates offered for freelance these days (some assignments want to pay $40 for a 1,000-word article that takes several hours of researching, interviewing and writing.
At the Journal, I was encouraged to keep articles as short as possible--usually no more than 600-700 words.
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