By JESSICA RUSK
EMPLOYMENT contracts for journalists seem almost redundant with hundreds dismissed last year.
Dismissals have occurred due to the evolving media environment and reduced newspaper sales across the country.
The sudden dismissals have seen an increase in the number of Australian freelance journalists.
“The number of freelance journalists is increasing,” Jonathon Este, the Media, Entertainment and Acts Alliance (MEAA) Director of Communications, said. “With many journalists losing permanent and stable work, they’re just trying to earn a living doing their own writing.”
The MEAA has started a “Not for Free” campaign which aims to make conditions fair for freelance journalists.
The campaign will help freelance journalists fight over repugnant contracts, such as those formed by the Fairfax empire.
“I was asked a few times to sign that [the Fairfax] contract,” freelance journalist Lucy Roberston said. “After I turned them down a few times, they started saying they wouldn’t keep paying me.
I don’t write for them anymore.”
The freelance contract used by Fairfax has been in place for the past three years.
The publication has been asking journalists to sign contracts that, along with other things, make them exclusive writers to the publication if just three of their works are published within six months.
“In other words,” journalist, Osmanchin said. “For the sake of work worth $3000 at the very most a freelancer is prevented from earning a living.”
This condition of virtual ownership of a journalist and their works both past and present, denies the journalist to remain a freelancer.
“The aim of this campaign is to educate both journalists and publications about the long-term effects of publishing unpaid work,” Este said. “If journalists offer their work for free, then they make it harder for those who are trying to make a living off their writings.
A publicist won’t pay someone for their work, if another person is offering theirs for nothing.”
The issue of journalists working for free begins when the writers send in their work to major news corporations hoping to start a new work relationship.
This has, in turn, created a false perception in the minds of these corporations.
Many now feel as though they can possess work from freelance journalists for minimal or no cost.
Many writers don’t see the harm in submitting pieces at no cost to the publication, Este said. “They use it as an opportunity to give themselves a voice.”
The MEAA acknowledges and strongly presses the issue that if there are no journalists, these media empires would not exist.
“It’s really hard sometimes [to be a freelancer],” Robertson said. “You’re at the bottom of the barrel, especially when it comes to being published and paid on time.
Cash flow is a really big problem, I find.”
This campaign is also working toward the issue of bullying by media publications toward journalists.
Media publications aim to gain any story notes the journalist may own, with or without their completed work, without commission.
“Now the ABCC is getting in on the act,” Alliance federal secretary Christopher Warren said. “[They are] signalling that it will abuse its powers to intimidate journalists and their sources.”
The Alliance believes that if the public, as they rightly should, have to pay for the news, then the publicist should also.
The campaign is still new and is yet to see any real changes in the industry.
The MEAA is still hopeful that changes will occur.
“Australia is a country with little sources of news, compared to other countries…We’re trying to make things fair and actually save the industry,” Este said.
