FREE-lancing: the ethics and economics of paying writers In 2013, the Magazine Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication sponsored a panel to discuss the “ethics and economics” of unpaid freelancing. Is it OK, the panel asked, for editors to ask journalists to give them stories in exchange for “exposure”? Is there ever a time […]
Freelancers’ Vital Role in International Reporting: Thoughts on the Post 9/11 World
With the rise of media conglomerates, foreign news has been shoved aside. By Nate Thayer (Published in Nieman Reports in December 2001, shortly after the terrorist attack in New York City and the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, now the longest war in American history) At an annual gathering of the International […]
Freelance Journalism: Robot sex poll reveals I Got Invited–then disinvited–as guest on Huffington Post TV
Robot Sex Poll Reveals Huffington Post Uses Slave Plantation Economic Business Model to Convince Writers to Work for No Pay: “You Should be Grateful We Let You be Our ‘House Negro’ or You’d be Picking Cotton in the Fields With the Rest of the Slaves” (This story was published four years ago today on an […]
Journalists say they prefer risk of beheading in Syria than reporting Ebola
U.S. Journalist with Ebola Highlights Special Terror Reporters Face Covering Disease Pandemic By Nate Thayer October 6, 2014 An American journalist stricken with the Ebola virus in Liberia has highlighted the unique dangers faced by reporters covering the rapidly growing disease pandemic, many of whom say they feel safer covering the wars in Syria where […]
Artist to Showtime: offer of “exposure” but no $’s “devalues the work of everyone”
Graphic artist asked by entertainment giant Showtime to work for no pay, rather “invaluable national exposure across multiple platforms.” Responds appropriately, says Showtime is “unethical”, “devalues the work of everyone” By Nate Thayer August 16, 2014 Dan Cassaro, a graphic artist who runs a design business in Brooklyn, New York, received an email from the giant Showtime entertainment […]
Is a freelance journalism career a Sisyphean delusion?
Why today I think continuing my career as a freelance journalist may be a Sisyphean, untenable delusion By Nate Thayer June 5, 2014 Here is an update with further evidence suggesting that making a viable living as a professional freelance journalist and writer is an untenable, Sisyphean delusion: I was sitting at my desk yesterday morning, […]
Canadian Journalist Dave Walker Found Dead in Cambodia
Missing Canadian Journalist Dave Walker Found Dead in Cambodia Press Release Statement by Dave Walker’s Family 1 May 2014 Dear all, The family, friends, and many loved ones of Dave Walker are deeply saddened that Dave was found dead today, May 1, at the Angkor Wat temples in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He had been missing […]
ABC News Exposed for Threats Demanding Undue Credit for Pulitzer Prize
Center for Public Integrity Responds with Epic Smack Down after ABC News tries to Retroactively Steal Credit from Investigative Journalist Pulitzer Winner Chris Hamby By Nate Thayer April 16, 2014 On Monday April 14, the excellent investigative journalist, Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity, won the Pulitzer Prize for best Investigative Reporting for […]
The Free Press is Dead–Temporarily
By Nate Thayer March 19, 2014 Don’t believe anything you read in the media anymore. I don’t And spare me the “Mainstream Media” hyperbole. It doesn’t exist. The truth is that the so-called mainstream media, or the tattered shreds of its remaining vestiges, are considerably more trustworthy than the anarchy of online sleuths who never […]
Kabul Job Opening, U.S. Hiring News Photog, Blames Afghan Corruption on “Negative Media Pics”
U.S. Job Opening for News Photogs, Picture Propagandist: U.S. Blames Afghan Corruption on Photographers for “Negative” and “Misleading” Pics U.S. Agency for International Development Says it “Can’t Compete”, Posts Job Opening to Address Charges of Corruption in Afghanistan (Updated at 1800 hours EST with responses from the United States Agency for International Development) Nate Thayer February […]
Why Journalism is Better than a Real Job: Excerpts from Sympathy for the Devil
Why Journalism is Better than a Real Job: Excerpts from Sympathy for the Devil Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s Memoir From Inside Pol Pot’s Cambodia (Copyright Nate Thayer. No publication or distribution in whole or part without express prior written permission from the author) Please consider donating to support the publication of Sympathy for […]
My Sordid Love Affair with Journalism
My Sordid Love Affair with Journalism Excerpts from Sympathy for the Devil: A Foreign Correspondent Inside Pol Pot’s Cambodia Copyright Nate Thayer. No republication in whole or part without prior written permission of the author By Nate Thayer Journalism and I have a love affair that will never be extinguished. From the beginning, I was […]
