出版与作家生涯2013natethayer.wordpress.com
自由撰稿记者的一天
A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist
导读
这篇以自由撰稿记者的一天为切口，讨论写作收入为何被压低，以及“曝光”如何替代稿酬。值得写作者读，是因为它把个人困境放回供需、免费劳动和内容质量的市场结构里，提醒我们别只靠热爱和曝光谋生。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把稿酬问题看成供需问题：愿意免费写的人越多，买方越没有动力付钱。
- 02
对“曝光换稿”保持警惕：曝光通常不能付房租，平台却靠免费劳动获利。
- 03
不要只追求字数和页面浏览量；写完后让读者更懂一点，才是可付费的差异化价值。
- 04
高质量写作需要语境、视角和可验证性，这些比华丽叙事更能建立读者信任。
HN 评论精选
写作稿酬低是供需失衡，免费供给和业余者压低价格；教育机构还误导就业前景。
这是基本供需问题：大量有技能的写作者愿意免费写，而愿意通过订阅或广告为新闻付费的人很少。说出版商愤世嫉俗地剥削记者，但如果写作需求超过供给，这种剥削根本不可能。个人认为我们终将接受写作多半是休闲活动而非职业；写作出版能赚钱可能只是技术经济条件造成的暂时异常。摄影是前车之鉴：报纸让记者兼摄影，或用实习生和低价学生 freelancer；微图库让库存图片贬值，只有少数高效工作室赚钱，因为太多业余者愿意免费或只拿成本拍摄，质量也够用。真正的祸首是教育机构，它们故意误导学生创意职业的就业前景。
jdietrich查看英文原文
It's basic supply and demand. There's a glut of skilled writers willing to work for free and a dearth of people willing to pay for journalism, either through subscriptions or advertising. There's an idea that this is the cynical exploitation of journalists by publishers, but that simply wouldn't be possible if demand for writing outstripped supply. Personally, I think we'll come to accept the idea that, for the most part, writing is a leisure activity and not a profession. It's not unreasonable to imagine that the profitability of writing and publishing was just a temporary blip, as a result of a peculiar set of technological and economic conditions. Photography is the clear forerunner. Many newspapers have trained their journalists in photography and have them double up; Others are doing most of their photography through interns or very poorly-paid student freelancers. The microstock phenomenon has collapsed the value of stock images, to the point that only a small number of highly efficient studios are making good money from stock. There are just too many amateurs happy to shoot for free or for just their expenses, and they're producing images of perfectly satisfactory quality. The real villains are educational institutions, who wilfully deceive students as to the job prospects for creative careers. There are essentially no jobs whatsoever in the studio recording industry, but many thousands of graduates with degrees in related subjects. There's an implicit deceit on the part of educators, who simply "neglect" to mention that they're training students for jobs that haven't existed for twenty years. The demand for creative workers is static or in decline, while enrolment rates for related courses continues to increase steeply.
“曝光”换免费劳动是剥削，平台和活动方获利，写作者受损。
这是可鄙的趋势，许多领域都在贬值劳动。报价总是“曝光”，说这对职业有好处。赫芬顿邮报就靠此模式：多数作者无偿，Arianna 却套现 3.15 亿美元。喜剧演员 Duncan Trussell 被邀在 SXSW 免费演出，连机票都不给，只让他睡志愿者沙发；他的回应很好笑。SXSW 还拥有大量免费志愿者劳动力。千禧一代确实吃亏，很多人付不起房租或储蓄，很少拿到现金报酬，而父母那代做同样工作有报酬。这些做法比纺织血汗工厂还糟。
willholloway查看英文原文
This is a despicable trend. This devaluing of labor is happening in many fields. The offer is always the same: exposure, it's good for your career. The Huffington Post was built on this business model. Most of the writers weren't paid at all but of course Arianna cashed in to the tune of $315 million. The comedian and podcaster Duncan Trussell was invited to do a set at SXSW, for free and without even airfare being provided. Their only offer was to let him sleep on a volunteer's couch. His response was hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ6eMG-dfas And also and importantly SXSW enjoys a large, free labor force in the form of volunteers. Millenials really have gotten a raw deal. Many can't afford rent or savings, they are rarely offered cash as compensation for jobs their parents were happily paid for. These practices are worse than those of textile sweatshops.
点击量导向制造垃圾；可信、增知、有语境的内容才有付费价值。
互联网导致大量糟糕、陈词滥调的写作，读完后不比读前更聪明。新闻学院称之为“灌稿”，以前还能靠此谋生。现在严重缺乏多视角、制作精良、确实增进理解的内容，而不是凑字数、赚页面浏览。人们常问推荐新闻源，因为多数流行内容垃圾，且 2013 年仍无好方法验证来源或区分好新闻与宣传。我相信人们会为引人入胜、让人更知情、有理由信任的内容付费，也相信技术能超越静态叙事。我们仍不擅长提供语境、视角和可验证性，互联网使这些成为可能，但没人做好。AP 那种内容不值得付费，机器人迟早取代。有价值的是让读者比开始更聪明的内容。
beatpanda查看英文原文
Thanks to the Internet, there is a huge glut of awful, cliched writing that leaves you no smarter than you were before you started reading. Journalism school calls this "pumping out copy", and it's something you used to be able to build a career on. There is a frightening dearth of well-produced content from a variety of perspectives that seeks to measurably increase understanding as opposed to hit a word limit and generate pageviews. People talk about this all the time — the first question people ask me when I tell them I have a journalism degree is "what news sources do you recommend?", because the vast majority of what's out there and popular is complete garbage, and everyone knows it, and there still, in 2013, isn't a good way to verify sources or tell good journalism from propaganda. I believe people will pay for compelling content that leaves them better-informed, that they have a good reason to trust, and I believe we can use technology to go far beyond what's been possible up to this point with static, narrative storytelling. We're still terrible at providing context, perspective, and verifiability, all things the Internet has made possible, but nobody has done well yet. Nobody should pay for what, for instance, the Associated Press produces. Robots will replace them one day and that day can't come soon enough. There is very little value in what they do. But there is value in content that leaves you smarter than when you started. The methods of producing it haven't caught up with the baseline of knowledge the Internet makes possible for everyone, or the stunningly beautiful display of information that's possible on the modern Web. It hurts to see the skills gap up close - journalists in the grad program at Stanford are still totally defeated by data mining, web design (a skill they all know well for print), data visualization, non-linear storytelling, multimedia production, and the kinds of things I believe will elevate journalism in the 21st century, and nobody's paying well enough to poach the people who do have those skills. So what do we do?
篮球因质量易判断且需求强而高薪；新闻读者难辨优劣，平庸供给拉低价格。
我最近思考新闻业的供需问题：为什么其他行业有大量愿意供给者但仍高薪？有大量有天赋的写作者，但高质量新闻需大量投入，真正优秀者少。篮球同理：很多愿意打职业，只有少数成功，却报酬极高。区别？公众对高质量篮球需求强，且质量容易判断——赢球多的队更好。新闻：需求可能仍高，但公众可能不辨优劣，于是真实供给从少数优秀者扩大到大量平庸写作者，价格被拉低。因此哀叹新闻衰败时，也许要问为何不重建质量评价机制。
kevinalexbrown查看英文原文
I've been thinking about the supply-demand problem lately as it applies to journalism. How is it different than other industries with willing pools of suppliers, but people are still paid well? There are many willing, raw-talented writers out there, and I also know that high quality journalism requires a lot of work and dedication, so the number of truly excellent writers is small. Likewise, there are many willing professional basketball players, and only a very select few make it. But when they do, they are extremely well compensated, despite a large pool of willing players. What's the difference between basketball and journalism? There is still a very strong demand for high quality basketball among the public. Additionally, in this case, higher quality is relatively easy for anyone to judge: you have better teams if they win more than other teams. In a supply/demand context, many will play, but very few can do it well enough to beat other professional teams so the real supply is actually small, so the players' price is actually very high. Comparing this with journalism, I wonder if there has been a decline in a) demand for or b) ability to appreciate high quality journalism or essayism. The demand for journalism is probably still reasonably high, but the public may be indiscriminate. This expands the real supply for writing from those few truly-excellent ones to a larger pool of mediocre writers. So if we lament the decay of journalism, we might wonder why we're not really demanding it. ---- I anticipate comments suggesting I am out of touch with the coming journalistic transformation. I read and enjoy many blogs, even those put out by magazines like the Economist, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, etc. But I recently began reading the print versions of these magazines again and I was astounded at what I had been missing: articles where I couldn't predict the next paragraphs based on the headlines; articles that answered my objections in the next paragraph; articles which clearly had taken a month to write. I know there's nothing about print vis-a-vis html, but when you've worked for a month on an essay instead of 10 hours on a blog post, it shows. I also anticipate comments suggesting I am an elitist. In this sense, I am: taste exists. I won't claim that only the truly-excellent should write. But I think they should be appreciated, and more importantly, aspired to. I worry that talented-but-not-yet-truly-excellent writers will think: I can work for years to become truly good at something no one will appreciate or I can just blog my heart out at crappy journalism and make a living now.
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