Kid writes for Bleacher Report, never gets paid

An unpaid writing gig looks as good on a resume as a job stocking shelves at Walmart.

 

I picked up my first job covering a mid-major football and basketball program because of my several unpaid gigs I took while in college. The industry sucks and I think I'll get out sooner rather than later, but for someone who really wants to be a professional sports writer, there's no way around taking unpaid gigs. To get a paid internship, one must almost always have another unpaid internship on the resume. The system is broken, but it's not changing anytime soon.

 

Buzzfeed, linked out the ass on social media, is not far from the bottom-dwelling depths of B/R.
Cheap, trite, syndicated, predatory, list-based content distributed inexpensively.
Appealing to penny-watching content providers.

 

This is patently incorrect.

 

We're not counting college internships where you get course credit. Ideally you get paid cold hard cash for an internship, but many media companies don't do that so course credit is acceptable.

The second you graduate, you should never work for free again. You're getting nowhere if you work for free.

I'm no Effin' Stud, but I've worked freelance, part-time and full-time in this business. I've been underpaid and overworked. Not once have I worked for free. Anyone who thinks they have to take a few free gigs to make it is flat out wrong and misguided.

 

I think the key is that you have to have good work out there, to be obvious. Paid, unpaid, whatever.

It's an interesting (or maybe sad or confusing or ever-shifting or frustrating) environment these days. Seems like a lot of known, paid quantities have been devalued. At the same time, there is also this culture of entitlement bubbling up around new or unpaid writers, as if every writer deserves pay just for being willing to write. And at the same time as all of that, it's a buyer's (employer's) market for all these outlets - the market is just flooded with people who can write, and more clips out there than ever before.

I don't know how to begin unpacking all of that. But in regards to where this specific conversation seems to be heading, I think we're talking about two train tracks in devaluation and entitlement.

 

There was a time not all that long ago when you could have said "We're getting the guys from EdTV back together for a cable drama and you are going to absolutely rave about the acting," and people would have laughed.

I'll give this cast a shot before I dismiss it.

 

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/freelancing-sucks-1617518517/+robharvilla