I have a soft spot for Libé
and was delighted when it came through its recent crisis with hopes of
survival higher than for some time.
But when they got round to ringing to explain the details, they added
that while they wanted the contributions, they would not be paying for
them.
If I had still been working as a salaried correspondent, I might well
have said yes, provided I felt I had the time to do the blog justice.
Had they offered a pittance or, say, a year's subscription, I suspect
the answer would still have been yes. As a freelance, chasing whatever
earnings I can, I had no hestitation in turning down the idea of adding
to my workload but not my income.
Perhaps the person calling me does her job for nothing. I doubt it.
Perhaps the exceedingly rich people who hold the purse strings at Libé
also conduct their business lives without the least desire for
remuneration. I doubt that, too.
Given the paper's links to Sartre and the Paris Spring of 1968, it is
not surprising that for a long time it operated a policy of paying
everyone from the cleaners to the editor the same. Later, it dropped
this lofty egalitarianism and entered the harsher world of the market
economy. In 2007, I would probably have settled for the cleaner's pay.
A charming lady journalist who plans to write about me in a magazine
about British expats in France told me of her dismay on being told by
another UK journalist that s/he would not be interviewed for free.
Her shock was clearly genuine, and I was perfectly happy when I found I
had time during a visit to Paris to meet her and answer her questions.
But I was just as shocked by the suggestion that a Left-of-centre,
up-the-workers kind of paper should want someone to turn in a few
shifts for nowt.
Labels: Britain, football, France, freelance, journalism, Libération, Paris
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