A bout 50 media professionals turned out on a recent Saturday morning at UT Arlington looking for a piece of equipment they had hoped they’d never need: a paddle for negotiating Freelance Creek. Some had just been dumped there through layoffs and buyouts; others have been navigating its twists and turns for a while.
Fort Worth SPJ has sponsored several sessions on “how to survive a layoff.” This time the focus wasn’t so much on writing or pension rollovers as on the next stage in the career and creating a new identity — independent journalist — in a sometimes scary world.
Panelists came mostly from the ranks of professionals who have already left the mainstream media for other work: to start their own company, to build a freelance career, to teach. Carol Zuber-Mallison, formerly of both the Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News, has spent the last 16 years building a successful graphics business. Matt Pulle, former managing editor of Nashville Scene, is a freelance writer and contributor to numerous publications. Bart Weiss is an independent film producer-director and founder of the Dallas Video Festival, and Catherine Team is a 30-year veteran in advertising and marketing and creator of needmedia.com; both are on the UTA faculty.
Weiss, Zuber-Mallison and photographer Manuel Pecina handled the multimedia session. The business panel featured Zuber-Mallison, insurance professional Bill Paschall and Paul Foutch, a former business editor and reporter for the News who is now a financial adviser and stockbroker. Team, Pulle, Meda Kessler, editorial director of the new 360 West magazine, and Gayle Reaves-King, editor of Fort Worth Weekly, talked about getting your name out in the freelance market.
Almost all of the panelists advised to invest time, energy and, where necessary, money in adding skills. “Be fearless,” Team said. “Try anything, learn anything.” She recommended the book “Don’t Make Me Think” and godaddy.com as inexpensive tools for building your own web site.
For those needing stronger photo and video skills, taking a week to attend the Maine Media Workshop was recommended, as was “Professional Business Practices in Photography,” a book about negotiating contracts and copyrights for photo work. Pecina said the American Society of Media Photographers has mock contracts available. Another strong recommendation from the visual pros: Every journalist must know how to use a video camera. A $200 flip camera can shoot high-definition video, so the investment in equipment is modest.
Zuber-Mallison has been doing graphics for decades, but she, too, continues to add skills — she’s learning video editing software now. To learn how to do something, she suggested, first do it for someone as a volunteer. She recommended lynda.com for information on Adobe programs; $300 a year buys access to a multitude of training videos.
The business panel was packed with valuable information. Foutch talked about 401(k)s and making a financial plan. He recommended the Dave Ramsey course on achieving “financial peace.” Paschall stressed the importance of keeping health insurance and the need to carefully read insurance contracts to make sure that preexisting conditions are covered and that loopholes don’t lurk in the fine print. He said personal insurance plans can be designed for freelancers, but often with high deductibles.
Zuber-Mallison discussed the need for freelancers to set themselves up as a business and what that entails: keeping receipts, negotiating with clients, using a simple accounting program, reserving money for taxes (the self-employed pay 15.3 percent in income taxes, paid quarterly) and charging taxes to clients. Some clients want the “Cadillac” version of an assignment, whereas others require something simpler because that’s all they can afford. Request a budget before starting work, and be sure everyone is clear on who is paying for research and other expenses and what it means, in terms of time and money, if the client wants to make changes after work has begun. Zuber-Mallison said journalists are valued for their ability to hit deadlines, what corporate folks call being “paper trained.”
A key aspect of successful freelancing, of course, is finding clients, finding assignments and helping potential clients find you. Pulle recommended that freelancers set aside a certain time or certain day of the week to just find stories. This helps keep the assignments, and therefore the income, flowing (better than finishing one story and then realizing you have nothing else started). Do initial reporting before contacting an editor — a “frustrating but valuable” practice, Pulle called it — and then make clear in the pitch what you know for sure versus what you are still reporting.
 As an editor who frequently publishes the work of freelance writers and photographers, Reaves-King advised
e-mailing a new editor before calling — and before that, reading the publication to know what kind of stories it uses. Keep resource materials short: a brief bio, a small number of best clips, a description of what kind of reporting, writing, editing or photography you want to do. Then be ready with one or two appropriate story ideas. Editors will rarely hand out developed ideas to a first-time freelancer.
Reaves-King passed along the recommendations of Wendy Lyons Sunshine, an award-winning writer and author whose web page, polishedwriting.com, is a gold mine of information for freelancers. Sunshine’s advice:
• Distinguish yourself from the crowd. Keep your name out there, which may mean blogging (for free) or writing cheap rather than not writing at all if assignments are thin. Do a self-evaluation: What are my real skills, and where can I best offer them?
• Network. Go to conferences, list yourself in places like mediabistro and stay in touch with other freelancers, to trade assignments, etc.
• Establish relationships with editors. Think about your niche and niche publications, and be ready to sell yourself as much as the story. Show how you can make life easier for a potential client. Understand what the publication needs and speak to that need.
• Be efficient with your time. This may mean redoing the same story for different publications, or spinning off elements of one story as a second story for another news organization. The freelance market is getting tougher, she said, so don’t get hung up on the type of platform or publication you’re willing to write for.
As an addendum to all this freelance talk, Reaves-King said laid-off journalists should seriously consider whether freelancing is indeed the way they want to earn a living. You probably won’t make as much money as you did at your old job. To make it in the freelance world today, you have to be flexible, be willing to promote yourself, to think outside the box, outside the blog and maybe outside of what you consider to be journalism.
She recalled a former DMN colleague who said how tired he was of hearing people say that “journalism is all I know.” While the news industry is pretty dysfunctional, a journalist’s skills — the ability to write clearly, research, get the facts and convey narratives in words, pictures and videos — are highly valued in many businesses.
Reaves-King quoted author Barbara Ehrenreich, who told a college graduating class about how she pitched a story to a well-known newspaper. The newspaper bit, but for only a fourth of the amount it would have paid just a few years ago. She was bothered, but then she had an epiphany: She’s on a mission and she’ll do whatever it takes.
The recession, Ehrenreich said, is showing journalists that they are not part of the elite but of the working class: underpaid, jerked around and liable to be laid off just like an auto worker or mechanic. But a laid-off auto worker, she said, doesn’t go into the garage and keep assembling cars by hand. Journalists do. As long as there is a story to be told or an injustice to be exposed, she said, journalists will find a way to do it, recession or not.
Even poverty and a dying industry won’t stop us, Ehrenreich said. Because we are all on a mission. Our journalism degree isn’t a certificate of entitlement, it’s a license to fight.
— June 2009