Orlando

While I agree that you should definitely get permission, he's my question - Shockey, in your instance, was whatever work you were doing directly competing with your full-time gig?

Because if it wasn't, you'd have a gripe. You mean to tell me your company won't let you - on your day off - do some non-compete work for another publiciation? As long as it's non-compete and you're not breaking news on the freelance gig, it should be no problem.

I had my best year ever freelancing in 2006, and while 75% of it was approved, the remainder wasn't. But my name isn't on it, so getting in trouble isn't a worry. I already a rock solid 'excuse' should I run into any problems, and hopefully it will work.

Companies don't care about you, and that's why I'm looking out for No. 1. Would my tune change if I lost my job over this? Probably.

 

I don't know if this is still the case, but Bloomberg's policy was that you wrote exclusively for them, you couldn't freelance for anyone, ever.

I think this is a good policy. If we want to continue to charge for our product, it has to be for stuff that won't be recycled somewhere else. If I were The New York Times or Washington Post, I would kill the news service, too. Make people who want to read you come to your Web site rather than having your best six stories every day available in the local daily.

 

That certainly was not the case for Michael Lewis who wrote a column for them.

 

Except, Frank, that they make a lot of money off the news services, too.

 

Sigh...

Your sympathy toward someone with talent unjustly fired in the middle of a ridiculous job market is touching.

As several people have pointed out before, Steve DID have the OK to freelance. He. Got. Permission. From. Van McKenzie. Everyone at the Sentinel understood the situation.

The moment Van McKenzie died, he was hauled in and fired for doing something he had done WITH HIS BOSS'S PERMISSION. No suspension, no warning. Just summary dismissal.

The lockjaw "you should know better" rationalizations are coming from people who should know better themselves. Frankly, in the context of what happened to a talented reporter and writer like Steve in a job market like this, they're insulting.

What Steve did warranted no worse than a suspension. Period.

Fortunately, he's caught on with a part-time gig at CBS Sportsline. Hopefully, that will morph into full-time status and Steve and his family can get back on their feet.

BTW, Orlando isn't filling his position. I'll repeat that. One of the papers of record on the professional golf beat isn't going to have a golf writer.

 

Well, if nothing else, this supports 21's contention that such permission should indeed be in writing.

 

First, I wasn't talking about Steve Elling specifically--this thread has wandered far away from the original topic, and the last few pages have been about the protocol and propriety related to freelance work. My comment still stands: Get permission.

If you want to relate that to Elling, he said in his own post here that the rules had changed a couple of years earlier, and Van's verbal okay was not enough--he needed permission from the ME or editor.

It's not about sympathy--it's about reality. Terrible that this happened to Steve---maybe this thread will prevent the same from happening to someone else.

 

Well, Van died. They had changed the freelance rules sometime over the past couple of years and I had never bothered to study it (and I sure as hell never signed it). All outside freelance work must first be cleared by a managing editor or the editor herself. Not the sports editor.


That's from Mr. Elling's own post earlier in the thread.

Management may indeed have wanted to cut that position all along. If so, Elling's the one who handed them the axe.

 

birdscribe

my post was not specifically aimed at elling. it as aimed at the freelance issue in general. so don't go telling me about lacking "sympathy," dude. i don't necessarily agree with those who believe only an in-writikng okay will do, but the oral go ahead has to come from someone higher up than even van was.

if the editor of the paper gives you the oral go-ahead, i would have to believe it's okay, though. if not, the no means no. what's the effin' argument? ??? ??? ???


aside to almost famous: i cover the nfl. the freelance gig would've been me opining on nfl issues -- not breaking news or writing anything "newsworthy" before the paper had it first. no matter. the editor's stance is that i'm paid by the paper to write on nfl issues and that the paper employs me exclusively. so, if the paper says "no," that's the ball game. if i wasn't working for the paper, why would anyone care what i opined about elsewhere? like i said, it's cut-and-dried, imo.

 

Nice job brushing over the fact that there was a conflict-of-interest issue in play here.

He was not fired because he had done some freelance and the guy who allowed it just died.

The lengths people.... VERY intelligent people... will go to be apologists for one of their own (when they sure as fuck wouldn't do such a thing for an athlete) is.... unnerving.

 

Absolutely the first staff writer position to be contracted, after the NHL writer, should be teh golf writer.

It's a Tiger tour and he doesn't give readers shit.

Slam dunk decision.