Off The Wire: News for the Canadian media freelancer May 27-June 2

Once a week, we gather stories about the media business, journalism, writing, publishing, and freelancing—with a Canadian focus—and share them in Off the Wire. Who needs a water cooler?

From Canada: 

• Collaborating to Succeed: seminar review [PWAC Toronto]
• Organizing precarious workers: Unions think sector-wide to help freelancers [Rabble]
• 7 Nifty Resources for Freelancers [PWAC Ontario]
• CBC’s popular The Sunday Edition to be cut down to two hours [Globe and Mail]
• Saint John radio strike, lockout sees tentative agreement [CBC]
• Why some journalism grads no longer wait for a job offer [J-Source]
• National Post names Anne Marie Owens as editor [J-Source]
• National Post names first female editor-in-chief [Globe and Mail]

 

From the U.S. and beyond:

• There’s a Gender Pay Gap For Freelancers, But It Isn’t What You Think [Contently]
• How to build a portfolio from scratch (with little experience) [Freelancers Union]
• Working at Vice Media is not as cool as it seems [Gawker]
• Your Newfangled Media Algorithms are Bullshit [Medium]
• Top 10 ways to defeat distractions and get your work done [Lifehacker]
• What every freelancer needs to know about contracts [Freelancers Union]
• Freelancer Etiquette: How to Ask For An Extension [Contently]
• SiriusXM wanted ‘This American Life’: ‘So flattering!’ [Poynter]
• Chicago Public Media taking over distribution of "This American Life" [Chicago Tribune] 
• The Joys of Trimming [New York Times] (via @LuigiBenetton)
• Freelancing with a Family: How to Balance Your Work and Your Kids [The Write Life]

 

Last week on Story Board:

• The Born Freelancer on Being "Special": In my last post I briefly posited that the future of successful freelancing may well lie within specialization such as law, medicine, etc. and applying the insider knowledge from those worlds to one’s work as a freelancer. I thought I would follow that up today with a more detailed discussion on becoming a specialist versus being a generalist, both pros and cons...
• Selling Yourself, Selling Your Ideas: Constantly selling yourself is one of the hardest parts of freelancing. Even when we have great ideas and solid writing skills, many of us don’t know where to begin when it comes to self-marketing...

 

Spot a story you think we should include in next week's Off the Wire? Email the link to editor@thestoryboard.ca or tweet us at @storyboard_ca.