Comments on: How’s your media recession? http://www.freelanceunbound.com/2009/09/09/how%e2%80%99s-your-media-recession/ Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:23:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: pitchingtheworld http://www.freelanceunbound.com/2009/09/09/how%e2%80%99s-your-media-recession/comment-page-1/#comment-250 pitchingtheworld Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:50:26 +0000 http://www.freelanceunbound.com/?p=2178#comment-250 Don't really know what to think about this: in the last week or so I've been both upbeat (after landing a couple of commissions) and in despair (after reading, for the millionth time, that the career I've pretty much sunk the last few years into is going to be obsolete before too long). Incidentally, I've started a blog about pitching each of the 642 magazines listed in the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook. The whole project (if you could call it that) was born out of frustration and is part-gimmick, part experiment and part-necessity. Have a read here if you fancy, but it isn't really that good yet. http://pitchingtheworld.wordpress.com/ Don’t really know what to think about this: in the last week or so I’ve been both upbeat (after landing a couple of commissions) and in despair (after reading, for the millionth time, that the career I’ve pretty much sunk the last few years into is going to be obsolete before too long).
Incidentally, I’ve started a blog about pitching each of the 642 magazines listed in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. The whole project (if you could call it that) was born out of frustration and is part-gimmick, part experiment and part-necessity. Have a read here if you fancy, but it isn’t really that good yet.
http://pitchingtheworld.wordpress.com/

]]> By: Pete http://www.freelanceunbound.com/2009/09/09/how%e2%80%99s-your-media-recession/comment-page-1/#comment-202 Pete Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:05:45 +0000 http://www.freelanceunbound.com/?p=2178#comment-202 I went freelance mid-2007 and had a full year of working every hour going and swimming in pools of cash. I exaggerate a little bit, but it went very well - I was earning twice as much as I had done in the staff job I left, but working about 1.5 to 2 times as hard as well. The crash for me came in stages. One regular client cut back on news shifts in May 08. The biggest drop came in Aug/Sept 08. I found a full-time job then to see me through, but I miss the freedom of freelancing and would do it again if the right circumstances arose. I went freelance mid-2007 and had a full year of working every hour going and swimming in pools of cash. I exaggerate a little bit, but it went very well – I was earning twice as much as I had done in the staff job I left, but working about 1.5 to 2 times as hard as well.

The crash for me came in stages. One regular client cut back on news shifts in May 08. The biggest drop came in Aug/Sept 08. I found a full-time job then to see me through, but I miss the freedom of freelancing and would do it again if the right circumstances arose.

]]> By: Star http://www.freelanceunbound.com/2009/09/09/how%e2%80%99s-your-media-recession/comment-page-1/#comment-201 Star Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:47:06 +0000 http://www.freelanceunbound.com/?p=2178#comment-201 After 28 yrs as sole support of my family, I am seeing the profession of writing--and I do consider it a profession--being downgraded by digitization and outsourcing. When the $1-$5 "article" jobs stated appearing two yrs ago, I thought it was a joke. I wrote essays about "cheeseballs." Now--it's the norm--companies like Demand Studios, Associated Content, Hub Pages, Suite 101 and many others litter Craigs and other job boards. Bid sites like oDesk, Guru, and so on invite writers to push each other to the bottom. Writing is now "repurposing" (changing the words in someone else's work to make it "original") or else pulling 400 words out of your brain as authoritative. It's educated typing, I guess. I saw an ad for 1000 articles--hey, a thousand bucks! Who could even type that much--that's 5 novels' worth. This business is now in shambles. Will natural selection will out and the better people and companies be left standing? I am a dreamer. Thus I dream on. After 28 yrs as sole support of my family, I am seeing the profession of writing–and I do consider it a profession–being downgraded by digitization and outsourcing. When the $1-$5 “article” jobs stated appearing two yrs ago, I thought it was a joke. I wrote essays about “cheeseballs.” Now–it’s the norm–companies like Demand Studios, Associated Content, Hub Pages, Suite 101 and many others litter Craigs and other job boards. Bid sites like oDesk, Guru, and so on invite writers to push each other to the bottom. Writing is now “repurposing” (changing the words in someone else’s work to make it “original”) or else pulling 400 words out of your brain as authoritative. It’s educated typing, I guess. I saw an ad for 1000 articles–hey, a thousand bucks! Who could even type that much–that’s 5 novels’ worth. This business is now in shambles. Will natural selection will out and the better people and companies be left standing? I am a dreamer. Thus I dream on.

]]> By: j http://www.freelanceunbound.com/2009/09/09/how%e2%80%99s-your-media-recession/comment-page-1/#comment-200 j Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:13:13 +0000 http://www.freelanceunbound.com/?p=2178#comment-200 Well, after wanting to be a journalist from the age of about 12, I decided around four years ago to build on my measly 4 GCSEs and get some real education and finally become a journalist. I went to the OU for three years and, after that, I enrolled on an (expensive) NCTJ course. I started the course about a year ago and finally graduated about two months ago. All through my college time, I was reading endless streams of “End of Journalism” type stuff – and found it difficult to be hopeful about the usual local rag-to-national career progression that I kind of expected. Whilst studying, nothing was certain – not one of us new whether the NCTJ we were working towards was worth the paper it was printed on. But now I have graduated, I am strangely optimistic – I have seen jobs in quite a few nooks and crannies on the net, and I feel – logically – that if I target as many newspapers as possible, for a long enough period, then my break will finally come. I came out of school with nothing and I have spent years and years working toward the day I land that first job. I have no idea whether there’ll be a news industry – due to this recession and the internet - in the future, but I am going to keep trying in the one that’s still there, init. Well, after wanting to be a journalist from the age of about 12, I decided around four years ago to build on my measly 4 GCSEs and get some real education and finally become a journalist. I went to the OU for three years and, after that, I enrolled on an (expensive) NCTJ course. I started the course about a year ago and finally graduated about two months ago. All through my college time, I was reading endless streams of “End of Journalism” type stuff – and found it difficult to be hopeful about the usual local rag-to-national career progression that I kind of expected. Whilst studying, nothing was certain – not one of us new whether the NCTJ we were working towards was worth the paper it was printed on. But now I have graduated, I am strangely optimistic – I have seen jobs in quite a few nooks and crannies on the net, and I feel – logically – that if I target as many newspapers as possible, for a long enough period, then my break will finally come. I came out of school with nothing and I have spent years and years working toward the day I land that first job. I have no idea whether there’ll be a news industry – due to this recession and the internet – in the future, but I am going to keep trying in the one that’s still there, init.

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