This is going to sound like a narcissistic list, but indulge me for a minute and I'll get to the point.
In the last few years I've written an article that was published in a national newspaper (and done a significant amount of research for the same paper). I've done weeks of week for local commercial radio (including putting together voicers and packages that were broadcast and written reams of copy that were read out). I've carried out interviews that were broadcast on local TV. I've written copy that was sent out on a national broadcasting network to over a hundred radio stations. I've even counted a sweaty man doing press-ups to decide if he should be selected for a TV programme.
I could go on, but I'm even starting to bore myself.
But here's the punchline; I've never been paid anything at all for a piece of journalism, or anything close. Last week, I was offered expenses for the first time in my life. 34p a mile for petrol seemed like a massive leap forward from free work to a proper job. Prior to that, it's cost me money to work for national newspapers and local stations. Work at a national newspaper in the summer cost me a couple of hundred pounds in travel. Luckily I had somewhere free to stay.
There's a painfully optimistic piece on the NUJ website, discussing the
work experience racket. I'm quite fond of the NUJ, with the bi-monthly magazine of people holding placards. But surely even they can't pretend that any company is going to pay someone on work experience for something that gets published when there's a dozen other people that would take the 'job'.
In my case, and I think in the case of the vast majority of people trying to get into the industry, the aim is to get something broadcast. It suggests that you've reached a quality threshold that means that one day, in the far far future you might get a real job. Or at least get expenses.
In most other industries this would be unacceptable exploitation, and it's only recently that it's started to annoy me. Before that I was ready to grab anything as a means to an end, whatever the cost to myself. But I've started to realise that this is a pattern that's likely to carry on if and when I do get a paid job. I've now met a few journalists who are being exploited either with their time or their money (or both).
At one national paper I met a young man who produces one of the most popular pages in the whole paper on a daily basis. He's been there for well over a year and gets paid nothing for his Monday to Friday work. His only consolation is that he now gets paid for doing a tedious and unskilled job at the paper on Saturday. Last time I spoke to him he didn't see any hope of a permanent job.
Most remarkably he didn't show any sign of complaining that he was providing them with something they could make money out of, and he was getting nothing but experience in return.
Of course, the reasons are obvious and complaining is fruitless. It's a competitive industry and there's usually someone that will work for less. It's also an industry where academic qualifications are optional, so the workforce is far too flexible.
Maybe I should appreciate the NUJ and the minimum wage more. Without them, I wonder how many years it would be before there was just one man raking in the cash while an army of skilled journalists work for free and make ends meet with night-time bar work.
I'm too young to be this bitter.
