I have just finished a substantial writing assignment. The satisfaction I feel when I put the last full stop is quickly followed by a sense of emptiness.
What will I do next?
My editor tells me the budget has run out. Now I hang in thin air. This is what it’s like to be freelance; busy one minute, unemployed the next.
Fortunately, I own my own flat and have savings but many freelancers do not. They cannot afford to be without an income for long. More and more journalists are in this vulnerable position, as media cut costs by reducing staff and hiring us for short-term “gigs”.
An often-ignored inequality of the modern world is between those who have staff positions and those who work in the gig economy, doing the same jobs for less money. The young and the old are especially affected by this.
The benefits of a steady job
It was not always the case. When I first joined the Reuters newswire service in 1979, I had not only a fair, regular salary but even a clothing allowance, enough for me to buy a fur coat when I was posted to Moscow!
Reuters also looked after me when I went to war zones. This is not something young freelancers can count on now and I fear they take risks for the hottest stories that will get them noticed.
But the point of being freelance — the beauty of it — is that you are FREE. Free to say “yes” and free to say “no”. I turned down a job offer from RT, the international Russian state-owned television network, although the pay would have been handsome. I did not want to become a propagandist for Russia. Sometimes, it is worth going through a lean period to preserve your reputation in the long term.
It’s great to have a staff job, which brings many opportunities, while with freelancing you may have to accept dreary work just to make ends meet. But in any work, there is an element of the exciting and an element of the humdrum.
I went freelance in 1994 and never once failed to pay the rent or feed myself. I did it because my newspaper wanted to bring me back to headquarters while I preferred to stay in the field.
I couldn’t face a life on the desk, even though a stint at the main office might have led to better long-term prospects. I wanted to keep roaming and choosing my own topics. The result was that I worked not for one publication but for many outlets, which gave me variety. I wrote not only news but features and columns, which led to me writing a book. I might not have done these things had I chosen to climb the career ladder back at HQ.
Starting as a freelancer
If you want to be a journalist — not a PR or comms person in an organisation – but a real journalist in the field, the chances are you will be freelance too, at least at the beginning. So how do you start?
Perhaps you already have a blog, which is a good way to practise your art and make yourself visible. It helps to have a niche. If you have studied science, for example, you could make a name for yourself writing about health or the environment.
There are organisations, too that offer freelancers some financial support. The Rory Peck Trust, for example, offers awards to freelancers in memory of cameraman Rory Peck, who was killed in Moscow in 1993.
The rise in remote work that came partly as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic means that in theory, you can take your laptop and go and work anywhere in the world. You can give yourself a foreign posting. Because now you are your own boss.
If you plan to do this, choose a place where you have a chance to make a mark. Avoid big capitals like Washington or Paris where publications are likely to have staff correspondents and the competition would be fierce.
Rather, choose a seemingly obscure place where news events might develop — a country affected by climate change or one on the edge but not actually in the middle of a conflict zone.
Set a pay scale
After I left Russia, I went to Hungary and it proved to be a good base; it is in the centre of Europe and sometimes leans to the East and sometimes to the West.
For compensation, I apply a sliding scale. If a job has great meaning for me, I will do it for nothing. But if it is tedious, only a decent fee will compensate. If it goes against the moral grain, I will consider turning it down altogether.
Once, in Moscow, a gambling business asked me to write a single paragraph for them. They had trouble getting newspapers to take their material. They wanted the paragraph to be published exactly as it was written. I wrote the perfect paragraph and the papers used it without making any changes.
I still wonder about the ethics of taking that job. The pay was enormous. I needed the money and it filled a gap when, like now, I was staring into emptiness.
This is what it means to be freelance. Sometimes you have to be able to sit calmly with the emptiness, trusting that something new and interesting will soon come along.
Source: Freelance journalism doesn’t mean free
