The blurring line between freelance journalists and self-employed media workers

Abstract

This study uses the question, ‘what makes a freelancer specifically a journalist’ as a starting point for investigating the ways Australian freelance journalists experienced and managed precarious employment in COVID-19 impacted 2020. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 32 self-identified freelance journalists, we analyse the types of work they did, the influence of the precarious job situation on their work choices and the consequent ways they chose to display their identity as journalists. Our findings reveal a complex picture, which calls into question some of the binaries established around journalism. While nearly all participants had to resort to work outside journalism in 2020, at least half still displayed strong links to journalism, demonstrated by their sense of belonging to a community of journalists, and their continued interest in doing self-funded public interest journalism as ‘passion projects’. However, we also noticed a blurring between the descriptors of journalist and writer, based partly on employment opportunities but also, importantly, on interest in increasing creativity in the journalistic space. These results lead us to question work-test definitions as a signifier of a freelancer’s bond to journalism and to propose, instead, that freelancers merit a new standing in the flattening hierarchy of journalism.