New Form of Ambulance Chasing? Or the Future of Journalism?
From L.A. Craigslist:
WRITER NEEDED FOR WIKIPEDIA ENTRY.
Date: 2010-01-05, 10:16AM PST Reply to: [email protected]
WRITER NEEDED FOR WIKIPEDIA ENTRY.
Celebrity Attorney seeks Writer that can compose and SUCCESSFULLY post a Wikipedia Entry including links etc. Attorney has appeared on all major national television networks and worked on well known and publicized cases.
Compensation will be cash or personal check written out to writer who can post entry WITHOUT it getting DELETED by Wikipedia.
Payment is $50.00 or more based on length and quality of work as well as more work opportunities to follow.
Contact [email protected] or (323) 658- 8484 for more information.
Given the state of the freelance market, they'll probably get some takers. From Wednesday's LAT:
The list of freelance writing gigs on Craigslist goes on and on.
Trails.com will pay $15 for articles about the outdoors. Livestrong.com wants 500-word pieces on health for $30, or less. In this mix, the 16 cents a word offered by Green Business Quarterly ends up sounding almost bounteous, amounting to more than $100 per submission.
Other publishers pitch the grand opportunities they provide to "extend your personal brand" or to "showcase your work, influence others." That means working for nothing, just like the sailing magazine that offers its next editor-writer not a single doubloon but, instead, the opportunity to "participate in regattas all over the country."
What's sailing away, a decade into the 21st century, is the common conception that writing is a profession -- or at least a skilled craft that should come not only with psychic rewards but with something resembling a living wage.
Read the whole thing. (No, I was not interviewed for this story and, in fact, did not even see it until my kidney-donating Internet friend Tom Simon sent me the link.)