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Writers: ESPN’s Reilly gave bad advice to grads

avatar by Published May 9, 2011 2:31 pm Updated May 9, 2011 2:37 pm

Sports Journalism.org | Hardball Talk
Rick Reilly told University of Colorado journalism graduates that “when you get out there, all I ask is that you DON’T WRITE FOR FREE!” That’s bad advice says Jason Fry. Don’t automatically turn up your nose when someone promises you no reward other than exposure, he advises grads. Here’s why:

• You’ll get a byline and a link you can point to when people ask what you’ve done before.

• You’ll appear in a publication that people have heard of and take seriously, meaning they’ll be more likely to take you seriously.

• You’ll have someone reading your stuff who can make it better and teach you how to make it better before it ever gets to them.

Craig Calcaterra also says Reilly gave out “horrible advice”:

No, you don’t work for free forever because, hey, ya gotta eat. But most people do have to either take unpaid internships or blog and otherwise hustle to make it in the media these days. Advice that says “NEVER DO THAT!” is useless, because most of those graduates will be asked to do it. They key is to know what unpaid writing gigs could lead to the development of one’s career and, ultimately, into paying jobs and what unpaid writing gigs are essentially slave labor offered by a company simply looking to get something for free.

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  • http://www.jasonfry.net Jason Fry

    Hey @tishgrier:disqus, sorry this is a late reply — been running around like a crazy person. Not trying to sneak in and last-word you.

    Sure I’ve written for free, when I think it’s in my interests. I don’t do it very often these days, but that’s because I’ve got enough experience that folks generally don’t ask me to. But I will in the right situation — for example, I’m trying to expand my portfolio to include some areas I want to write about where I don’t have a name and none of my platforms are good fits for getting those audiences to notice my work. Would I like to get paid for that stuff? Of course. But if I can find the right mix of exposure/credit/audience I want to reach/future possibilities, I’d consider that valuable enough to make up for not getting paid. At least at first.

    As for Mayhill Fowler, I understand why she’s leaving HuffPo — she’s reached a level where she’s proven herself and people know her, as evidenced by the fact that you didn’t need to tell me who she was and I didn’t need to ask. I understand why she now thinks she should get paid, and I imagine she will get paid. But she got to that level by writing for free.

    Places that have that right combination of good audience/valuable name/solid editors do exist. Couple of examples off the top of my head….

    I co-write a Mets blog (for free — which has led to paid gigs for me and a book deal for my co-writer), and one of my favorite other Mets blogs is a place called Amazin’ Avenue. They have lots of folks who write “fan posts” for them for free, the best of which get promoted to the front page, and which they use as a way to find new regular contributors. If I was starting out as a sports blogger, I’d absolutely write AA fan posts for free, because of the audience and halo effect of a good brand and the possibilities it could unlock. (Come to think of it, I’ve written two pieces for AA anthologies, for free.)

    Or take The Awl, which has no shortage of folks who’d love to get paid nothing for writing for them. (Tom Scocca, in disagreeing with me, noted he writes for The Awl, for nothing.) I asked a friend of mine about his (extensive) writing for The Awl, and thought he made the case rather well: “those words are ones I’m really proud of, lots of people read them, and
    they’ve already gotten me opportunities elsewhere. Writing for free at a
    place you respect, for editors you like and respect, and for an
    audience that you want to reach is so manifestly wise that I would’ve
    been stunned if Rick Reilly HAD NOT recommended against it. If you do it
    right, you will get yourself seen by people who can pay you.”

    I don’t think writing for free is an awesome new paradigm (as Scocca seemed to think I was suggesting) or should be celebrated. I think it’s an unfortunate product of ruthless economics. But I also think it’s the reality for a lot of new writers, and they need realistic advice for navigating that. Writing for free has to be a way of unlocking paid work, yes. But if you keep your own interests in mind and act accordingly, it’s not necessarily a sucker’s bet.

  • Anonymous

    Write something worthwhile and you won’t have to resort to haranguing students about undercutting market rates. Note that if Reilly were a company he would be violating anti-trust laws by attempting to fix prices.

    I’m agnostic as to the ethics of it, but I do think your business is in trouble if you have to resort to attempts to control the behavior of your competitors. There are hungry kids out there with talent and energy and the willingness to work for peanuts in pursuit of their dream– there is no way to make an objective case that your middle-class comfort outweighs their ambitions. The reading public will decide that for themselves.

  • Anonymous

    >>>
    Those of us who counsel writers not to work for free are always told we “don’t understand the way things are now.”

    A few decades ago, workers who wanted weekends off were probably told they didn’t understand the current business climate.

  • Anonymous

    >>>
    Those of us who counsel writers not to work for free are always told we “don’t understand the way things are now.”

    A few decades ago, workers who wanted weekends off were probably told they didn’t understand the current business climate.

  • Anonymous

    Jason “Fry Cook”
    >>>For most newcomers, writing for free IS the new internship. It’s how you get experience, clips, find people who will help you, and graduate to paid work.

    Come on – how many ‘free writing’ web sites offer decent editing? I never wanted to hire people who can write well – I wanted to hire people who can write well, the way I want, on deadline. There’s a big difference. A good internship teaches you all of that. Huffington teaches you nothing.

  • Anonymous

    When I taught grad school, I told my students they had some time to intern or write for free. If they continued to write for free after that, they were jeopardizing my ability to make a living and they shouldn’t ask me for advice or a recommendation since I would consider them scabs. This worked pretty well.

  • Anonymous

    The fact that most aspiring journalists even have to consider working for nothing is a message from heaven. The message is: Except for a fortunate few, journalism as a way to make a living is over. Better start looking in some other direction. Either that or marry money.

  • Anonymous

    Jason: have you ever written for free outside of an internship? Have you ever been a blogger who was promised traffic and never received it? Have you ever submitted a cred from a site where you wrote for free, only to be told that it wasn’t “journalism” because you weren’t paid for it?

    The world Reilly’s talking about *may* be a vanishing world, but, I’ll tell you from experience, that you cannot get into organizations where you can do networking, nor can you submit bylines from unpaid publications like blogs, nor submit your own blog work to a union or other organization and get into it. If someone wants to be a *professional* journalist or writer, one *must* be *paid* for one’s work.

    The old world may be vanishing but the transition hasn’t been fully actualized yet so that young people–or anyone who desires a career as a writer or journalist–should not just write for free and expect that free work to count for anything.

    Ask Mayhill Fowler, too, about unpaid writing.

    A lot of the “new” unpaid work, like blogs, or the underpaid work, like at Assoc. Content or Demand Media, is analogous to the small presses of the past, where one got paid in copies. Even back then, writing profs worth their salt, and who knew the profession and publishers, advised against publishing in small presses. They were right back then, too.

    Free writing, unless you are just practicing your craft, and perhaps getting good feedback from professionals, is a sucker’s bet. I will only write for free for myself, on my own blogs or projects or on a friend/fellow blogger’s project. But I will never keep a blog, or do any social media scribing, or write for any other outlet that wants content for free. The only ones free content helps are those who are getting the ad income (or product sales income) from running the sites–not the writers.

  • Anonymous

    Those of us who counsel writers not to work for free are always told we “don’t understand the way things are now.” In the early days of organizing, labor activists were always told they “don’t understand business.” So there was no time in history when we heard, “Yes indeed! Right time, right place to get a decent buck for a decent day’s work!” Working on your own for free is no internship, no matter how you cut it. Graduates are securing internships today at major news organizations, including the more than 200 news nonprofits that are covering all aspects of news in an array of platforms, with the kind of attention and opportunity they deserve. And by the way, it’s been decades since interns fetched coffee.

  • http://twitter.com/kcmikehendricks Mike Hendricks

    By all means, write for free — on your own blog. Tweet. Facebook. Establish your brand on your own terms. Getting noticed is what it’s all about.

    But don’t take the easy way out. Never, ever give away your stuff on a regular basis to some outfit that makes money off your content and all you get is “exposure.” Once in awhile, it’s ok, if you think they might hire you on — but don’t make it a habit.

    Also, if your aim is to get the word out about your cause or simply need an outlet for self expression, that’s ok, too.

    However, if you think that somehow slave labor will get you a paying job, think again. Only in rare cases does that work. Which is why my advice to every other young writer is, like Reilly’s, wise up. Don’t be played for a sucker.

    “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,” Samuel Johnson once said, according to Mike Royko. I think that’s right. For me to personally do the research to verify that S. Johnson is the source of the quote would require, under my guidelines, some sort of remuneration. Hence I lay all of the blame and/or credit on Royko.

    And if that isn’t good enough, tough. You get what you pay for.

  • http://www.jasonfry.net Jason Fry

    Nicely put, but advice for a vanishing world. Our wages and numbers have already been negotiated downward, because the web removed the old geographical barriers to competition and made the available supply of writing so much bigger. There’s a glut of writing and information, and so we’re all getting paid less and/or finding out there are fewer spots available for us. This has already happened — that genie ain’t going back in its bottle.

    Getting an internship is a fine idea — if you get one of the ones remaining, you can start climbing the ladder from internship to night cops at small paper to significant role at small paper to small metro to midsize metro to big metro to national. You’ll definitely learn a lot, and it might even work. Just don’t look at all the broken rungs up above you, or the fact that few of the ladder makers have the means or vision to repair them. Better have a Plan B from the day you get your key card.

    For most newcomers, writing for free IS the new internship. It’s how you get experience, clips, find people who will help you, and graduate to paid work. If you’re smart and learn to separate the unpaid work that will help you advance from the unpaid work that’s simply exploitation, you aren’t going to get boxed in — any more than being an intern in the old system boxed you in to a career of fetching coffee and writing briefs and brites.

  • http://profiles.google.com/tfschick Timothy Schick

    People who write for free are to journalism what street musicians are to music: sometimes entertaining but on a downward career path..

  • Anonymous

    DO NOT WRITE FOR FREE. Every time you do, you make it that much harder for professionals — and you will soon join their ranks — to negotiate a livable fee. Write for free for your J-school newspaper; that’s part of the learning process, and one that will provide you with your first clips. Get an internship after school. You will generate clips. There are places where a new journalist can freelance. You may not get
    paid a fortune, but you will be paid, and that is critical. What you do in regards to remuneration at this point in your career sets the pace. Don’t box yourself in now..