You won’t believe the 17 ways you’re doing online science journalism wrong! Number 25 will make you cry[1]
Are you a long-time science journalist? Maybe just starting your career and seeking exposure? Maybe only have a vague idea of what science even is? In today’s online marketplace, it doesn’t matter. If you can write quickly about the “science” behind semi-nude celebrities or speculate wildly about “Jurassic World,” there’s a gig for you – quality, accuracy, and payment are purely optional.
In the scramble to the bottom, it’s not about the valid blog or high-profile post that helps you increase your personal brand, or about the passion project that you want to see published despite the abysmal rate. It’s about ridiculous offers made by media companies that would have been laughed at a decade ago but are now being made in all seriousness, and about the devaluing of actual news and facts in favor of fluffy entertainment.
Not one to be left behind, I decided to give the new model a test drive.
I was recently made aware of a very special opportunity that’s so amazing I couldn’t wait to share it with other science writers: To earn the same $1,000 payment that journalists once received 20 years ago for writing a single 1,000-word article, all I have to do is post “a few” online articles. I know, unbelievable, right? OK, so “a few” equals 17 in this case, but who’s counting when you’re having fun?[2]
Oh, and I need to share them through every social media platform known to humanity (anyone know how to use Plurk or Skoob? Anyone?) because online science writing has now become an incredibly exciting competition! That’s right, think of it as a marginally kinder and gentler “Hunger Games” for journalists. You see, my pay is contingent on each post being in the top 10% of all articles every month. Plus, if I’m one of the lucky six writers with the most points, I earn the unheard-of bonus of $150![3]
Super-fun tip: if you “upvote” this article, you don’t even have to read it – it counts just as much as if you’ve read it 10 times.[4] I’ll wait while you upvote it now. Could you please get your friends to do it too? Speaking of hunger, I really need that money so I can afford to eat the small side salad, free bread sticks and water (no thanks, really, I’m fine) that I always order when I’m out with my sister while she hogs out on pasta and wine.
Seriously, who does she think she is, asking me to split the bill evenly? Someday, I might call her out on it. Heck, I could even write about it in excruciating detail and belabor the painfully obvious mathematical point that Spaghetti alla Carbonara plus three glasses of Chardonnay does not equal a single house salad.[5] Also, I am not a bad person for thinking this. Boom! My next two online posts. Hey, is that salad tax-deductible?
You upvoted? Great! So this is the part where I fill out the rest of the article with random science-related trivia that I found on Wikipedia or heard about once at a party and then alternate between my opinion and press release quotes in lieu of any actual reporting. In the golden age of online entertainment, more is always more (someone said that once, I forget who, but it’s so inspiring to me!). Plus, it only takes me about 20 minutes to write a post if I don’t have to do any fact checking – score! And once we maximize our revenue-generating strategy, my articles will become kickass slideshows where I subdivide every tip or stat that you’d never believe in a million years into five parts and then randomly throw in ads and images from Flickr.
Haha! Just kidding, that would take way too long – I would just subdivide every paragraph into three slides and limit it to an odd number like, say, 37.[6]
Oh, here’s another good tip: did you know that you can totally cure toenail fungus by dipping your feet in rolled oats and then having a small cat lick it off? Wow, I just totally scored another topic for a post. I bet there are at least 19 variations of that trick.[7]
Does it work? Who cares? Someone told me about it after only a few beers so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t drunk. See how much fun and liberating this is? Wheeeeeee! I don’t even have to write in complete. I can use words like irregardless or their when I really mean they’re or there and no one cares. It’s not like this article will be permanently attached to my name or anything, right?[8]
Oh, you’re still here? Here’s another tip: with the dozens of articles I write, I’m racking up “name recognition” really fast on this story mill, er, paradigm-shifting, next-generation journalism platform. Never heard of it? You will soon, once we decelerate our bounce rate and leverage our metrics to go vertical. Yeah, I have no idea what that means either.[9]
Wait, so I’m really, really close to being one the top six journalists of the month and I’m counting on you to have your co-workers upvote this article too. Tell them it’s about robots. People love that. Or robots having sex. Omg! The top 13 sexiest robots – I’m so doing that next.[10]
Do not, under any circumstances, upvote the story about Miley Cyrus and that pig. Or any story about coffee – not mine. One last thing: you don’t know how to use the Busuu or Xanga social media platforms, do you? Just checking.
[1] Special thanks to the Clickbait Headline Generator
[2] The benchmark pay rate for freelance journalists has not increased in 20 years.
[3] Yes, this is a real offer from a real online news site.
[4] Also a real thing
[5] Loosely based on a real post
[6] Also a real strategy to increase the tally of page clicks
[7] Two words: organic cornmeal
[8] Some online editors have told writers to balance out the shoddy pay by not working as hard on their stories; others have discouraged writers from spending too much time on outdated concepts like grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
[9] Actually, multiple media companies with plenty of name recognition and ample budgets are using this same tactic to avoid paying their online writers. More pay rates listed here.
[10] Cats, sharks and natural disasters also work nicely.
Photos: Lisa Parker (cat); Marco Becerra (dino); Frank Farm (salad); Nathan Rupert (robot)
What does Last Word on Nothing pay?
I am so happy you asked. LWON pays its guests nothing ($0). All the People of LWON get paid the same amount, nothing. No money comes in from any source whatever. The only money that goes out — hosting, tech service, etc. — comes out of the LWONers’ personal pockets.
I think this definitely falls under the category of “passion project.”
Indeed it does, Bryn. And nothing to gain or lose, no money to be made or withheld = total freedom.
And here I was thinking these were salad days for skilled science writers.
Bryn’s point exactly, Rob. Small side salad with bread sticks and a nice glass of water.
Unless that was a really ironic joke and I didn’t get it until this minute.
Ha, I see what you did there, Rob. So the salad bit was an extension of some fun we were having in a SciLance discussion on this topic, spurred in part by a painfully obvious and lengthy blog from a fairly prolific writer. The point was that given so little pay per post, everything you do becomes fodder for a new article, no matter how trivial. Also, yes, you’re likely forced to be pretty cost-conscious around food.
On the other hand, I’m more optimistic about the emergence of other online sites that truly seem to care about quality journalism. The pay is still a work in progress, but their very existence seems to signal a recognition that poor-quality online content for little or no pay may not be particularly valuable or sustainable over the long haul.
Perhaps the hope lies in Universities? They seem to be the current bastion of smart publishing: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/26/is-there-a-crisis-in-high-calibre-non-fiction-publishing-sam-leith?CMP=