EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not my usual grandma recipe content.
No one gets into journalism to make money.
In 2015, I was offered the chance to interview for a position at The Bergen Record to cover one of the richest towns in New Jersey: Alpine. The pay? About $15 an hour, the editor told me. I declined, letting him know that it was less than I was currently making, as I had a whole two years of professional experience in newsrooms. I added that his rate was less than I had made when working at South Jersey newspapers (read: lower cost-of-living areas) straight out of college. He said: “Good luck finding something that pays more.”
The media industry is known to underpay writers — despite their work being integral to the success of any publication — and, in the case of local journalists, a working democracy. Writers don’t get into this industry because they want to make a lot of money. They get into this industry because it’s downright addicting. Sitting in a room with other creatives, spitballing how best to illustrate your story? That’s just fun. Learning something new from an expert source every day? It’s fascinating. Rushing as fast as you can to a crime scene? An adrenaline rush. Questioning someone in power about how they’re using that power? It’s exhilarating.
You feel like the work you do actually matters, and that means more than massive paycheck.
But now, with the rise of AI, our work is being devalued even more. If ChatGPT can spit out a story in less than 10 seconds, why pay someone to actually write it? Rates for freelancers are constantly being slashed. Salaries for full time roles are stagnant, despite demanding more and more from writers. In the last week, Vox Media (my former employer) further gutted the editorial team at Eater, just as the publication was marking its 20th anniversary. This was after a previous round of layoffs in the last year, where the newsroom suffered even more cuts, and Thrillist (which holds a particularly special place in my heart) was practically decimated. Only a few days prior to the most recent layoffs, Vox had also made significant cuts to the branded content team (my old team), specifically targeting writers and editors.
Ryan Sutton, a former restaurant critic at Eater, summed it up perfectly in his newsletter this week, titled: Eater Is Firing Great Journalists, Again! “If there’s a small restaurant preparing to open, there’s probably an Eater staffer walking by to knock on the door. If there’s a domestic abuse or labor story, there’s probably someone in that city to look into the news and figure it all out,” he writes. “And if there aren’t enough resources to break a given story at a smaller Eater site, the editor might reblog the news when a local reporter gets to it, a nice little hat tip that often sends a few extra eyeballs to a regional publication.”
As Sutton says: “Eater is only as good as the people who work there.” And that’s the case for any publication right now.
Vox is by no means alone in making these kinds of cuts. In the last three years, nearly 10,000 journalists have been laid off. Many have begun to work for themselves as freelancers, rather than seeking out a traditional full time role. My colleague and friend, Brendan McGinley, recently quipped: “You think freelance work is unreliable? It’s the W2 gigs that are unreliable. My freelance work has been there for years.”
But even that isn’t safe: With more out-of-work journalists looking for assignments, publications have the upper hand in setting rates, demanding quicker turnaround times, and requiring more reporting, copy, or extras (like SEO work, photos, or videos) with no pay increase. And hey, we have bills to pay, so we gotta say yes — otherwise, they’ll move on to the next writer.
This all became especially pertinent to me this week, when a chef I spoke with for a story reached out and let me know that another writer had lifted my work. Not my copy, but my reporting: They had included my sources by name, and the information those sources had told me, in their own story, but had changed the language. I told my editor, who immediately took the issue to her legal team. To my source, my editor and I, this was clearly plagiarism. To the legal team? The changes the other writer made were substantive enough to tie their hands.
If this writer had just attributed her information to my article, there would be no issue here. But, for some reason or another, she didn’t. And all week I found myself asking why? Why when capitalism, robots, and fascism are coming for journalists at every turn, would a writer steal from another writer? As competitive as this industry is, I’ve always found there to be a sense of camaraderie among those of us in the trenches. When I left Vox to freelance, my own network of writers offered up advice, editor contacts, and introductions to help me get started. I belong to online groups and publications, often started by writers, that aggregate pitch opportunities and offer intel about publications that pay above and below fair rates for other writers. In other online groups, folks readily share contact information for potential sources and applaud one another’s bylines. When I was a local beat reporter, just starting out, more senior reporters (even those from other publications) would help explain important context around breaking news and even shared when particular cases of interest were moving along in the local courts.
If there is one thing I can thank the writer that plagiarized my work for, it’s for reminding me that I am still a journalist — a word I haven’t used to describe myself for a decade, despite still doing the work. The reporting I do — that all journalists do —can not be outsourced to ChatGPT, and that we need folks to do this kind of work now more than ever. We need local writers to knock on doors of restaurants, to ask questions of city council members, to show up at a crime scene and document the police. We also need writers who are willing to talk to experts and distill their expansive knowledge into something the average person can understand, who will fact check both the tiny details (like about menu offerings, opening times, and how best to get a reservation) and the big details — like whether or not what a source tells you is actually true.
You may not always like the work we do — it’s intrusive by nature. You may not even understand why it has to get done. But know this: you, the reader, is who the best of us are most loyal to. Whether we’re making a restaurant recommendation or unearthing some deep-seated conspiracy, we aim to tell you the truth, whether you want to know it or not.
Want to support journalists?
Subscribe to your local newspaper. One in three counties in the United States is without a single full time reporter.
Donate to the Vox Media Union to support journalists impacted by layoffs.
Donate to your local NPR station.
Donate to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit that promotes press freedom globally.
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