Thus, when I started writing op-eds, I knew I was giving it away for nothing. After spending my time, and a little bit of my money, in formally educating myself, I was then spending 45 to 60 minutes to write an op-ed for which I would not get paid anything. Yet, that is exactly what I chose to do. Which is why it was one heck of a pleasant surprise when a few years ago the editor at the Register Guard offered to compensate me with a honorarium that might just about pay for dinner for two. A huge bonus!
There are plenty of reasons why we engage in such writing that does not pay. At least, in my case, I have a day job that takes care of my expenses. What about those who like to engage in interests similar to mine, are even more qualified and able than I am, but do not have a regular job? The web is simply killing their abilities to sell words, leading to this NY Times op-ed with a catchy lead of "Slaves of the internet, unite!" While it was never easy to have a lucrative career as a professional writer, the internet has certainly made it even tougher for writers to sell their work when so much is being written for free.
Ta-Nehisi Coates writes recalling his own experiences and notes this about the "exposure" element:
ask yourself how often you've seen writers/thinkers/historians/intellectuals etc. in online "conversation." Ask yourself how often you've seen guest-bloggers at sites like The Daily Dish. Do you believe these people to be paid? Do you believe them to not actually be doing work? Tomorrow I will go on television, a prospect that I try (lately unsuccessfully) to avoid. I try to avoid it because it is work. I have to prepare information that I hope to provide. I have to think about what I'm saying. I have to make sure I know what I'm talking about. I have to tell my nervous self to shut up. No one pays me--or any other guests--for these contributions. We work "for exposure."One simply cannot buy this "exposure" but has to earn it. Tongue-in-cheek, a colleague commented that I might just about be the most well known academic up and down the Willamette Valley--because of this "exposure" for which I have worked for free.
In a way, it is also this working for free, for exposure, that is behind the idea of internships. Students provide their time and work for free, or at best for low compensation, knowing that the exposure would pay off. When I worked as a planner, our agency routinely hired interns. Private companies hired interns. Everybody did that. Some even paid their interns.
Of course, as with anything, here too there were organizations that abused this system--they sucked the energy out of their interns, by essentially treating them like full-time staff without paying them like full-time staff. Which then led to a law on internships.
As Charles Dickens expressed via the Mr. Bumble character in Oliver Twist, "the law is a ass, a idiot." It generates all kinds of unintended consequences. Internship opportunities quickly evaporated. At public and private agencies alike. After all, it is easy to comply with the law by not offering internships at all, than it is to make sure that the internship program conforms to the letter of the law.
The latest in this:
Condé Nast, the globally renowned media publisher that produces magazines like Glamour, The New Yorker, and Wired, announced late last month that it will no longer offer its internship program.Why?
The decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed by two former interns, Lauren Ballinger and Matthew Leib; in June, the interns sued Condé Nast for months of backpay, alleging that the publisher violated federal and state labor laws.Reason adds this:
Condé Nast is the first major firm to eliminate its internship program since the flurry of unpaid intern lawsuits sprung up this summer. However, lawyers and employers are predicting that many firms may start to cut their programs - or offer just a few paid positions instead of many unpaid ones. So despite advocates' desire to open doors for struggling students, it seems the "Great Unpaid-Intern Uprising" may result in employers closing off opportunities altogether.Again, "the law is a ass, a idiot."
Meanwhile, this essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that academics should not write for free. Ahem, the author has not read Chekov's Uncle Vanya, which I quoted in my essay on academics and research--more than a decade ago--in the Chronicle of Higher Education. If they know what they are getting, people will not part with their money in order to buy an academic's writings!
I will continue on with my writing for which I don't get paid. But, hey, if you want to pay me, I am all for it ;)
4 comments:
Cheque for 24000 manat is in the post !
Seriously, some professions are easier to monetise than others. Physicians and lawyers are two obvious examples you could include financial advisers and perhaps religious gurus as well. In these professions, the link between the spend and the personal benefit (real or imagined) is easier to see. The link is also short term - the cause and effect happens quickly.
In the realm of ideas that you inhabit, the cause effect relationship of expense and benefit is a little more tenuous. That is the problem. If you rebranded yourself as a "globalisation expert" making people employable by globalising their mindset - and do exactly what you are doing now, you will be paid and probably handsomely !!!!
By the way, save that honorarium, until you can take me out, wherever :)
Indeed, some writers/uber-bloggers are going that very route of branding. Andrew Sullivan is raising money via his blog to pay for himself and his staff. It appears that Glenn Greenwald is also going that route after his split from the Guardian.
If the internet disrupted the lives of so many other professionals, then why should writers be immune from that, right?
These are some really interesting times in which we live. There is so much change happening that it is difficult to keep up with yesterday, leave alone think about how different tomorrow will be.
In a way, I am very happy with the democratization of the writing/opining business. But, very, very difficult anymore, I would imagine, for writers ... am all the happier that I have a day job as a second-rate faculty so that I can moonlight as as third-rate writer ;)
All in agreement until I came to last sentence. First rate faculty and first rate writer, it is.
oh, wow .... THANKS!!!!
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