‘Too busy’ is no excuse

THANKS for running Alex Klaushofer’s piece about the abysmal treatment of freelances by some editors.

One section editor on a national recently told a friend they “never pay kill fees” — a policy I’ve urged her to challenge by invoicing for a commissioned time-specific piece they decided not to run solely because they’d run out of space that week.

Section editors who ignore pitches from established freelances in their specific field are another bugbear, and the occasional defence you hear of being “very busy” doesn’t seem to stop other equally busy editors giving reasonably prompt responses. A quick “no thanks” is easy, and doesn’t leave a freelance dangling uncertainly over whether they can pitch often time-specific ideas to other publications.

Another national paper has a penchant for posting cheques for a fraction of the pre-agreed fee. I’ve had to threaten them with the small claims court twice in the last year to get my agreed fee, which eventually gets paid months after publication.

If section editors were only paid for ideas they could sell to their own editors, and those editors ignored their pitches for weeks on end, attitudes would soon change!

Norman Miller
Brighton