In short, quit it.
Stop giving away your writing talent -- and I use that term loosely -- because every time you do, you diminish the profession, and my already blackened heart dies a little more inside.
Why the rant? Because today was the third time in as many weeks that I heard, "I won't pay for content." (A word I despise, for the record. Articles! The written word! Please, anything but content.) I've heard this from web entrepreneurs and high-level directors of large media corporations alike, who see how crowd sourcing content (ugh) works for traffic giants like HuffPo and Forbes, brand image be damned. And sure, it makes sense from a business standpoint: why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
But every time they say it, I take it as personal as if they just insulted my mother. Because I wanted this career for as long as I can remember. I trained for it. I studied and practiced it. I deserve to have that commitment respected and rewarded. Because right now, it feels like I trained my whole life to be an Olympic wrestler to only have someone tell me, "Yeah... We're not really doing that anymore."
Look, I get it: A lot of people harbor dreams of being a "writer" and go to any means necessary to be called one. And I don't want to discourage anyone from that dream because some of you are probably (maybe) even good at it. But for the love of god and my student loan payments that saddled me with this now seemingly worthless journalism degree, please stop saying you'll write for free just for the sake of getting published and having a few clips. Any editor worth his salt knows that it ain't hard to get published on Huffington Post and likely won't take those clips seriously anyway. You're better off starting your own blog and monetizing that -- because by doing it any other way you're just ruining it for the rest of us, and ultimately, yourself.
I mean, even prostitutes get paid, don't they?
Photo: Pacific Ties
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