The Oregonian's "Write For Free!" initiative continues apace; this morning's Editor's Note congratulates all its readers who auditioned for its pages, and were given the opportunity to become unpaid freelancers "Oregonian community writers":
Five weeks ago, we invited you to nominate yourself if you wanted to come aboard as one of a dozen community writers who would contribute regularly to The Oregonian's pages and our Opinion blog.
So many of you responded with the requisite resume and three writing samples that it took us until now to finish going through the more than 250 submissions.
You're an impressive bunch. Earnest, engaged and often witty.
We easily could have selected two dozen -- or even three dozen -- of you, but now we've settled on 12 who've agreed to serve as Community Writers.
We'll introduce them to you on Sunday, Nov. 4, in print and online. We're excited about launching this new initiative aimed at expanding the civic conversation among members of our community.
I'm still fascinated by the cojones it takes to turn your customers into your employees, all under the guise of "civic conversation."
When a newspaper asks you to put your four bits in the sidewalk machine, it isn't selling the paper on which it's printed, or the ink on its pages. It's selling information and thought. It's selling writing.
So why would any paper feel it's acceptable to pay for newsprint and ink, but not writers?
That's just plain wrong — but pretty smart. If it's worth publishing, it's worth paying for. Maybe those new community writers could use this advice: http://advertising.about.com/od/freelancing/a/notgettingpaid.htm
Posted by: Joe Wilson | October 29, 2007 at 01:25 PM