Journalists working for free: It's just not cricket or capitalism

Journalism is a job. Just like any other job, real work is done. It can be tiring, the hours can be anti-social, countless studies have shown us up to be terrible at marriage and a bit too good at alcohol consumption, but the rewards can be priceless. Well, almost priceless. Just because many journalists genuinely love their job, it does not mean they should do it for nothing. Like anyone else, journalists have to eat, they have bills to pay, they cannot get by on bylines alone.

But it is a profession where many are expected to work for free. Especially freelance journalists. There is barely a freelancer alive who hasn't been told that the work will be "good for your portfolio" or "it will be good exposure" or "we're not paying anyone because the company hasn't yet broken even". And so on and so forth.

And some companies aren't even that honest. It is a rare freelancer that has been paid for every single piece of work they have produced or, at the very least, hasn't had to embark on a frustrating wild goose chase with editors and accounts staff to ensure money they are legally entitled to ends up in their frequently depleted bank accounts. I know someone who once staged a sit-in at the accounts department of a well-known newspaper. He was only handed a cheque when he lit up a cigarette indoors and refused to put it out. Journalists should not have to resort to being a fire hazard to get paid.

Nor should journalists have to resort to embarrassing people on social media or calling in lawyers because monies owing have not been paid. A high end magazine that I am currently not naming for legal reasons is one such case in point. It was launched in Asia with four issues produced, leaving in its wake a bunch of unpaid freelance journalists and subscribers who never received a single copy. The publisher is now trying his luck in the competitive British market.

I've seen the high quality launch party invitations. I can only assume that these weren't free, that someone paid the printing costs. And, given it's a magazine launch, booze will most likely flow freely and the canapes will most likely be Hoovered up. I can only assume that caterers will be paid for their services. So why haven't journalists who were commissioned to work for the Asian edition been paid?

Well, the plot thickens. I decided to defend the unpaid writers on social media and by the end of today, I'd received a message from the publisher promising that the writers will be paid in two weeks. He has not explained why they were not paid in a timely manner. He has also promised to me that subscribers who have not received copies of the Asian edition will receive six issues free of charge. I will keep everyone posted on whether everyone is paid in full within the next two weeks.

I wish the publisher well in his British endeavours, if only because I value a free press operating in a free market economy, and I value diversity in the media. Without that sort of press freedom, we have North Korea. I value the BBC, I value not-for-profit media outlets such as Channel 4 but I also value the outlets that operate in the free market. The more publications the market can support, the more work there is for journalists and this means there are more ways for people to get their information on everything from sports cars to Syria. 

And this means that media outlets have to value the skills of journalists, to pay them properly so that quality products are created, products that people will want to consume, products that advertisers can work with, confident that it is credible, that print run and circulation figures are not being massaged, products that paid-up subscribers will receive in a timely manner without publishers having to give away freebies to save face. This is not just good for the media, it is smart business sense. And part of this is ensuring the people that do the work are paid. Nobody should have to do their jobs as a labour of love. When people are not paid, that is when there is a greater reliance on the welfare state. Why would any capitalist support that? Yet, sadly, it appears, so many do. There are plenty of media businesses constantly advertising for unpaid interns, unpaid full time staff or not paying in a timely manner, or simply not paying at all. It has to stop.



Photograph of Jane Stafford, scientist and medical writer, from the Smithsonian Institute.

Exploitation, unemployment and the job snob myth

It is so easy to mock the plight of Cait Reilly, the geology graduate who took legal action against the Department of Work and Pensions after being forced to work at Poundland or lose her £53-a-week in unemployment benefits.

When the story first broke, there was the predictable outrage. "Is she too good to work at Poundland? Just because she has a degree, why does that make her so bloody special? She's just a lazy job snob! In my day, we left school at 15 and went down coal mines...".

How we laughed when Frankie Boyle wrote in The Sun that with her geology degree, he was astounded that "the ability to recognise a rock was not a recession-proof skill".

But, as is common to most kneejerk outrages, there was a lack of nuance in the venom. In order to work at Poundland, Reilly had to give up her volunteer post at a museum where she was gaining experience towards employment as a curator, a relevant career choice for her degree.

A couple of weeks stacking shelves at Poundland with no prospect of a paid job of any description is not a good outcome. It is a good thing that a three-judge panel at the Royal Courts of Justice ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) acted unlawfully.

There is nothing wrong with working at Poundland. There is, however, plenty wrong with Poundland using the work-for-the-dole scheme as a source of cheap labour. This is not a meaningful solution to Britain's unemployment problem. If there are jobs that need to be done at Poundland, Poundland should offer unemployed people those jobs and pay them appropriately.

Behold, a private company taking government money in lieu of hiring staff and paying them properly - how is that an acceptable solution to unemployment? Why would any Tory support that? Oh, except that it means a few boxes get ticked and it helps to inaccurately massage the unemployment figures...

There is not a single new job created by this policy and the only real winners are employers like Poundland who get paid by the taxpayers to save money on their wages bill.

To take a graduate in any field away from relevant voluntary work or internships - with the threat of losing benefits - is counter-productive and short-sighted. Surely it is better for graduates to gain valuable experience that will lead to a job relevant to their degree than to bung them in Poundland for a couple of weeks with no real opportunity at the end of the placement.

Indeed, internships and voluntary work can already turn into forms of exploitation without the added threat of losing benefits for graduates who must forego relevant work experience to ensure boxes are ticked and unemployment stats are inaccurately massaged.

If graduates can still receive unemployment benefits while undertaking relevant voluntary work or internships, this will improve their chances of getting a job that is not only satisfying (because, you know, God forbid somebody go to university with the aim of obtaining a meaningful job at the end of it all...) but probably better paid than being a shelf-stacker at Poundland.

Or perhaps this government is hell-bent on making education so unaffordable that more people simply won't bother to go to university. Maybe students who would otherwise have gone to university will simply leave school and go to work at Poundland rather than have any other ambition? Does that sound like the foundation for a nation of strivers, those people of whom David Cameron claims to be so fond?

As a result, graduates who end up in jobs related to their degrees will pay taxes, will probably be able to pay off student debts a teeny bit faster and they will become more economically active. And the graduates won't be taking up jobs at Poundland that do not require a university education and should be offered to unemployed people who are not necessarily degree-qualified. What Tory could possibly object to any of this?

Iain Duncan Smith, we eagerly await a new policy announcement on this one. Because, let's face it, David Cameron is highly unlikely to add you to the unemployment statistics.

UPDATE
Here is Cait Reilly's articulate response to the court decision and the controversy.


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com

Internships: the new cheap labour

A friend of mine has just graduated from university with a journalism degree. She is passionate, bright and hardworking. She already has some practical experience - essential if you are going to impress any potential employer who may otherwise think you just spent three years smoking joints in your pyjamas in between a gruelling eight-hour week of classes - and she has not yet found a paid job in the media.

But she has been offered an unpaid internship with a publishing company. She is taking this opportunity because she feels it could be of value. She is not a workshy idiot and she would be delighted if the internship turned into a paid position. But it won't be easy. She is not from London and, like most internships, it is based in the capital and only covers daily transport costs. So she has been working in retail in her hometown so she has enough cash to ensure she doesn't have to sleep on a park bench and live out of restaurant bins.

At least it is a step up from the internship I saw advertised on Gorkana that only offers to cover transport costs for London's Zones 1 and 2. So not only would there be no proper financial reward but that particular employer expects the intern to live in the most expensive part of London without an income. Whoever is in charge at Beach Tomato deserves to have rotten tomatoes thrown at them.

In short, internships (and not just in the media) have become white collar exploitation. I work for a small publishing company and I understand times are tough. The prospect of someone young and keen working for free for anything up to 12 months is appealing. But it's not fair. Even if the employer cannot afford to pay the London Living Wage of £8.30 per hour or the Cratchit-like UK minimum wage of £6.19 per hour* (and given that some of the companies advertising for unpaid interns are big media organisations, I suspect this is often not the case at all), the least they can do is offer accommodation assistance for interns who are not Londoners. Whether it is putting the intern up in cheap accommodation or, hell, letting the intern crash with a member of staff, it would be better than no help at all.

But let us not forget that unpaid internships, unless they are for credit towards a degree are illegal. Oh, wait. We already have forgotten that and nobody is power is doing a damn thing about it.

And it's not as if the current government is likely to help. With George Osborne trumpeting - to rapturous cheers - cuts to housing benefits for unemployed people under 25 at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday, it is clear that they are not serious about fixing the nation's unemployment problem. Will the Liberal Democrats step in on this one? The short-sightedness of compounding an unemployed person's struggles by putting their basic right to shelter at risk is appalling.

The "well, they can just move back in with their parents" mantra is equally unhelpful. This is useless to anyone whose parents are dead, anyone whose parents are abusive, anyone who is estranged from their parents, anyone whose parents live in a bedsit, anyone whose parents live in an area where jobs are hard to come by and so on and so forth. There are so many variables that mean the move-back-in-with-folks solution is no solution at all. An engineering graduate, for example with skills and qualifications to work in the oil industry will be better placed to find a job in a city like Aberdeen. If their parents live in, say, a small East Anglian village, that's not the best place for that person to be in order to get to interviews, undertake internships and ultimately become a productive professional.

I get that the housing benefits cut is a stick rather than a carrot - the rationale being that if someone isn't getting any state assistance for housing, that'll be the kick up the bum they need to go and get a damn job. Except there aren't enough jobs out there. And unpaid internships, which keep young people economically inactive, are masquerading as alternatives to actual employment.

The internet is full of stories about vile interns - the entitled brats who throw hissy fits because they had to go and get the coffees or waltz into workplaces and expect to run the place - but these are not the graduates I've come across. They just want a damn break.

* Just so we're perfectly clear on how Cratchit-like the minimum wage is, at £6.19 per hour with a 40-hour working week, that equals £246.80 per week or the pre-tax annual salary equivalent of £12,833.

Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com