Will Write for Food: The Digital Freelance Journalist Dilemma

I am exhausted from following the explosion of opinion about how much freelance journalists should be paid after writer Nate Thayer took on The Atlantic for offering to publish his work, for free.

It used to be that freelance meant you were a free agent. Now, it just means you work for free, or scraps. I understand Thayer’s anger, and I’m glad he started the conversation. And as much as I respect (want to be?!) Matt Yglesias or Alexis Madrigal and hear them on the fact that there is no easy solution to pay smart writers and writers have to write and gosh, darn, they never did really make any money anyway – hearing them talk about why I should write for free makes me envision doing very mean things to them.

AW+

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