ABSTRACT

So far it may sound as if working freelance is a choice willingly made by journalists but of course that’s not always the case. For many journalists in staff jobs freelance work is their bit on the side, the bit which makes the difference between a living wage and an unrealistic one if they happen to work on weekly provincial newspapers. A problem can arise if the day job demands total commitment. Some papers, for example, forbid their reporters to work for anyone else even when the work they want to do overlaps in no way with their full-time job.