Hello, everyone! Our Journalism Tips series has been moving around a lot in recent weeks, but today it is back once again to help strengthen the music blogging community. This entry was created in response to an email received late last week, which we detail at length below. If you have ever had troubles maintaining a good team of contributors, this post may be for you.
This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
The old saying “good help is hard to find these days” never seems to go out of style. When applied to the world of blogging, I believe the phrase should be altered slightly to include the words “especially when there is not pay involved.” 90% of music blogs, if not more, are maintained by people who see little to no financial return for their efforts. The people who contribute to sites they do not own have an even higher likelihood of not getting paid, which is something that puts many blog owners in a very tough position. Editors want to motivate their team members, but when they have nothing to offer them except momentary attention from the internet and a few extra lines on a resume that can be incredibly difficult to accomplish. Everyone wants to believe that people get into music because they are passionate about art and promoting the artistic creations of others, but people also need to make a living, and there comes a point where that need begins to outweigh whatever desires one may have to pursue unpaid work.
The reason I tell you all this is because of a message I received just last week. A letter came in from a site owner seeking advice about letting go of a longtime contributor who was incredibly talented, but had in recent months become increasingly inactive. The individual in question would not participate in development chats, never offered to help others, and saw no problem in using the access the site had given them to pitch bigger outlets for paid work. The most recent example of this occurred when the writer asked the editor for credentials to a fest, which were granted. The editor was informed after notifying the contributor of their access that the contributor had taken their acceptance message and used it to get a paid writing gig from a bigger, more recognizable outlet. The contributor swore the editor’s site would still be the focus of their efforts, but when the event happened the contributor did their paid work and turned it in days before delivering a single message to the site that had originally granted them credentials to the event. In the mind of the editor, this was the final straw.
Having spent the past half decade running an entertainment news blog of my own, my immediate reaction to this message was to take the side of the editor. After all, it’s only because of their site that the contributor was able to gain access to the event, and even after confronting the person in question they were told something that was, in fact, a lie. The editor has every reason to feel betrayed, and if they feel they can no longer trust the contributor then they should definitely part ways as soon as possible. You have to follow your heart in these matters. Always.
That said, after my knee-jerk reaction subsided I began to sympathize with the contributor. It’s true they betrayed the site they signed up to help and there is no way around that, but if all their efforts in journalism up to this point have been to secure paying gigs then they must leap at whatever opportunities come their way. More importantly, an editor who is unable to pay their contributing staff must realize that if their team is talented they will eventually want to progress in their professional careers. Otherwise, why would they be contributing in the first place?
Any blog owner and/or editor who runs a site that does not pay its contributors needs to realize their publication is, at best a launching pad to bigger and better things within the music industry. Your site(s) may be great and they bring in a ton of traffic, but unless you have the finances needed to pay your team they will eventually need to move on to other outlets who are capable of better supporting their efforts. This is not a bad thing as much as it is a fact of life, and any site owner who does not understand that is only doing a disservice to themselves. The fact your staff may one day leave should be all the motivation you need to work towards finding ways to turn your writing efforts into a sustainable business. Countless magazines have come and gone in the last hundred years, and many more will do the same in the century ahead. There is no reason your site cannot be a profitable outlet, but until that time comes you need to realize that not every person needs your site the way you, the owner/editor, does. They can and will find other outlets, paid or not. The best you can do is support your team and work alongside them to promote a better, more financially beneficial future to anyone involved.
I’m not saying that blog owners and editors need to keep everyone, nor am I saying that it’s okay to slack off. Every contributor has deadlines and every deadline should be met, but editors need to be consciously aware of the fact that contributors have personal journeys they are on as well. They are people are with dreams and aspirations that extend beyond making your blog the next Rolling Stone, but for the time being they are willing to help chase your dreams as long as they can pursue theirs as well. If you support one another, both will succeed. If you do not communicate, or if you fail to understand the other’s point of view, everyone will struggle to get ahead.
