By Paul Lima

When I first started writing for the Financial Post in 1997, I earned 50-cents per word. I wrote 700-word articles (one or two interviews per article) and made $350 per article. Then Conrad Black bought the Financial Post and renamed it the National Post. I hoped for a modest raise, but continued to earn 50-cents per article. Within a few months, my editor asked me to interview three to four people per article and file 700 to 800 words. But the pay remained $350. It was extra work and more words, for the same rate.

The work for the National Post became intermittent over the last few years and there were no rate increases. Recently, I was asked to write for a new National Post business supplement. My assignments are 800 to 1,000 words in length. And the rate per article? $350.

I contemplated balking. However, I am a freelance writer and I can do this work between other gigs. Still, I could not help contemplate the deflation I have experienced. More words and work for the same pay. Factor in the rising cost of living and I am making less yet writing more.

That is what I was pondering when I met a freelance writer who used to earn what is often considered the holy grail of freelance writing: A buck a word for magazine articles. That is what he earned in the early 1970's. It is still (with few exceptions) the top end for periodical work in Canada today. That woke me up.

It is like the old tale: I used to complain that I had no shoes, and then I met a man who had no feet...

Add 30+ years of inflation to that buck a word and the writer is currently pulling in the equivalent of community newspaper rates while toiling for some of the most prestigious publications in Canada.

Deflation is driving experienced writers with powerful, compelling, knowledgeable voices into the hands of corporate work, or out of the writing business.

Who can afford to work for the same rate of pay for over 30 years? But what's a writer to do?

Refuse work that doesn't pay well (or pays 30-year old rates) and a less fortunate (and most likely less experienced) writer will accept the job.

The declining rates seem systemic now. Yet there are more outlets and more demand than ever for words --especially with the Internet factored in. What a truly bizarre state of affairs.

At a buck a word, tops, how can we expect to keep employed the magnificent, experienced freelance voices that brilliantly told our stories? And how can we expect to develop the new independent voices that will inform, entertain and inspire us?

As sad as it is that many independent journalists simply cannot afford to do the work required to produce solid investigative articles or long, luxurious features, it is sadder still that these articles -- stories about our home and native land, about our people and their affairs, about politics and culture and business, about the issues that matter to us as Canadians -- are written far less often than they once were. And many of the intriguing, controversial, critical issues that we should know far more about simply go unreported.

It is a sad state indeed.

(Paul Lima is a freelance writer, writing instructor and media interview trainer. He is a member of the Toronto Chapter of the Professional Writers Association of Canada. You can read samples of his business and periodical writing, and more about his writing and media interview training services, online: www.paullima.com) 

Paul Lima
VP Communications
PWAC Toronto
www.pwactoronto.org
© 2003 Paul Lima 

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