Other professionals don't work for free. So why are writers expected to?

Or so Jonathan Tasini thinks. Except that’s crap isn’t it? How about care home volunteers, or artists, or musicians, or photographers, or designers, or lawyers or advertising professionals. Actually loads of different professions have ways of making people work for free. The only reason Jonathan Tasini thinks that writers are the only people who work for free is because he’s a writer.

Any career that people want to do for nothing will be done by someone for nothing. The “consequences for creativity and democracy are dire” writes Tasini, but in fact both of those things are fine. The only people that writers who work for free are screwing over are themselves, and other writers. The reason they’re prepared to do it is because writing is enjoyable. People love doing it. They want to do it so much they don’t care if they get paid. And if you’re in the lucky, tiny percentage of people who do get to get paid for writing, then lucky, lucky you.

Because, let’s be clear, many writers do get paid don’t they? Some get paid very well. Some don’t get paid very well. Some don’t get paid at all. Them’s the breaks. Stop whinging. If you can’t make money out of writing, go and get a job where people will pay you.

The problem is this: If you’re doing a job that someone else is prepared to do for free, you have to be pretty damn good before you get paid for it. Finding damn good writers is still pretty profitable though and being a damn good writer can be a nice living. That, to me, sound like creativity and democracy are going to be just fine.

MG Siegler on Apple fanboyism

“I’m a fan of Apple’s work because it’s great. I suspect my peers he would criticize would say the same thing. I’ve been a fan of Apple’s products for about 6 years now. Before that, I didn’t own one. You could even say that I hated Apple products back in the 1990s when I was going to midnight launches of Microsoft products. Why did that change? It’s not some spell or some bullshit marketing. It’s all the hard work and attention to detail Apple put into their products during the second Jobs reign. I wanted the best, Apple made the best.

If Apple’s products start slipping again, I’ll drop them again. The loyalty isn’t to some magical unicorn tear voodoo — it’s to the best products.”

Exactly.

Unethical journalism: The depressing tale of Johann Hari

Many people have discussed the tale of Johann Hari this week, with many defending him. I can’t say I was a massive fan in the first place, but in the final analysis, I think Bagehot says it best - it’s not a matter of not knowing the trade, it’s a matter of character.

"The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the much, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them, to the crown of worthy endeavor. There are beautiful things above and round about them; and if they gradually grow to feel the whole world is nothing but much, their power of usefulness is gone."
– Theodore Roosevelt, Speech to the Gridiron Club, Washington, 17 March 1906