Writers' Rights: Freelance Journalism in a Digital Age

by Nicole S. Cohen

Overview

As media industries undergo rapid change, the conditions of media work are shifting just as quickly, with an explosion in the number of journalists working as freelancers. Although commentary frequently lauds freelancers as ideal workers for the information age – adaptable, multi-skilled, and entrepreneurial – Nicole Cohen argues that freelance media work is increasingly precarious, marked by declining incomes, loss of control over one’s work, intense workloads, long hours, and limited access to labour and social protections. Writers’ Rights provides context for freelancers’ struggles and identifies the points of contention between journalists and big business. Through interviews and a survey of freelancers, Cohen highlights the paradoxes of freelancing, which can be simultaneously precarious and satisfying, risky and rewarding. She documents the transformation of freelancing from a way for journalists to resist salaried labour in pursuit of autonomy into a strategy for media firms to intensify exploitation of freelance writers’ labour power, and presents case studies of freelancers’ efforts to collectively transform their conditions. A groundbreaking and timely intervention into debates about the future of journalism, organizing precariously employed workers, and the transformation of media work in a digital age, Writers’ Rights makes clear what is at stake for journalism’s democratic role when the costs and risks of its production are offloaded onto individuals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773599772
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Nicole S. Cohen is assistant professor in the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Freedom's Double Edge: Freelance Journalism and Precarity 3

1 A Site of Struggle: Theorizing Freelance Media Work 24

2 A Labour History of Freelance Journalism 55

3 Freelancers' Dues: Wages, Contracts, Copyright 79

4 Hustle, Write, Cope: The Microautonomy of Freelance Work 113

5 Work in the Content Factory: Doing Digital journalism 141

6 Unite the Write: Freelancers and Collective Organization 171

7 Packs of Lone Wolves: Experiments in Organizing Freelancers 199

Conclusion: Journalism's Precarity Penalty 232

Notes 251

References 263

Index 307

Editorial Reviews

09/26/2016
Cohen’s debut effectively studies how freelance journalism has changed, and been forced to change, with the advent of the digital age. Using the early days of the Canadian Freelance Union in 2007 as a soft launch point, Cohen examines the historical shifts and present conundrums that have changed freelance journalism from an (ideally) autonomous business model to one rife with underpaid labor, precarity and devaluation of work, and exploitation of society’s most vulnerable—when they’re involved at all. Her approach and theses are intersectionally feminist, and many of her arguments highlight and attack fundamental inequality in the distribution of corporate power: “The perspectives and voices in media are increasingly homogeneous, reflecting the interests of those already in power. In particular, women, people of color, aboriginal people, and working-class people are underrepresented in media industries as journalists, editors, executives, and managers, as well as sources and subjects.” Through interviews and statistical data, and with a healthy bibliography and notes, Cohen has crafted a surprisingly hopeful, decidedly thorough treatise on shifting power structures and business ethics in a field that’s constantly reinventing itself. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Writers’ Rights will establish Cohen as the leading authority on freelance journalism for many years to come.” Ursula Huws, University of Hertfordshire


“Cohen has crafted a surprisingly hopeful, decidedly thorough treatise on shifting power structures and business ethics in a field that’s constantly reinventing itself.” Publisher’s Weekly

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