Why have so many publishers become event producers, and what does it mean for journalism? By Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein An hour into the Future of Everything Festival, I began to wonder what I was doing there. I am a journalist who writes about economics, and like all journalists, am on a…

A government proposal to build a media database was cancelled last year amid backlash. Was the alarm justified? By Rebecca Heilweil In April of 2018, an online database of government requests for proposals called FedBizOpps posted a solicitation from the Department of Homeland Security. DHS was looking for a media…

AB 5 is meant to penalize abusive employers like Uber, but it could affect many part-time workers — especially women and people of color. By Rebecca Bodenheimer Freelance writer Vanessa McGrady is very worried about AB 5, a California bill recently signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom that will…

Text-message interviews with big-name sources are on the rise. But are they as authentic and transparent as boosters claim? By Audrey Carleton The advent of digital media has ushered in a range of new journalistic formats, each seemingly easier to digest than the last. The latest bite-sized story style is…

Facebook, Google and Twitter face pressure to regulate state-funded media ops seeking to game the Internet. But which ones, and how? By Nithin Coca As the protests in Hong Kong grew and intensified over the summer, observers on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube began to notice a trend: Chinese state-run media…

Late and missing payments upend lives and deplete the ranks of non-wealthy journalists. Is an organized response underway? By Tatiana Walk-Morris Micco Caporale was not blindsided by the difficulties of freelance life. Growing up, her father did contract work for the sets of commercial and independent film projects. When business…

What a struggling Western community taught me about reporting outside the bubble in a time of industry tumult. By Jill Rothenberg “Hi there,” I said to the woman pushing a cart through the narrow aisles of the Dollar General. …

The arrest of Bay Area freelancer Bryan Carmody after he published leaked SFPD documents has national implications for a free press. By Jim Knipfel On February 22, San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi died of an apparent heart attack at age 59. Adachi, who’d held his post for sixteen years…

Invisible labor and the undervaluing of cultural criticism in the journalism economy. By Rebecca Bodenheimer It’s a difficult time to be a writer. Independent of the type of writing you do, staff jobs are disappearing, mushrooming the ranks of freelancers and creating ever-fiercer competition. …