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Hey! Liked your piece! Could you re-do it for us?! Can't pay you, by the way!

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Norrin Radd, Mar 5, 2013.

  1. murphyc

    murphyc Well-Known Member

    That piece was way beyond terrible. After about the fifth graf I simply couldn't read it anymore. An already bad situation was made far worse. Can't wait for the 8K word manifesto to defend that poor defense.
     
  2. murphyc

    murphyc Well-Known Member

    I'll go against the stream and agree with Vers on this. Part of it goes back to my freelancing days. I wasn't a big fish like Thayer by any means, either in name recognition or pay, so I was operating on a smaller scale. I had a paper paying about $300 a week for four stories. If I had been well established and used to getting more (I'm assuming someone like Thayer would fit both categories), I would have been insulted. But I wasn't. Would I have liked to make more? Absolutely. Should I have pushed for more? Probably, but the downside is ask for too much and you might not get anything.
    The other thing, related directly to this Thayer situation, is it sounds like he was asked to hack away at an already finished product, not to add new material. At least, that's the take I get. Haven't most of us had to hack away at stories on deadline (either our own or those of a co-worker) in order to make a story fit the space? That has to be done in minutes, not hours or days.
    I would also say if you have a 4,000+ word story, odds are you have plenty of unused material on the cutting room floor. If you needed to do a totally separate story, you probably have enough stuff on the floor you could throw in. If the pay was worth doing it, that is.
     
  3. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Not the kind of writing I expected from an Atlantic writer.
     
  4. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I don't necessarily advocate writing for free, and I've been really strong against it in the past. But, on the other hand, I understand. Most pieces are of little monetary value, and treated as such. I hate to say it, but I'd rather publish a piece for free on The Atlantic's main page (not its Huffington Post-style blogger ghetto, which I wasn't aware of) than cover a prep football game for $60. One is an investment in my career. The other really isn't.
     
  5. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Well then, you just haven't covered a Bellows Falls-Springfield game! Or something.
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Oh, my friend, I've covered lots and lots and lots and lots of Bellows Falls-Springfield games. And then a few more Bellows Falls-Springfield games. Or, at least, their equivalent. In many, many sports.
     
  7. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member


    The world belongs to those who do both.
     
  8. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Too bad you never had the great joy of covering a game at Whitingham High in Vermont. Really, it's a whole other sort of world up in that thar mountain. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. At one point the entire boys program was the worst in Vermont. Great, wonderful kids. But awful athletes, by and large.

    But the school is no more. It consolidated with Wilmington into Twin Valley High.
     
  9. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    But if you're on The Atlantic's main page, then you have a great piece or great talent or a great connection, maybe all three. Publishing for free in that case isn't "an investment", it's just bad business. If you can't score some coin there, you've got issues. Say what you will about the prep football game, but that check's gonna feed the family.
     
  10. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    In reality, yes.

    But, theoretically:

    I'm offered 800 words of front-page real estate at The Atlantic. Or The New Yorker. Or Slate. But I have to write it for free.

    I'm offered $60 to cover a high school basketball game Friday night. Or $160 even.

    I take the real estate every time.

    I wonder how high the paycheck for the game would have to go before I'd cover it instead. Pretty damned high.
     
  11. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Are you looking at this as someone who has another job and doesn't have to rely on writing for your income?
     
  12. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    It just seems to me that too few writers think their own work has much value. If you don't think it's valuable, why would anyone else?

    And, if you don't think it has much value, why are you doing it?
     
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