Freelancing -- freedom at a price
Now there is a whole new generation that knows only team jerseys. For them, independent perspective -- that dangerous 'free' -- and losers go hand in hand.
SHYAM G MENON ruminates on the trade-off between freedom and security.
There is a notion that journalists opting to freelance are typically subsidized by a variety of saviors ranging from a pension to savings; a second job, bulk editing assignments or a well employed spouse. When I started out I had some savings and none of the rest. What kept me alive as a freelance journalist for the last three and a half years were good friends.
These days most journalists I know are employed. Journalism is increasingly the stuff of masthead and sworn loyalty. The generation before me enjoyed a lifetime in the profession without the need for highlighting their team jersey. They were journalists first. My generation born in the 1960s saw that transformation to team jersey and can narrate the story of change. Now there is a whole new generation that knows only team jerseys. For them, independent perspective -- that dangerous 'free' -- and losers go hand in hand. Life is all about winning and winning is easier when you conform. It's what happens when Manchester United is the name of a newspaper or TV channel. Except for those seeking additional income or escaping the boredom of an otherwise contended life, freelancing has come to resemble a pilgrimage. What should have been a normal thing to do in journalism has acquired the hues of a spiritual quest, one in which absence of team makes you an outcast in terms of money, relevance for publishing and even belonging to the profession. You wizen like a hermit; the mind goes empty, as does the stomach.
Unless you are a smart journalist or blessed with frequent armchair assignments, the payment per article is low. If you bothered to choose a topic that was geographically distant, then no payment around compensates for the transportation cost, food and lodging along the way even if you made sure that you kept such expenses as low as possible. You travel cheap, catch a bus, stay in windowless cubicles masquerading as hotel rooms, eat biscuits and drink tea to contain hunger -- still you would be guilty of over-spending. Not to mention the government's gift of relentless economic inflation! There was a lesson on contemporary journalism in inflation too. As a freelancer, I was stung by inflation much before the employed. My article on inflation, authored by personal misery, was rejected every time I sent it for publishing. That told me, employment had become a Lakshman rekha for the profession. Ensconced in that safe haven, you could sing paeans to Gucci and Ferrari in times of inflation and not be out of tune.
Freelancing is self inflicted punishment. You may have twenty years of work experience as a journalist, but the income earned per word submitted is less than what a fresh recruit at a big newspaper or magazine commands. In fact, most people retort saying the cross-over to freelancing was done willfully and with the desire to trade earnings for freedom (a senior editor once told me that as a freelancer all I required to do was to think of a story and go after it. I still wonder if he said that to merely vent the hatred he felt for my 'free' existence). So, why complain of low earnings when you are on a spiritual quest? I have no answer. I can only ask -- shouldn't a man live?
A precise description of freedom is one of the toughest assignments possible on the planet. An analogy for freedom's value to professions would be to compare the employed situation to a dinosaur, a diplodocus. It is tempting to trade the tiny head for the secure bulk, as a stamp of authority. Look at it differently and you may wonder whether the tiny head, realizing the limited perspective in a ground hugging world, has stretched the neck by several feet to break away from the immovable bulk. Freedom is a sculptor of perspective, it is an enabler -- it is one of many things and all of many at a given point. Businesses have always known its revitalizing ability, particularly for creative pursuits. In films, the studios impress with big ticket productions but plenty of movies made independently rivet for their originality. Indeed where craft matters, giant studios intentionally work with boutiques.
In Indian journalism however, drop that 'free' and the apparent lack of mobility multiplies reward manifold. No questions asked. The higher salary for the employed is actually premium paid for being on call; something relevant in these days of settled life, clustering and news breaks galore in the cluster. For some, it is rather tragic because traditionally the idea of a journalist has been that of an inquisitive human being, pursuing perspective and traveling for that. I don't want to grudge people their salaries or belittle the stories in the urban cluster. But please understand my struggle -- my struggle as freelancer is how to recoup the expense incurred for one's work, which is a stage much ahead of income. Is being free that big an offence to the profession and society?
Even if you overlooked those bills and agreed to work for low reward, finding space to publish is difficult. Employed people are neither asked for track record nor quality of writing, they automatically find parking space. Freelance writing on the other hand is akin to a park in the city's center where all sorts of people claim a share of common real estate. You have to compete with retired journalists, bureaucrats, celebrities, TV anchors augmenting ample salaries with print columns, housewives on vacation and anyone with a flair for writing. The under-cutting has only increased with that new invention of the employed -- citizen journalist; a sort of privileged fan club for Manchester United. Thus you may type a thousand words every day but a lot of it never sees the light of day. Naturally you can't complain about competition. Can you? What you wish hadn't been the case is the manner in which this oversupply of 'journalists' saps the dignity of one.
I have had situations where the simple courtesy of a yes or no to submitted article was denied or delayed for long. It made me feel I didn't exist; the employed existed in capital letters. One of my articles took nearly a year to be published; during that wait, the main protagonist died of old age. Very discouraging were occasions when people senior by designation but junior by age refused to entertain a phone call or request for an appointment. The biggest monetary loss was when I secured a verbal agreement to do a story, the promise of at least a partly reimbursed air fare, traveled over 2000 kilometers and while I was at site chasing the story, found that the publication had already covered it. That is money lost that I will take months to recover given the prevailing payment for freelancers.
In retrospect, it is understandable because this profession has long forgotten what it is like to be alone and without institutional support. This is the age of brands, channels, mastheads and team jerseys. To meet the profession you have to take a sabbatical from Manchester United. In some ways that meet-up is all the value there is to being free. Diplodocus finds its head but loses all the money.
These days most journalists I know are employed. Journalism is increasingly the stuff of masthead and sworn loyalty. The generation before me enjoyed a lifetime in the profession without the need for highlighting their team jersey. They were journalists first. My generation born in the 1960s saw that transformation to team jersey and can narrate the story of change. Now there is a whole new generation that knows only team jerseys. For them, independent perspective -- that dangerous 'free' -- and losers go hand in hand. Life is all about winning and winning is easier when you conform. It's what happens when Manchester United is the name of a newspaper or TV channel. Except for those seeking additional income or escaping the boredom of an otherwise contended life, freelancing has come to resemble a pilgrimage. What should have been a normal thing to do in journalism has acquired the hues of a spiritual quest, one in which absence of team makes you an outcast in terms of money, relevance for publishing and even belonging to the profession. You wizen like a hermit; the mind goes empty, as does the stomach.
Unless you are a smart journalist or blessed with frequent armchair assignments, the payment per article is low. If you bothered to choose a topic that was geographically distant, then no payment around compensates for the transportation cost, food and lodging along the way even if you made sure that you kept such expenses as low as possible. You travel cheap, catch a bus, stay in windowless cubicles masquerading as hotel rooms, eat biscuits and drink tea to contain hunger -- still you would be guilty of over-spending. Not to mention the government's gift of relentless economic inflation! There was a lesson on contemporary journalism in inflation too. As a freelancer, I was stung by inflation much before the employed. My article on inflation, authored by personal misery, was rejected every time I sent it for publishing. That told me, employment had become a Lakshman rekha for the profession. Ensconced in that safe haven, you could sing paeans to Gucci and Ferrari in times of inflation and not be out of tune.
Freelancing is self inflicted punishment. You may have twenty years of work experience as a journalist, but the income earned per word submitted is less than what a fresh recruit at a big newspaper or magazine commands. In fact, most people retort saying the cross-over to freelancing was done willfully and with the desire to trade earnings for freedom (a senior editor once told me that as a freelancer all I required to do was to think of a story and go after it. I still wonder if he said that to merely vent the hatred he felt for my 'free' existence). So, why complain of low earnings when you are on a spiritual quest? I have no answer. I can only ask -- shouldn't a man live?
A precise description of freedom is one of the toughest assignments possible on the planet. An analogy for freedom's value to professions would be to compare the employed situation to a dinosaur, a diplodocus. It is tempting to trade the tiny head for the secure bulk, as a stamp of authority. Look at it differently and you may wonder whether the tiny head, realizing the limited perspective in a ground hugging world, has stretched the neck by several feet to break away from the immovable bulk. Freedom is a sculptor of perspective, it is an enabler -- it is one of many things and all of many at a given point. Businesses have always known its revitalizing ability, particularly for creative pursuits. In films, the studios impress with big ticket productions but plenty of movies made independently rivet for their originality. Indeed where craft matters, giant studios intentionally work with boutiques.
In Indian journalism however, drop that 'free' and the apparent lack of mobility multiplies reward manifold. No questions asked. The higher salary for the employed is actually premium paid for being on call; something relevant in these days of settled life, clustering and news breaks galore in the cluster. For some, it is rather tragic because traditionally the idea of a journalist has been that of an inquisitive human being, pursuing perspective and traveling for that. I don't want to grudge people their salaries or belittle the stories in the urban cluster. But please understand my struggle -- my struggle as freelancer is how to recoup the expense incurred for one's work, which is a stage much ahead of income. Is being free that big an offence to the profession and society?
Even if you overlooked those bills and agreed to work for low reward, finding space to publish is difficult. Employed people are neither asked for track record nor quality of writing, they automatically find parking space. Freelance writing on the other hand is akin to a park in the city's center where all sorts of people claim a share of common real estate. You have to compete with retired journalists, bureaucrats, celebrities, TV anchors augmenting ample salaries with print columns, housewives on vacation and anyone with a flair for writing. The under-cutting has only increased with that new invention of the employed -- citizen journalist; a sort of privileged fan club for Manchester United. Thus you may type a thousand words every day but a lot of it never sees the light of day. Naturally you can't complain about competition. Can you? What you wish hadn't been the case is the manner in which this oversupply of 'journalists' saps the dignity of one.
I have had situations where the simple courtesy of a yes or no to submitted article was denied or delayed for long. It made me feel I didn't exist; the employed existed in capital letters. One of my articles took nearly a year to be published; during that wait, the main protagonist died of old age. Very discouraging were occasions when people senior by designation but junior by age refused to entertain a phone call or request for an appointment. The biggest monetary loss was when I secured a verbal agreement to do a story, the promise of at least a partly reimbursed air fare, traveled over 2000 kilometers and while I was at site chasing the story, found that the publication had already covered it. That is money lost that I will take months to recover given the prevailing payment for freelancers.
In retrospect, it is understandable because this profession has long forgotten what it is like to be alone and without institutional support. This is the age of brands, channels, mastheads and team jerseys. To meet the profession you have to take a sabbatical from Manchester United. In some ways that meet-up is all the value there is to being free. Diplodocus finds its head but loses all the money.
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