Is it time to name an W


Should we go public when employers offer little or no pay, asks Ruth Addicott


hen a freelance journalist received an email from an editor asking if she could write some articles, she said yes and enquired about the fee. “There’s no fee,” he said. “We’ve got people queuing up to write for us.”


She didn’t join the queue. For far too many freelances, it’s a familiar story. The growth of the internet has seen not only budgets slashed but also journalists being asked to work for free, which is hitting not only quality but also the future of the entire industry.


A report in 2015 by the Reuters Institute for the Study of


Journalism at the University of Oxford showed that one in five journalists have gross yearly earnings of less than £19,200 and are on incomes either close to or below the “living wage”. The number of journalists working online has risen from 26% to 52% since 2012 – their average wage is significantly lower than those working in print. A survey by Press Gazette also showed that two-thirds of


journalists earning less than £15,000 a year were freelance. NUJ freelance organiser John Toner says: “All journalists are finding there are would-be publishers who cannot grasp the concept of paying for work. Photography has been particularly badly hit, as there are now many publishers who would prefer to publish inferior quality images than pay a photographer for professional work. This damages the credibility of our industry.” With editors often expecting journalists to provide images for free, it also puts writers in an uncomfortable position with their colleagues. In his book The Myth of Meritocracy, journalist James


Bloodworth explores why “working-class kids still get working-class jobs”. “If anyone is serious about diversity in journalism, they should be paying writers,” he says. “For a budding working- class journalist, getting paid is often the difference between sticking at it and doing something else.” Having encountered many trained journalists who dropped


out early on because they were not being paid, he says: “It tends to be journalists from working-class homes who feel the strain first, even if they possess more ability than their middle-class counterparts.


“Ensuring people are paid for their work is a really basic starting point for any campaign to get more working- class kids into journalism, especially when so many local newspapers – which once offered a route in for working-class kids – are closing down.” In 2013, a report by the National Council for the Training of


20 | theJournalist


Journalists revealed that 82% of new entrants to journalism had done an internship, of which 92% were unpaid. One writer gave up his job in a shop and flat in Leicester to spend a year sleeping on a friend’s floor in London to do an unpaid internship. He could not claim benefits as he had given up his job, and there was no guarantee of work at the end of it. However, it is not just students who are affected. Sarah


Drew Jones, a journalist and editor for 25 years, says freelances are increasingly being asked to work for free or for ‘peppercorn rates’ especially as the blogger culture grows more powerful. At one point, she was asked to blog for an international brand in exchange for a notebook. “In what other industry do trained, talented, professional


workers have to ASK if they’re going to be paid before they agree to do a job?” she says. “When you have edited national magazines, books, a weekly newspaper supplement and interviewed global celebrities, it’s jarring to be told that writing a 1,000-word piece for free will be ‘good for [your] reputation and great exposure’. Turning down unpaid work is not about ego but fairness.” Sarah adds that brands or PR agencies also ask her to “look


over a proposal and share any thoughts” because it may lead to exciting work in the future”. There have been calls on Facebook recently for journalists


to name and shame. The No 1 Freelance Ladies’ Buddy Agency, which has 3,000 members, is regarded as an invaluable


Help to tackle poor pay


NUJ pay platforms include the Freelance Fees Guide and the Rate For The Job. In 2013, the NUJ


campaigned to get payments for intern journalists and for those asked to stay in a work experience position for longer than they had anticipated. The Unite union created


a web tool for reporting employers suspected of not paying the minimum wage to interns to HMRC. It worked with the NUJ


and other unions and with Intern Aware to encourage employers to pledge to pay at least the minimum wage to interns. In 2015, the NUS and


Intern Aware set up a whistleblowing hotline for reporting unpaid internships. A free rights for interns


smartphone app, which has been produced by the TUC, allows interns to check if they are entitled to pay. The Stop Working For Free Facebook group


has more than 20,000 members and offers support to journalists and photographers. The International


Federation of Journalists supports naming those that offer good work experience as well as those that do not. IFJ general secretary


Anthony Bellanger says unions should seek workplace agreements, adding: “A best of/worst of database would allow young workers to make informed choices.”


MAK / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


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