www.sourcethatjob.com has seen a hugely positive response to its stand against the exploitation of journalists in turning down adverts for unpaid work. Our usual editor’s interview slot makes way this week for Daryl Willcox, chairman and founder of the service, who explains the motivation behind the change.
SourceThatJob has previously hosted adverts for editorial internships, work experience and volunteer roles alongside professional vacancies – why the change now?
This issue has crept up on us a little bit. Previously, the ratio of unpaid jobs to paid ones was very much lower. But with the recession biting, the number of unpaid positions being advertised had shot up, while ‘real’ jobs have reduced. So it’s become a problem over the last 12 months or so. We should probably have reacted sooner, we were eventually prompted into action after a number of complaints from jobseekers. I did a bit of research and once I came across the National Union of Journalists’ campaign against work experience exploitation that was it – I decided SourceThatJob was not going to be complicit in exploiting unpaid workers and the many negative effects this results in.
Work experience and internships are often recommended to aspiring journalists – where and how do you think they should be looking for these opportunities?
Genuine work experience positions are of course completely legitimate and an important part of training, be it for journalism or any other media discipline. I remember doing two weeks at Retail Week which was hugely influential on my subsequent journalism career. From the employer’s perspective I actually think that advertising work experience positions on professional media job sites is probably not the best way to get people. There are probably only a handful of relevant colleges in each media discipline, so employers should contact them directly to seek work experience candidates. Use of social media to get the word out is another great way to finding suitable people. If you are looking for work experience yourself there is no better way than to contact media outlets directly with a short, well written email or by phone.
Publishers working on a tight budget, and new publications, often rely on some unpaid contributions to get started or keep afloat. Do you think they can do this in a way that’s fair to their contributors and the industry at large?
I empathise with media outlets on tight budgets which want to keep producing a decent volume of good content with very limited resources. There is a real danger that trying to do too much with cheap or unpaid labour will result in poor quality content which could alienate your audience and make things even worse. It is easy to think long-term unpaid internships is the solution, but it isn’t. Much better is to use work experience people but comply with the NUJ guidelines – for example adhere to the maximum unpaid stint of one month. Focus on quality rather than quantity. Use by-lined copy from industry figures, but in a limited way and make sure it is apparent to your readers that the content could be biased. Use user-generated content too, but also in a limited and transparent way. Mix all this with good quality paid-for content and you will have a good balance of quality and volume without breaking the bank.
Comment on this story on Daryl’s blog – www.dwpubsporadic.com/2010/01/sourcethatjob-takes-a-stand-over-exploitation.html
DWPub JournAlert readers have occasionally expressed concern when we’ve featured editors who don’t have a budget for freelance work. We’re going to join SourceThatJob’s effort to support journalists by only featuring interviews where we understand that the publications are open to pitches for paid commissions from professional freelancers.
