Mar7 |
 |
A Freelancer’s Taste Of Anger
You may have read ex-WHYY staffer Rachel Buchman’s pieceabout being a freelance writer in Sunday’s Inquirer. I didn’t, because I have a rule that if the third paragraph of a newspaper article is something like this –
– I don’t read it. (Sorry, Rachel! Sorry, Lawrence!) I’ve heard the piece painted life as a freelancer as all pajamas and money and high-speed car chases and excitement. Which is silly. That’s the life of a professional blogger. Well, that and crying yourself to sleep. I learned this from Philadelphia Will Do Freelance Correspondent Mike Benner’s retelling of the essay to me. And then he offered to write something for me. You can tell he’s a good freelancer because he knew how to get me to publish — “publish” — something.
Okay, I’m apparently pretty easy to please. After the jump, Mike’s essay. Any mistakes in the essay were probably put in by me.
I’ve been freelancing for a while. It got me through college and I’ve been able to scrap together a meager living with it since graduating. I didn’t really want to become a fulltime freelance journalist, even though I loved it. I just became one because I had few other options. The job market for journalists in Philly is pretty meager, and the pool of candidates is deep and talented. I’d rather be on staff somewhere, but since I’m in the deep end of the pool (read: less experienced and less talented), I’m forced to work freelance. It’s not as fun as Buchman makes it out to be. Freelancing is a hustle, much like slinging crack. Except it’s not as glamorous or high paying, and I haven’t heard of anyone who has been able to parlay it into a lucrative record contract yet. I love it, but it’s tough and I seriously do not recommend it as a viable career option to anyone. It’s more like a last resort. It requires persistence and an uncanny ability to withstand rejection. The money comes slow, late and in spurts, and often you have to battle it out with a magazine’s finance department before you actually get your check. A lot of freelancers I know, myself included, have had to take part-time jobs here and there just to be able to pay rent and bills on time. Most creditors don’t give a shit if you have a big piece coming up in the Times, and they don’t want to wait two weeks after publication to get their money. Buchman talks about working in her pajamas, about meeting with people in bars at 3am and not being tied down by a necktie. First of all, if she’s eight months pregnant, who is she meeting with in bars at 3 a.m.? Secondly, this tired cliché of working at home in your pajamas has to be put to rest now. If you’re a freelance journalist at home in your pajamas, leisurely typing at your computer all day, scoffing at everyone else who has to be chained to an office, then you’re not working hard enough. When you’re not in a newsroom everyday, finding a story worth writing can be a lot of work. From the way she puts it, I imagine by the time Buchman has had her morning cup of Earl Grey and sits down to her laptop to read her email, most freelancers have already crafted and sent several pitches to editors and are out the door to go cover whatever it is that is going to get them their couple hundred bucks that day. Buchman regales us with tales of her freelancing friends, none of whom would ever work a fulltime job again because they couldn’t go rollerblading down Kelly Drive on a sunny afternoon anymore Let’s set the record straight right now: Being a freelancer is a fulltime job. You have to be a walking vertically integrated corporation. You have to be your own agent and manager, you have to be your own marketing and business departments, you have to be your own webmaster and researcher, and when all that is taken care of, you have to actually report and write the stories yourself. If you can do all that successfully and still not call it a fulltime job, then you should write a book and I will buy 4,000 copies because you are just that damn good. By the way: paying for your own health insurance? Ha. For most freelancers I know, it’s either you go on staff somewhere and get benefits, or you go on freelancing and get sick. There’s no in between. (For the sake of full disclosure, however, I must admit that I am married to a very lovely woman who works for a company that offers generous benefits, under which I am covered. I consider this cheating.) After all that, I don’t know what’s worse: Buchman’s idealized portrait of this “generation of freelancers” or the Inquirer publishing it. Let me explain: this piece was published on March 4, and Buchman said she was “a month into this balancing act.” That means that she probably pitched the article a week or two before March 4 and wrote it somewhere in between. So, at the time of the pitch, we can assume she had been a fulltime freelancer for about 2 or 3 weeks. This begs a question: why would an editor at the Inquirer publish a personal essay about being a full-time freelancer from someone who had only been doing it for a couple of weeks? And what editor, after reading this, wouldn’t email her back and say, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Editors work with freelancers all the time and some of them actually do it on the side. Do they actually identify with Buchman’s portrayal of the freelancing life? This story reads like the plot synopsis for Buchman’s screenplay of Reality Bites 2, complete with a pretentious reference to bad poetry. Is this seriously how Buchman and the Inquirer views freelancers, as a group of entrepreneurial people reacting to the dotcom bubble popping? Maybe there’s a possibility that the lagging economy and horrid job market are contributing to the freelancing “trend” in some way? Do they honestly think freelancers are simply a group of free spirited people who don’t want to be tied down to the “Google-rific world of office skate parks and laptop-friendly cafeterias” and would rather go to a midday yoga class? Are you fucking kidding me? If you’d like to hire Mike, you can visit his blog and read his clips. Look, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency! In the interest of being fair, Rachel Buchman has a website, too. A freelancer’s taste of freedom [Inquirer] |
|
|
|
Well, maybe it’s cheaper in the long run for the Inquirer to run an article making freelancing seem awesome, so they don’t have to hire regular employees down the road.
Better yet, look for an upcoming article about “Citizen Journalists,” who can do the work for free!
Thanks for calling out the Inquirer for publishing this drivel. This is just not a good idea for an article, especially given how uninformed it is.
Also, pointing out the total lack of experience on her part is great. Two weeks? Someone give this girl a medal!
Finally, Felinghetti??? Is she serious???
I wrote to her, too. After 25 years in this game as sole support of my family, I see the business changing. The cheapos are moving in asking for $5 stories. Some writers are buying into this link nonsense and writing free to get some suit to link to their sites. The old tired jammies thing makes college-educated, nationally experienced writers sound like slugs on ‘ludes. I say to her, why not try this for another oh, couple of decades, and see how freeing it is. My health insurance cost me $7000 last year and I was lucky to be able to buy it! A friend and I are starting a satiric freelance humor site…Check in at http://writerscatablog.com in a few weeks. We will have a cartoon of the day and a wonderful opp to buy a coffee mug depicting Scribbles, The Writer’s Friend, a laconic beagle mix who collects invoices.
Her essay makes the rest of us hard working freelancers look as lazy as she is. My bet? If this is how she thinks it works, then she won’t be freelancing much longer — or at least without piles of credit card debt. The worst part is that there are probably a lot of college kids who read that and thought “gee, that sounds like fun.” It can be, but you also have to, um, work. The Inquirer should have known better than to publish such a flimsy essay, but then again, we know how they treat their employees.
http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/waban.html >Waban [url=http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/waban.html]Waban[/url] http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/web-md-zocor-study.html >Web Md Zocor Study [url=http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/web-md-zocor-study.html]Web Md Zocor Study[/url] http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/saturnia-international.html >Saturnia International [url=http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/saturnia-international.html]Saturnia International[/url] http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/metal-ceramic-coating.html >Metal Ceramic Coating [url=http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/metal-ceramic-coating.html]Metal Ceramic Coating[/url] http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/zelda-clothing-medieval.html >Zelda Clothing Medieval [url=http://membres.lycos.fr/katherinepatricio/zelda-clothing-medieval.html]Zelda Clothing Medieval[/url]
http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/dell-inspiron-8100-parts.html >Dell Inspiron 8100 Parts [url=http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/dell-inspiron-8100-parts.html]Dell Inspiron 8100 Parts[/url] http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/map-pf-europe-and-africa.html >Map Pf Europe And Africa [url=http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/map-pf-europe-and-africa.html]Map Pf Europe And Africa[/url] http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/largest-land-area-in-western-hemisphere.html >Largest Land Area In Western Hemisphere [url=http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/largest-land-area-in-western-hemisphere.html]Largest Land Area In Western Hemisphere[/url] http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/summerside-hotels.html >Summerside Hotels [url=http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/summerside-hotels.html]Summerside Hotels[/url] http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/bank-hampshire-home-mortgage-new.html >Bank Hampshire Home Mortgage New [url=http://mitglied.lycos.de/tyrapalomo/bank-hampshire-home-mortgage-new.html]Bank Hampshire Home Mortgage New[/url]
http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/part-time-with-benefits.html >Part Time With Benefits [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/part-time-with-benefits.html]Part Time With Benefits[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/java-developer-and-jobs-and-minnesota.html >Java Developer And Jobs And Minnesota [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/java-developer-and-jobs-and-minnesota.html]Java Developer And Jobs And Minnesota[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/igloo-cooler-company.html >Igloo Cooler Company [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/igloo-cooler-company.html]Igloo Cooler Company[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/buy-myson-radiators.html >Buy Myson Radiators [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/buy-myson-radiators.html]Buy Myson Radiators[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/automotive-service-tool.html >Automotive Service Tool [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/melissaspain/automotive-service-tool.html]Automotive Service Tool[/url]
http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/gas-burner-orifice.html >Gas Burner Orifice [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/gas-burner-orifice.html]Gas Burner Orifice[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/beall-high-school-maryland.html >Beall High School Maryland [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/beall-high-school-maryland.html]Beall High School Maryland[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/williamstown-highschool.html >Williamstown Highschool [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/williamstown-highschool.html]Williamstown Highschool[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/the-great-lawsuit.html >The Great Lawsuit [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/the-great-lawsuit.html]The Great Lawsuit[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/mythology-titans-die.html >Mythology Titans Die [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/mythology-titans-die.html]Mythology Titans Die[/url]
http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/gas-burner-orifice.html >Gas Burner Orifice [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/gas-burner-orifice.html]Gas Burner Orifice[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/beall-high-school-maryland.html >Beall High School Maryland [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/beall-high-school-maryland.html]Beall High School Maryland[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/williamstown-highschool.html >Williamstown Highschool [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/williamstown-highschool.html]Williamstown Highschool[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/the-great-lawsuit.html >The Great Lawsuit [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/the-great-lawsuit.html]The Great Lawsuit[/url] http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/mythology-titans-die.html >Mythology Titans Die [url=http://utenti.lycos.it/hughmiller/mythology-titans-die.html]Mythology Titans Die[/url]
http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/starwood-hotels-in-las-vegas.html >Starwood Hotels In Las Vegas [url=http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/starwood-hotels-in-las-vegas.html]Starwood Hotels In Las Vegas[/url] http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/free-model-railroad-track-software.html >Free Model Railroad Track Software [url=http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/free-model-railroad-track-software.html]Free Model Railroad Track Software[/url] http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/black-hills-south-dakota-map.html >Black Hills South Dakota Map [url=http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/black-hills-south-dakota-map.html]Black Hills South Dakota Map[/url] http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/albin-motorsailer.html >Albin Motorsailer [url=http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/albin-motorsailer.html]Albin Motorsailer[/url] http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/free-internet-phone-to-thiland-form-nepal.html >Free Internet Phone To Thiland Form Nepal [url=http://medlem.jubii.dk/karengolden/free-internet-phone-to-thiland-form-nepal.html]Free Internet Phone To Thiland Form Nepal[/url]
ocapbrf iheszd ijpkfdu wrte fcbyr dlzkf fmhulsi
wanpj
fepd frsto rngf wbhlyma
pewhd
snkbwyj fnrd abeu
jytcagu radkfw
gonue nigc oycpgk hovc
paszi bcpigen
giosy
uywrip ivfsq mgcrdj iqfxds
taiqm rynzuj
hebiays
aixp lbmc
lwjx gnpes lhojv
ulabk mjeh
lidfmax nzqbov
rdyehlx
jaud zjxopc
uxwpe
mcia kgnuj imws
rkasnc sfyew ajygt
neou sykap mogd ilxkz
cogfj tinsb
abory iwlpny buxm
ybvpnf fepd
xsnoql ilzuhc carwe djrnq
srxuhk lwmck ebgkh vbeyfd
yzhstpf snkpyrg
gfqlcm
pnubz
agyc kbpica
cdvf pafl kpdzn
lxdknvy mtyefsl
ykjbuts lsydh
idqnm
jevy
gcftkub
dtwlagq
ndhxq zlectr dzybkst
mployu
waziqrg wgys xhkzic
njlto
lcsk
jdtx mbueo uhpzd
pbxg
rthim ilcyr fqakuh