Freelancers: Having problems at Toronto Star Touch?

December 17, 2015 Editor News toronto star touchtrouble spots

Hi, freelancers. If you’ve been submitting articles or photographs to Toronto Star Touch and have been having problems of any kind, please get in touch with us at freelance@cmg.ca.

All communications will be kept strictly confidential.

The Problem of Press Trips

August 26, 2015 Editor Journalism freelance compensationpress tripstravel writingtrouble spots

by Keph SenettFreelance writers are masters of ingenuity. We have to be. Decreasing wages and increasing demands have made full-time freelance writing a losing proposition. Those of us who wish to remain in the field quickly develop strategies to make it work: We stack assignments, boost our incomes with part-time jobs, and network like crazy.…

Yellow Pages Canada offering content mill rates for app writing work

August 14, 2015 Editor News compensationcontent farmsfreelance compensationgetting paidtrouble spotsyellow pages

CMG Freelance is advising freelance writers across Canada not to accept work from Yellow Pages that pays in the range of 6 to 9 cents per word.Story Board has heard from several highly experienced writers who were approached by Yellow Pages Canada last week with an offer to write “Smart Lists” for Yellow Pages’ digital properties. The work…

Newspapers reject overreaching freelance photography contracts

July 15, 2015 Editor Compensation freelance contractsfreelance photographyphotographytrouble spots

by Rachel SandersFreelance photographers have something to celebrate this week: a little pushback from newspapers against overreaching contracts for concert photography.The Montreal Gazette, La Presse, Le Journal de Montréal, Le Devoir and Métro refused to send photographers to the Taylor Swift show at the Bell Centre in Montreal last Tuesday…

@crapwritinggigs Twitter account mocks low-paying jobs for writers

June 17, 2015 Editor Compensation @crapwritinggigsfreelance compensationtrouble spots

by Rachel Sanders$5 per post. $0.02 per word. It's numbers like these that make a freelance writer’s heart sink. And there’s no shortage of jobs with this kind of rock bottom writing rate being advertised on the internet these days.For one writer, it all just got to be too much. Six months ago that person started a Twitter account called…

The Globe and Mail urged to “pay the writers”

May 06, 2015 Editor News facts & argumentsfreelance compensationtrouble spots

A small campaign has blossomed on Facebook over the past few hours as freelance writers press The Globe and Mail to pay the writers of their popular Facts & Arguments essay. In the comments section of a Facebook post celebrating the essay's 25th anniversary writers have been complaining that the paper does not offer any compensation for…

President of NPAC decries Black Press newspaper’s call for volunteer photographers

February 18, 2015 Editor News freelance compensationnpacphotojournalismtrouble spots

by Rachel SandersStories about the devaluing of photojournalism are all too common these days, but it's still shocking when things hit a new low. When John Lehmann, president of the News Photographers Association of Canada, heard that a newspaper in Victoria was advertising for volunteer photographers to cover weekend events, he found the news…

Radio freelancers battle for copyright

February 04, 2015 Editor News amicopyrightfreelance contractstrouble spots

by Rachel SandersIn the two and a half years since I've been the editor of Story Board, I've posted all kinds of news and opinion pieces about negotiations and disputes over freelance contracts.The contracts in question have come from a wide variety of media outlets -- ranging from Canada Wide Media, to the Toronto Star, to TC Media. But none…

Unpaid Pan Am Games writing jobs raise ire

November 13, 2014 Editor News freelance compensationpan am gamestrouble spotsunpaid writing

[caption id="attachment_9518" align="alignright" width="265"] The altered version of the Pan Am Games' ad for unpaid feature writers.[/caption]Last Thursday, Toronto freelance writer and investigative journalist Andrew Livingstone ran across a job ad posted by the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games.The ad was seeking five writers to produce feature…