Editor’s note: Our most prolific Displaced Journalists member is definitely Jules Older, who shares my last name, but not my genes. We ran one of his Writer’s LifeGuard columns titled “Don’t Let the Bastards Rip You off” August 12, 2010. (Just check our archives.) These two columns deal with the same subject: what freelancers can do if they aren’t getting paid. The current (most recent) column is first, followed by “Making the Bastards Pay, II.”

Writer-Think and Lawyer-Think

By Jules Older

So here we go again (see below), only this time with a twist.

The twist is, the editor/publisher/owner of a magazine I’ve written for many times asks me, as a

Jules Older

favor, to delay sending my invoices for a while.

Magazines are in hard times, and I readily agree. I send him several articles over a number of months, and then I tell him it’s time to pay.

He’s shocked, shocked. “I— I didn’t know it would be this much. I just can’t afford to pay you all that now — I just don’t have the money.”

I say, “OK, then, how ‘bout this? You go on an automated payment plan, and on a regular basis, your bank transfers a set sum to mine.”

He agrees…though he’s a bit cagey about putting the terms in writing. He suggests $250 once a week until I’m paid in full. I cheerfully accept.

He misses the first payment. And the second. And the third. When I point this out, he sounds hurt… hurt and increasingly hostile.

Now I do what I should have done in the first place — I start contacting his old employees. “Ah,” they say, “Welcome to the club.”

Oh yeah, he’s done this before. Many times. I say to his ex-graphics guy, “I feel like I’ve been had.”

He says, “Mate, you have been had.” Both he and the ex-editor tell me, “You’ll never collect without a lawyer.” They each recommend a lawyer. It’s the same lawyer.

I’ve always taken a certain pride in the fact that I have no lawyer. I settle non-paying accounts with my wits, or, when I belonged to the National Writers Union, through their collections guy. But by now, my debtor has missed a fourth payment, and I know I won’t be able to crack this nut on my own.

So I become the third “ex-” to hire the same lawyer. I caution him that the editor/publisher/owner — let’s call him Milo — is about to leave the country for a month.

“Good,” says the lawyer. “That way when he gets my letter, he’ll be away from his support team, and it will cause maximum disruption.”

That’s the moment I begin to understand the difference between writer-think and lawyer-think.

Here’s another moment: At one point I’m explaining how “I’ve put Milo on a payment plan and—” and the lawyer interrupts. “Do you want to be a banker?”

“Uh, no. I want to be a writer.”

“Well, you’re acting like a banker, and if that’s what you want, bankers charge interest for their loans.”

“Oh.”

A third moment: “Do you want to get paid a little a week, which means that somebody else isn’t getting paid, and as soon as they put pressure on Milo, you won’t get paid? Or do you want to get your money in a lump sum?”

“In a lump sum, obviously, but he said he can’t afford __”

“We’ll see about that.”

Right. When it comes to collecting from welchers, lawyers think smart. Writers, not so much.

The lawyer — let’s call him Andrew — doesn’t threaten to sue. He doesn’t write an outraged letter. He hires a process server to serve the demand… which means deliver a court document that says, in lawyer-speak, Dude, unless you pay this debt, we are petitioning to dissolve your company.

That very day, Milo starts those automated transfers, as we’d agreed. I say, “He’s paying.” Andrew says, “He’ll stop as soon as he figures he can. Do you want the money or not?”

“Sure, but he can’t affor… yes, I fucking well do! I did the bastard a great favor, and he does me dirty.”

Next lawyer-letter says, we are in receipt of the payments, but we want the money. All of it. Without delay.

Now, Milo writes to me. Chummy letter, all hostility gone. Asks me to please withdraw the dissolve-the-company document. I’m tempted. Andrew isn’t. Says, “Don’t do it.”

I don’t.

Instead, Andrew writes to Milo’s lawyer — yes, he’s had to hire one — and says this: My client has generously agreed to waive the ever-accruing interest on the payment and to even offer a discount if said payment in full is in my hands by Thursday at 4 PM. After that, we’re going after his company.
Milo pays.

In full. At 3:30. I get all that’s owed me. My lawyer takes his fair and well-earned cut. And best of all, it’s cost Milo more to do the wrong thing than it would have if he’d done right in the first place.

Ask me how do I feel?

Like a million bucks.’

—  jules

And in the Steve Jobs’ tradition… One more thing.

Andrew’s law:

The lesson you could pass on is that whenever you are in a situation of a non-payer, it is better to seek help earlier rather than later. If Milo had kept to the bargain you made with him, it still would have taken a long time to pay what was due. During that time, the risk increases that Milo gets further into debt, and the payments to you are claimed back by a liquidator. So better to get a payment in one sum, then bunker down and hope Milo keeps going for longer.

As for other suggestions – I always tell my clients, ”Ring me first before you sign or agree to anything – I can do far more for you beforehand than after you have signed”.

Your lawyer and accountant should be your most trusted business advisors, and you should not choose them on the basis of them being the cheapest or fastest. If you don’t feel the trust, then you should find someone who does give you that feeling – it will save you in the long run.

Making the Bastards Pay, II

First, welcome to the newest Lifeguards, Theresa Russell and Melinda Blau. Theresa’s a travel writer specializing in cruises. Melinda’s a faction (née, non-fiction) author whose books include the wildly popular Secrets of the Baby Whisperer and the newly released Consequential Strangers.

Welcome aboard. Now, let’s talk money.

Writers Lifeguard # 9 was called “Making the Bastards Pay” or in this publication, “Don’t Let the Bastards Rip You Off.” Finances are much worse now, which means more bastards aren’t paying.

I’ve got a new trick.

I learned it from a Lifeguard who wants to remain anonymous; so, assume that names, places, genders are all changed in what follows.

She lives in San Francisco. Her publisher’s in New York. She worked for his magazine for years, first as writer, then features editor, then editor-in-chief. But when money got tight, he wouldn’t pay. Though she’s caring for her sick mom, and he’s building a fancy new house, the bastard wouldn’t pay.

She tried everything. Pleading, arguing, threatening, appealing to his better side. No pay. He figured 3,000 miles and a bunch of state lines gave him a perfect safety net. If she were foolish enough to jump on a plane for a New York court appearance, he’d just stall until she ran out of time and funds. Besides, it’s only $5,000 — no lawyer would want to touch it.

But desperation can be a resource. She wrote to every agency she could think of, telling them of her plight… and one of them answered.

It was the Department of Industrial Relations for the Labor Board of the State of California (www.dir.ca.gov). Two months after she wrote, she received a letter to appear before them. The NY publisher got the same letter.

She appeared (it was all of 30 minutes from her home). He didn’t (now, those 3,000 miles were his problem, not hers). She told her tale to the Deputy Labor Commissioner. She brought copies of the magazine, emails, check-stubs, tax forms, everything.

Two weeks later she was given a court date for a formal hearing. She went. He didn’t. It took about an hour.

Let ‘her’ pick up the story here…

“Two weeks later I received a judgment: My full pay plus penalties. After that, the publisher finally did respond—but too late. The Labor Commissioner told me that his late response was typical—nobody ever does anything unless they are legally ordered to pay.”

The result? Said publisher sent a cashier’s check to the Department of Labor. Our Lifeguard got her hard-earned cash.

Now, in nearly identical circumstances, my ex-publisher is refusing to pay me for work I’ve done.

I’ve tried everything I know, and he still won’t pay. Told me if I wanted my money, to sue him.

I don’t sue. But I have a date to meet him at the Department of Industrial Relations for the Labor Board of the State of California. No problem — it’s only 20 minutes from home. About 3,000 miles for the publisher.

This little meeting is one of the things I’m looking forward to in the new year. And if you’re having trouble collecting money you’ve earned, consider this a New Year’s gift from the anonymous Lifeguard and…

—  jules

Jules Older is a freelance travel writer, the author of children’s books, the creator of the iPhone app San Francisco Restaurants, a speaker, a broadcaster and a consultant. Learn more about Jules here. To become a Lifeguard, just drop Jules a line at jules@julesolder.com, saying, “I’m a writer. Sign me up!”

– 30 –

August 4, 2011

By Susan Older, Founder of Displaced Journalists and Real World Media

I refuse to give up on the journalism profession. I refuse to give up on displaced journalists, either. Not just the people in our Displaced Journalists community here on the Web, on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but all journalists who can’t find a place where they belong anymore.

We need to reinvent our profession to keep good journalism alive.

Our society depends upon a free and vigilant press. It is a fundamental building block of our democracy.

• It provides citizens with the news and information they need to make their lives safer, easier, happier and more fulfilling.

• It gives citizens the comfort of knowing someone is out there looking after their interests.

• It provides the fundamental role of ensuring an informed electorate.

• It holds accountable the officials citizens elect at the polls.

Why is journalism broken? We all know the answer: It’s money. It’s not the Internet. It’s the lack of revenue models for both print and online news and information operations.

Only Steve Jobs has hit on a real revenue model. The App Store is brilliant, but it appears publishers who try to sell their content as apps will get only a small bite of the Apple – too little for sustenance. We need to think about how we could emulate that model without giving our product away.

We need to determine who will pay for quality content. I believe the demand still exists.

We need to restore citizens’ trust in the news they read and the journalists who report it. We can do this. The solution lies in getting the best and the brightest back to work and in a position to mentor young journalists, to pass on the mojo, the dedication, the ethical standards and the devotion to excellence that once defined our profession.

I propose a revolutionary solution to save journalism and journalists.

Real World Media.

It is a big idea and it will require serious funding. Can it be done? Absolutely. Can I do it alone? Of course not. We need help and we need funding. I do believe, though, that it is a start.

We must pose the question of how to find buyers for quality content. Let’s give it a shot. Let’s come together to devise a plan that will improve as it evolves. We need solutions that address the concerns of citizens of local, state, national and global communities. Let’s be realistic: globalization has changed the rules of the game. Almost all of the things we cover are playing out to some degree on a global scale.

So what is the future of journalism? How can we address these issues.

Real World Media: What is it? Why participate?

Real World Media is designed to be the first location-based (think FourSquare), mobile-device-driven global news web. It will provide tailored news and information coverage by top-notch, vetted reporters, photojournalists and news videographers who are already at or near the scene – and top notch editors who interact with these journalists and fine-tune their work.

Real World Media will provide journalists with the work they haven’t been able to find and the respect they deserve. Journalists will be paid fairly and immediately (think PayPal) – a rare occurrence for freelancers in the wake of our industry’s massive job losses.

Journalists will be associated with the best and the brightest colleagues – reporters, editors, photojournalists and news videographers – all of them drawn to Real World Media because it’s a prestigious, trusted network and it’s their best chance of getting fair compensation for a job well done.

The editorial board of Real World Media will screen journalists who seek to be part of its global network. Journalists who have the right stuff will start receiving assignments once it’s up and running. Journalists who don’t make the cut right away will be referred to customized training and performance-improvement solutions to help them qualify at a later date.

The first step in any new venture is to look at it from the point of view of the customer. Of course, this has always been the case for journalists. We’ve been trained to make coverage decisions based on what our readers want. I have always referred to this as the “what does it mean to me” factor. Readers didn’t subscribe to newspapers unless they delivered news and information that directly affected their lives. How can we make our coverage so good that readers or users will pay for it online? It’s a tough question, but we must come with a solution. We can’t just give up.

What about coverage of “what they need to know”? Yes, we’ve always done that, too, because the great thing about newspapers was that readers stumbled upon things they couldn’t have predicted they would want to read. It was serendipity. That’s something we’ve lost to varying degrees as news and information migrated to online sites. Now users tend to go to the sites that reflect their specific interests or views. Real World Media will offer engaging enterprise stories, photos and video designed to put the serendipity back into news sites.

What keeps Real World Media customers up at night?

Entrepreneurs in every field look for the “pain point.” They ask the question: “What keeps our potential customers up at night?” If they can’t answer that question, they need to go back to square one and figure it out.

Let’s look at our potential customers’ needs and address them as if we were speaking directly to them.

This is a sample scenario:

You are a managing editor at a news and information operation – either print or online. You have dismissed more of your staff than you knew was wise. You did it because, financially, you believed you had no choice. You or your publisher felt it was necessary to trim the budget to stay in business. Unfortunately, you got rid of the best and the most experienced journalists because their salaries were the highest.

Now you’re looking at a decimated newsroom and a big story breaks – one that directly affects your readers and your community. It could be floods, drought, and forest fires. It could be corruption in your local police department or city hall. It could be a scandal, playing out in Washington, one that involves local or state officials. It could be a story about a local military man or woman engaged in battle half way around the world. You want to cover these things, and you want the local angle, probably with photos and video, but you don’t have a staffer to spare.

What do you do?

• Do you send a journalist, possibly insufficiently experienced, to deal with a difficult assignment, bagging the important story he or she was working on before you had to shift gears?

• Do you resign yourself to using a wire service story, knowing that they are extremely unlikely to give you the local angle and that the same story will appear everywhere else?

• Do you call a freelancer whom you may not know? Are you confident he or she will get to the scene on time? Are they any good? Do you need to find a photojournalist or news videographer, as well?

• How much time can you afford to spend setting this coverage in motion?

You get the point. No matter what you do, you rob your readers of one thing to give them another. That hurts. You never had to make this tradeoff in the past. You once had a good and sizable staff that was capable of doing it all and doing it all well. Your newsroom ran smoothly – okay, as smoothly as possible. You could afford to take time lining up freelancers around the world for a big story, and once you did that you had a big enough staff to assign your own reporters to get the local angle.

Readers were loyal because you gave them news and information that truly affected their lives – their children, healthcare, family budgets, safety, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, housing, etc. When it came to investigative reporting or breaking news coverage that affected your readers anywhere around the globe, you gave readers your best. Can you do this now, with sparse resources?

Real World Media clients: what we give you

So you decide to become a Real World Media client. Real World Media will provide a simple and affordable solution to the many problems brought about by staff shortages. You will get full coverage without breaking the bank. You, your publisher, your readers and great journalists can all sleep at night.

Real World Media takes your requests and uses cutting edge technology to locate journalists, photographers and videographers around the world to cover the story to your specifications. Maybe it’s a story breaking halfway around the globe, but it affects people from your town, city or state. Real World Media will cover the global and the local angles of the story.

You will pay Real World Media and its journalists well because you know they are worth it and you get what you need from them. Just think about what you once paid your most valuable staff members, the ones you had to dismiss as advertising dwindled and news and information took off into uncharted digital territory.

Real World Media is not designed to take jobs away from working journalists. We’re happy to see journalists working at all. As for jobless journalists, we genuinely hope they will find great jobs again. For now, though, why not tap into their talent and experience through a system you can trust. But let me be clear: Real World Media is not a content mill.

It’s a win-win for everyone. You will save on salary, benefits, travel expenses, and expensive equipment by using the services of Real World Media. Journalists will get what they need by joining the Real World Media network, which ensures that they will be paid fairly and rapidly. As our network grows, we hope to negotiate group rates on benefits such as health care.

Your readers will get what they want, whether it is international or domestic coverage with a community angle or an investigative reporting project right down the road that you cannot begin to staff. It might even be a feature story you just know your readers would enjoy, one that would enrich their lives.

As a client of Real World Media you  will have at least three options:

• You may make a special request for a local angle on any given story. Real World Media journalists will report it for you. This will serve your needs regardless of whether the story is happening inside or outside of your geographic community. It doesn’t matter. You will have the option of informing readers of more than what’s happening. You will tell them exactly what it means to them, with quotes from local citizens and local officials.

• You may request an exclusive story that will not be available or even visible to other clients on the Real World Media site. This will serve your needs if you want an exclusive on a breaking story or if you want a highly qualified team to handle an investigative project or local story that you don’t have the staff to handle.

• You may buy a story that appeals to your audience straight off the Real World Media site. This will serve your needs if you simply want the best possible coverage on an important story. This would serve your needs if you don’t need a local angle and aren’t concerned with exclusivity, but don’t want to run a wire service story identical to the one your competition carries.

Real World Media will run the network. We will find, evaluate and direct the reporters, editors, photographers and videographers. We will have layers of editors – all highly experienced, respected and trustworthy. We will maintain a website featuring synopses of all the stories available for purchase, the price, and the option to negotiate exclusive stories or big stories with local angles.

You will tell us what you need and we will find the best journalists for you. We will use cutting-edge, location-based, mobile technology to stay in touch with journalists (reporters, editors, photographers or videographers) who are at or near the scene and prepared to take the assignment. If another journalist is required to interview people in your community for a local angle, we will provide that service, too.

You will pay a fair price for stories produced by Real World Media’s global network of journalists because you know they are worth it. They will fill the void created when you laid off your best staffers.

Real World Media will charge for the story, the photos or the video you commission from our network of journalists. You will be obligated by contract to buy the assigned story, photos or video, regardless of whether you use it. You will pay more if you decide to alter your original request. Of course, good reporters, photographers and videographers think for themselves and are highly likely to deliver more than you asked for, simply because of the situation they find on the ground when they are in the process of reporting or shooting photos or video.

Real World Media will have a multi-layered network of highly experienced and vetted editors to ensure that customers receive professionally edited products.

None of this is carved in stone. In fact, this is just a jumping off point.

Please join the discussion and add you thoughts on this concept. I am working on the website and marketing materials now. I would love to hear what you think, here on the Displaced Journalists site, on the Real World Media Facebook page, or privately at susanolder@realworldmedia.org. If you have other networking ideas, let’s find a way to implement them.

____________________________________________

Editor’s note: You are reading this on Displaced Journalists, so you may be wondering why I chose to speak to the customer rather than directly to you about this idea I’ve been hatching for the past year. The answer is this: You can see your role as you read this. We need to draw attention to the concept and get customers and funding sources interested. All of the information I’ve come up with thus far is in this piece, except for how we will price stories and how much Real World Media journalists will be able to earn. At this point, I don’t know how much you will earn if we do get funding and this becomes a reality. However, I am devoted to ensuring that journalists are paid fairly. You will be part of the process as we begin to determine rates. In no way will this resemble a content mill. If any of you can offer your programming, design or marketing skills for the cause, I can certainly use them. I have no funding at this point, and, of course, Displaced Journalists has never been about making money.

– Susan Older

By Aaron Crowe
Tales of an Underemployed Dad

I’m taking meetings for the next two weeks as I try to decide if my career choice to be a journalist is a dying profession or a thriving one. I think it’s a thriving one where storytellers are still needed.

Aaron Crowe

Instead of going door to door, applying for jobs online or seeking out businesses to hire me, I’m turning the tables and offering my services for the next two weeks so I can be an exclusive writer/editor for companies that need such work. I’m calling it “Rent a Journalist.”

As a freelance journalist since being laid off at a newspaper about three years ago, I’ve spent a lot of my time chasing down job leads, applying for jobs, and doing everything I can to get the next freelance assignment. I’ve had steady work for most of that time, writing personal finance stories for WalletPop. But that’s going to change soon.

The AOL site is being absorbed into another website as part of the Huffington Post acquisition by AOL. I work on a monthly contract and have been told to reapply for my job as a fulltime writer, which I’ve done, but I’m unsure if I’ll be hired fulltime. Since the company has offices in New York and Los Angeles, and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I don’t know if they’ll hire me fulltime to work from home, as many writers/editors at WalletPop do.

If we come to an agreement, great. If not, this is part of my backup plan, which I’m trying out for the next two weeks as I offer my writing and editing services, among other things, such as social media liaison, to businesses. I’m pitching my services to existing or past clients, abut I’m also approaching websites I’d like to work for, the ones who I think would like my work.

This is my pitch:

Instead of wondering if I’ll be available to write for your website or publication in the future, you can lock me in with an offer now to work for you. I’ve covered personal finance for WalletPop for a little more than two years, and have some of the highest-trafficked posts on the website. I can do the same for you.

I’m open to long-term contracts or month-to-month; but what I’m mainly looking for is steady work and a commitment. It can be exclusive on a subject — family finances, for example — but that will take a longer commitment, such as daily blog posts. Or it can be a weekly column on something like personal finance and the food industry, that will still be a long-term contract but will only be for writing once a week.

The advantages to your company in signing me now? You get my time and work before anyone else does, guaranteeing you a steady stream of quality work that will be unique to your publication. As a journalist I’m trained in general assignment stories, and can provide original reporting and writing on any topics you need. Again, I’ve specialized in personal finance writing for the past few years, so I can write for your site on those issues, or expand to tech, families, food, retail, education, health, and many others. For example, I currently write for Dealnews.com about the psychology of shopping each week, so I wouldn’t be available to write about that topic for other sites.

I have other services I can provide, including helping with social media campaigns, writing publicity and press releases, covering corporate events, and photography.

Don’t let this opportunity pass. Rent a journalist — this journalist — before it’s too late.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation Visiting Business Journalism Professor’s Program will begin January 2012, with visiting professors assigned to four campuses to teach business journalism coursework during a semester in residence.
The program is designed to initiate business journalism courses and curricula at accredited journalism schools across the U.S. that do not have an established presence in business journalism but aspire to have one. Selected universities commit to coursework in business journalism that has the goal of training professionals to cover business and economic issues.

The program is administered through the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, under the direction of Reynolds Center President Andrew Leckey.

Visiting professors are asked to:

▪    Commit full time to a full semester at a participating university.

▪    Teach two classes in business journalism during their appointed semester in residence;

▪    Participate in the Center’s webinars on important financial topics;

▪    Establish a mentoring relationship with a local business journalist or news outlet in their community;

▪    Help create at least one media partnerships with a media organization in the community where business journalism stories generated by the visiting professor’s class may be used;

▪    Contribute at least one article for use on the Reynolds Center’s website, BusinessJournalism.org.

Visiting professors will be provided with dedicated office space in the journalism building at the campus to which they are assigned and have IT and administrative support. They will become part of the Reynolds Foundation network and receive support throughout the semester in the form of class outlines and materials as well as guidance and mentoring.

The Center is interested in building a pool of prospective visiting professors. Applications are being accepted online at Visiting Professor Program – Professor Application.

Applicants are asked to register and create a username and password. This allows applicants to return to the application at any time before the deadline to complete the process or make changes.
Applicants also are asked to provide a statement of professional qualifications, including experience in business journalism and teaching, as well as two professional letters of reference. Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis.
Read more about the Reynolds’ Visiting Business Journalism Professor Program.

By Jules Older

When you’re out of work, or, put more genteelly, underemployed, what do you do with your newfound leisure time?

Jules Older

By ‘leisure time,’ I mean time nobody’s paying you to use.

Everybody’s different in needs, time, mortgages and inclination, but I know what’s working for me. In hopes that some of it will work for you, here goes:

Learn new stuff. The new stuff I’m learning is videography. As the world grows more visual and more digital, it will be increasingly usefulblahblahblah.

That’s likely true, but the real reason I’m learning it is that I want to. I love it. I love watching my skills grow from naught to naught half bad. You can judge for yourself at http://www.YouTube.com/julesolder.

I’ve had three great aids in learning to shoot and edit.

One is a tiny, cheap, incredibly versatile Canon camera. I’ve used the pocket-sized Canon SD940 IS to shoot about 30 videos. I still can’t believe how good it is, most especially in low light.

The second is Apple’s iMovie, a tool that comes at no extra charge with every Mac. It’s made for enthusiasts, not professionals, but it’s met or exceeded my needs and desires nearly every time.

Third — maybe first — is the best bargain I’ve found, ever. It’s Apple’s One to One program. When you buy a new Apple computer, you’re given the opportunity to sign up for One to One. Take it.

Costs a hundred bucks for a year. For that hundred, you get to meet with an expert once every week or two to work on any aspect of Macology you like. Just about everything I know about videography, I’ve learned at the Chestnut Street Apple Store. Costs me, oh, $1.50 an hour.

Do good things. Last time I was in New Zealand, the earth moved. It moved in Christchurch, which experienced its first quake ever. This time, a few short days after I got off the plane, Christchurch had its second. And this was the big one.

On the theory that it might be me, I did what I could to ameliorate the horror. Through my Jokers list, I kept friends and relatives up to date on our safety, our friends, and what was happening in Christchurch. Because I’m a member of Ski Club of International Journalists, I did the same with the 200 or so media mavens I’d met only the week before. I used both lists to raise funds for the victims.

And I volunteered to go to Christchurch. I volunteered three times to three organizations. And while none took me up on it, I couldn’t have even made the offer if I’d been gainfully employed.

Stay in touch. The Christchurch quake was only one way of many I’ve been in closer touch with friends and colleagues since those monthly checks stopped rolling in. I’ve used the down time to pick up lapsed relationships and to start new ones. That’s been nice.

Hasn’t always worked out the way I planned, though. When I left a message for an old friend who’d moved to L.A. asking if he was ok, he admitted “My first thought was — what’s he want?”

I suggested he’d been in Los Angeles too long.

Hard times roll. Renewing my freelance ‘career’ has reminded me how bloody hard freelancing really is. For instance, from New Zealand I wrote what I think was a pretty fine op-ed piece about the quake, Why it’s good it happened here. Sent it to, oh, seven or eight papers and three magazines in five countries. My hometown paper didn’t bother replying — thanks a lot, San Francisco Chronicle. Others said no, not for us. In the end, one paper and one magazine took variations on it, but it was hard yakka getting the thing sold.

That’s all, folks… except for one thing. Remember: Life is what’s left when you’re out of work. Better learn — or re-learn — to enjoy it.

— jules

Jules Older (amazingly, no relation to Displaced Journalists Founder Susan Older) is a freelance travel writer, the author of children’s books, the creator of the iPhone app San Francisco Restaurants, a speaker, a broadcaster and a consultant. Learn more about Jules here. To become a Lifeguard, just drop Jules a line at jules@julesolder.com, saying, “I’m a writer.  Sign me up!”

CUNY’s Jeremy Caplan chats with media entrepreneur Elizabeth Spiers – Feb. 8, 2011. Spiers is the newly appointed editor-in-chief of The New York Observer. Caplan is director of education for the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY. He is also a Ford Fellow in Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Poynter Institute. Video from CUNY Grad School of Journalism on Vimeo.

Displaced Journalists’ partner Knowledgewebb is planning another free webinar. “Getting Started: Mobile Reporting and Publishing” is the topic, and it’s scheduled for this Wednesday, Aug. 25 at 2 p.m. EDT.

You don’t need to be a member of Knowledgewebb to participate in the webinar. However, if you haven’t considered joining, remember that our partnership with Knowledgewebb gives you a 30 percent discount on the yearly membership fee. Knowledgewebb helps you master the skills you need to succeed in today’s digital media environment. We partnered with Knowledgewebb because it is some of the best training around at an extremely fair price. To get the discount, join using our Displaced Journalists partner code: DISPLACED.

The webinar, which runs from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. (EDT), will teach you how to produce and publish rich multimedia stories, interactive slideshows, even audio broadcasts in real time on your iPhone, Blackberry, Palm or Android.

If you participated in “10 Steps to a Tech-Savvy You,” an Aug. 5 webinar celebrating our partnership with Knowledgewebb, you already know how much you can learn in one hour. As always, attendees will receive notes, worksheets and a list of recommended tools.

This free webinar is sponsored by another Knowledgewebb media partner: Freelance Success.

You must have pre-registered and received a confirmation message from Knowledgewebb to participate in this session. Click here to register. There are only 500 virtual “seats” available and they fill up quickly, so go to Knowledgewebb.net and register soon. The webinar is just two days from today.

By Jules Older

I’m not one who regards editors as bastards. I yam an editor. I try not to be a bastard. Sometimes I even succeed.

Jules Older

Ditto publishers. They’re the ones who feed my family, and I don’t go around biting the hand that feeds.

But. But the ones who don’t pay… ah, now yer talkin’ bastards. And if there’s one thing I hate worse than bastards who rip off writers, it’s the impotent rage writers feel when we can’t get our money from said bastards.

OK, that’s the last time I’ll refer to illegitimate offspring today. From here on out, it’s about how to collect what’s owed.

My ski-writer friend Steve, who has four or five brothers, swears that his solution is to visit the editorial office with his brothers in tow. They conspicuously look around for a while; then the biggest brother quietly says, “You got a lot of expensive equipment here. We wouldn’t want to see any of it damaged, y’understand? Please pay my brother what you owe him. Now.”

That might not be for everyone. Multi-purpose writer David Goodman pulled one of my all-time favorite tricks when he was living in Boston. The publisher — one of the few Black publishers in Boston — wasn’t paying his writers but was throwing a party for advertisers. By mistake, he’d somehow sent David the guest list. David sent him a five-word message; it read: “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”

The checks were delivered before the party began.

When a magazine publisher said he couldn’t pay me the couple of thou he owed, I knew he was nearly broke. So I put him on a schedule. And to his credit, he stuck to it, paying me a couple of hundred each month until the debt was very nearly paid off. By then, he was broke, and I figured we were close enough to even anyway.

There was one debt — a big one — I could not collect. I’d been promised an advance on an outdoors book, but when I delivered the ms, the publisher decided that the words they’d originally loved, they now hated… and were thus under no obligation to pay me a brass farthing. Then they stopped answering my letters. And calls. Can you spell impotent rage?

So I contacted the National Writers Union, which at the time was a righteous organization of which I was a paid-up member. It took the NWU’s Phil Mattera, may his tribe increase, less than 24 hours to get them to pay up. I donated 10% on the spot to the union; without them I’d still be stuck in wrath and dearth.

But the best revenge is success. A year or two later, I re-sold the book… and thus collected that advance not once, but twice.

I’m no longer a member of the union, so these days I have to be even wilier on my own. Here’s what I recommend whey you’re Payless in Peoria:

1. Always, always chase down that money. If you have to, threaten to kill the publisher’s dog, but never let him disappear with your hard-earned cash.
2. Your best protection is prevention. Don’t let yourself fall into debt to a publisher. Stop that before it starts. Go on strike until the check arrives… and doesn’t bounce.
3. If you can’t get the, uh, gentleperson to pay, your best strategy is to threaten to tell all and sundry, with a 24-hour deadline. That means advertisers, printers, warehousers, everyone vaguely associated with the rag. Inform the publisher that if the check isn’t hand delivered to your doorstep in 24 hours, at 24 hours and 1 minute, the email blast goes out.
4. At 24 hours and 10 minutes, the press release goes out — to the media. And, being a media person, yourself, you have a long, long reach and a big, fat Rolodex. See you in print, playah.
5. If you’re still not paid, make certain they do go out.

Here’s what it comes down to. Our best weapon isn’t wealth or lawyers or guys in dark alleys. Our best weapon is our writerly skills. When you can’t get paid for your honest work, this is the time to use ‘em.

Love to hear your experience and wisdom in this pain-filled part of the writer’s life.

Peace.

jules

– 30 –

Jules Older (amazingly, no relation to Susan Older) is a freelance travel writer, the author of children’s books, the creator of the iPhone app San Francisco Restaurants, a speaker, a broadcaster and a consultant. Learn more about Jules here. To become a Lifeguard, just drop Jules a line at jules@julesolder.com, saying, “I’m a writer. Sign me up!”

A new publishing venture has launched which takes advantage of mobile devices.

A group of magazine journalists and editors have formed to publish a weekly digital magazine, Nomad Editions, specifically for mobile technology. Content will be created by freelance journalists with area-specific expertise; readers, who will subscribe through a mobile app, can receive an “exclusive, high-caliber, elegantly designed digital publication” on an array of different subjects, according to the company.

Former Newsweek editor Mark M. Edmiston, CEO of Nomad Editions, says the idea of high quality journalism specifically for mobile devices came to him early in 2009 as ereaders like the Kindle began siphoning readers from print editions, reports The New York Times.

Freelancers will be culled from unemployed or underpaid talent, and will be paid as much as 30% of subscription revenue per week; editors will earn 5% of subscription revenues, as well as a cut of ad dollars. Technology will dynamically format content to “look great” on any device with a browser, without the need for an app.

“There is clear demand for good content on mobile devices as evidenced by the amazing growth of ebooks and the terrific response the the magazine ‘apps’ launched on the iPad,” sys Edmiston. “We believe that there is even greater potential for content designed from the ground up for mobile rather than taking an existing format and converting it to mobile. For example, freed from over-dependence on advertising inherent in printing monthly magazines, Nomad Editions are produced on a natural cycle of once a week.”

Read the entire story at MediaBuyerPlanner.com.

By John D. Vincent
Special for Displaced Journalists

The revelation that Demand Studios is producing content for reputable news sites is disturbing. Like a rancid baklava, it is bad on countless levels.

For those of you who don’t know, Demand Studios produces short, rigidly-formatted articles for a variety of sites using a pool of underpaid and under-supervised freelancers.

Originally limited to how-to content for sites like eHow.com, Demand has now inked deals with USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Houston Chronicle to provide feature content.

Confession: I worked for them.

Shortly after I lost my newspaper Web job, I wrote several articles for Demand Studios’ ridiculously low pay, happy to pad my resume with recent writing samples.* I discovered that while I was taking several hours to write well-researched original content using multiple sources, Demand Studios had many “reporters” who were completing several stories a day.

Officially, Demand has a zero tolerance for plagiarism policy and claims to use software to prevent copyright violations. But it’s clear that much of the content (let’s be generous) is highly derivative. Or less-kindly put, their content is often one step removed from plagiarism.

I can’t say all Demand Studios content is rewritten, but much of it is. It’s hard to imagine a reporter writing several stories a day if he or she is making calls, conducting interviews or reading entire books. The company has a business model that incentivizes taking shortcuts and penalizes quality reporting.

A disruption of the news ecology

Anybody who thinks about the evolution of news understands the two kinds of creatures living in the Journalistic Sea. The dominant species are original-news fish and the lesser residents are rewrite leeches. Let’s call them news parasites. The Web has improved the ecosystem for the leeches while making it worse for the big fish.

I cannot imagine the motivation for replacing original content with rewritten news. Sure, there’s the usual crying in the beer talk — corporations have contempt for audiences, absurd profit expectations, an unseemly fetish for cost cutting, a sense of resigned desperation — but the idea of using Demand content is so breathtakingly, mind-numbingly, jaw-droppingly shortsighted that I have to believe I’m missing something.

It takes about three seconds of introspection to see that if the number of parasites keeps growing and the number of hosts keeps shrinking, the news ecosystem will eventually collapse.  It’s as though the Trojans, knowing the horse was full of Greeks, decided to accept it anyway.

The hope thing

Like a lot of news people I keep hoping that the business will find a bottom, that bean counters will realize that they are in a downward spiral where cuts fuel audience loss and audience loss fuels cuts…. The elevation of a content farm like Demand Studios undermines that hope. It reinforces the idea that short-term thinking will continue to trump the long-term health of the industry until someone invents the next big thing.

Contempt?

The whole notion of using non-original content smacks of contempt for audiences and managerial arrogance.

Years ago newspapers and TV stations shuttered bureaus, arguing that audiences can’t tell the difference between a story written by a local reporter and one created by a wire service. (The sleight of hand being that the wires rarely cover your local politicians.)

I sense that same logic at play here, that somewhere in the stratosphere of corporate headquarters, someone calculated that readers can’t tell the difference between stories from a copy mill and those from a dedicated reporter; that they won’t notice if the content is built with the same information available a dozen other places — that they aren’t all that bright.

The contempt doesn’t just fall on the audience; advertisers get a dose, too. Part of what advertisers pay for is a share of the news outlet’s credibility, its good will with its audience. Satisfied audiences, those that read the whole article or stay on the Web page, are more likely to see the ads.

Crappy content means flagging user loyalty, a lack of stickiness, and inconsistent good will.

Consider the following thought experiment: A manager receives resumes from two equally-qualified candidates. The manager can only interview one of them. The only difference between the applicants is that Candidate Two’s resume is wrinkled and smudged. Who gets the interview?

Whether the decision to reject the candidate with the flawed resume is conscious or unconscious, it is clear that the quality of the presentation matters at some level. The user experience is not just about facts; there’s a section in every resume writing book reminding us of this idea. Where’s a logical leap when you need one?

It could be worse

Demand isn’t an isolated company in the content game, or even the worst. By many standards, Demand Studios is a Garden of Eden for modern writers.

The next time you’re searching job sites, try the keywords, “rewriter,” “rewrite,” or “rewriting.” You’ll find dozens of companies looking for people to translate content so it passes a plagiarism test and performs well in search engines. Some of that content ends up going to scores of sites that serve no other purpose than to rack up page views and generate money from CPM ad views. Those companies offer $1 to $5 per article and ask writers for several 300- to 500-word articles per week.

Things could get ugly if a lot of advertisers discover they’re paying for ads that at best don’t get seen or, worse, become associated with poor content sites. It’s the flip side of borrowing the content provider’s credibility.

* I can’t tell you how much Demand Studio pays without risking violating their rules, but I can fairly say that I’d have to write 25 Demand Studios articles to make the same amount of money I made for a single freelance piece in City Pages (a Village Voice sister paper) in the mid 1990s. Also, selling plasma has a significantly better per-hour rate.