The Waiting Game
Being ghosted by editors, the myth of the 'big break' & the future of journalism
Being a freelance journalist often feels like you’re constantly waiting for something. Whether it’s waiting for an editor* to respond to your pitch, waiting for a source to get back to you, waiting for accreditation in order to go somewhere, or waiting to be paid. A lot of things are out of your control; sometimes you just have to trust that it will all work out. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
I’m usually pretty accepting of this fact, and have touched on it in previous editions of this newsletter, here and here. But, lately I’ve been getting sick of waiting. Maybe it’s because I’ve been ghosted by several editors recently - editors who had each initially expressed interest in the different stories I’d pitched them (which I had then begun working on), before ignoring me for weeks/months. Only after following up multiple times did some respond to say that actually no they didn’t have any freelance budget to commission me.
Complaining about this runs the risk of ruining the relationships I have built up with editors. Why kick up a fuss when this livelihood is one that hangs by such a delicate thread already?
Freelance journalism is not a stable source of income - most freelancers I know, including me, also do other stuff on the side. I’ve always known this but have ploughed on regardless, mainly because I enjoy writing, but also because a small part of me believes my next story could be the one to give me that elusive ‘big break’. But I’ve come to realise the idea of a ‘big break’ may be a myth - particularly in journalism. This is not down to a loss of ambition (I still have way too much of that which is probably the problem), it’s more the realisation that there are so many other forces at play. Success is not just down to sheer hard work. Even the most successful freelance journalist can still struggle to get commissions, be ghosted by editors, and have to wait ages to get paid. It’s almost a fact of life (although it shouldn’t be).
I don’t know why I’ve recently felt a shift - perhaps because I’m now in my late twenties and the optimism of youth is starting to fade - but I’ve been hit with a wall of frustration at the lack of stability and support for freelancers, not to mention the way some people treat freelancers. I’m not the only one.
It’s not so much the fault of editors, but more a system that is collapsing. With shrinking budgets, and more pressure for articles to perform online, publications are feeling the strain. The Washington Post’s Sunday print magazine became the latest casualty, despite being owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. This Twitter thread by Henry Wismayer, a freelancer who was working on a big story for the magazine which will now have to be shelved, sums it up perfectly (I encourage you to read it all). He describes it as feeling like a “slow death”:
“Journalists, increasingly, are habituated to frustration. Editors, beholden to metrics that we cannot understand, in a battle against algorithmic attention monopolies they'll never win, ghost us, and dumb down our work in a futile bid to win back eyeballs from Tiktok.”
People have been saying journalism has been dying for a long time. There will always be a demand for a certain type of journalism - everyone needs to know the news - but the type that is well and truly dying is long-form journalism that requires time, travel, and on-the-ground-reporting. These stories are expensive, but they are also the stories that enrich us - readers and writers alike. These are my favourite kind (see below for a few I’ve enjoyed recently). A lot of the time these stories are written by freelancers - freelancers who, mostly, have to go it alone, without the support of a publication. Apart from the obvious lack of security, this is unfair and unsustainable.
With stories like these being lost, and more and more talented people being squeezed out of the industry, as well as a media landscape increasingly controlled by a handful of billionaires, we should ask ourselves what the future of journalism is going to look like - and how can we change it?
I am aware that this is turning into a rant and I don’t want this newsletter to just be a series of posts complaining about the difficulties of freelance life - because there are also many joys.
There is the freedom and flexibility that comes with being your own boss, and the breadth of stories and publications you get to work on/with. Every single day I work as a journalist I am continually astounded by the people who let me into their lives; into their homes; their experiences; their dreams; their deepest, darkest fears. It’s never something I take for granted that something as simple as a job title can literally open doors and give you a window into lives so immensely different from your own - from a refugee camp in Iraq to someone’s table in Greece to eat a traditional meal and smash a few plates. It is both a huge privilege and a huge responsibility. I desperately want to keep telling these stories. But with shrinking freelance budgets, publications closing down, and editors who think it’s ok to ghost writers, I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up.
*Not all editors - there are some who are really great at replying and are a joy to work with, but they are increasingly few and far between.
Reading
Between Brexit and the deep blue sea: a lifeboat crew tackles the migrant crisis - Everyone should read this incredible piece of reporting by John Phipps for 1843 Magazine. I’ve always admired the RNLI, but I do even more after reading this.
Ukraine’s 15,000 mile lifeline - I never thought I could be so engrossed in a story about trains, but this is much more than that. Sarah A. Topol looks at how the Ukrainian railway system became the country’s backbone during the war, as well as a symbol of its resistance in the face of Russian aggression.
$26k for Joan Didion’s old books? Why are the rich obsessed with dead authors’ stuff? - An interesting opinion piece by Rachel Connolly. I have to admit, I spent a while scrolling through the Joan Didion estate sale wondering if I could afford to bid on anything (I definitely couldn’t).
A Matter of Honor - One of the most compelling long reads I’ve read in a while. Sarah Souli tries to solve the murders of three Afghan women - a mother and her two daughters - who were found with their throats slit along one of the world’s most fraught borders. It is a twisting journey from Mazar-i-Sharif to Istanbul to Athens in search of answers.
Preserving a Palestinian identity in the kitchen - A beautiful piece in The New York Times by Aina J. Khan on the Palestinian grandmothers passing on their cooking traditions to the next generation:
“Inside my hands are my ancestors’,” she said, sweeping her fingers through the wheat in a steel pan outside the home of Umm Hassan, the mother of the groom. “This is 10,000 years of cultivation.”
Listening
Longform Podcast #508: Erika Hayasaki - A really thoughtful interview with the writer, Erika Hayasaki (and then read her fascinating article on identical twins and what studying them can teach us).
“I don’t subscribe to the belief that it’s our story because we’re the journalist that wrote it — especially when people are sharing these really intimate, deep, painful moments. That is not my story. That’s their story that they've collaborated in a way with me to share through these interviews.”
Writing
COP27: Egyptian activists are battling the greenwashing of a repressive state - COP27 may be over, and with it the global spotlight on Egypt, but there are still many activists behind bars who can’t be forgotten. For Huck Magazine, I spoke to Egyptian environmentalists and activists about President Sisi’s crackdown on civil society, the battle to save prisoners of conscience, and how there can be no climate justice without human rights.
Some of Egypt’s greatest minds are behind bars - the very people who could be helping tackle the climate crisis. The country has approximately 60,000 political prisoners. One of them is the prominent environmental and human rights activist, Dr Ahmed Amsha, who was detained in 2017 for his work. He has endured torture, electrocution, and sexual assault in prison, and is under constant surveillance. He recently announced a hunger strike.
His son, Mohamed Amasha, spoke to me about his memories of his father - how they used to go on marches together when he was growing up. “He was nurturing in me that sense of commitment,” he said. Read the full article here.