The new media contract provision: Respond to all e-mails within 48 hours

Ever wonder why some people don’t respond to e-mails? Or just take forever? If you’re like me it can lead to over-thinking about the potential reasons why. Or worse: getting neurotically paranoid about it.

Regardless, I usually end up spending too much time thinking about why I haven’t gotten a timely response when I’ve sent what I genuinely believe is a legit electronic message. Did it mistakenly route to the spam folder? Did the receiver — like I sometimes do at my worst — read it on the iPhone while busy, make a self-promise to reply later, then merely forget? Or am I just getting blown off?

At least one media outlet seems to have decided this is a big enough issue to put language into a contract for future work.*

From a provision of a recent freelancer agreement I filled out for a project at a major Washington, DC media outlet with a global partner.

7.) Acknowledge and respond to all e-mails within 48 hours.

Personally, I didn’t mind signing off on it. Obviously I know there are reasons why such a provision could be cumbersome, and clearly not every generation of great journalist is as glued to their devices as the next. While I don’t have a problem with it, I can see how such a provision might even be controversial in the business.

The issue brought to mind an instance last year in the legal profession when the South Carolina Supreme Court apparently suspended an attorney for “refusing to maintain and monitor an operational email account.”

My guess is that particular lawyer might have a hard time transitioning to the new media world.

Though I signed the contract, I still checked with my project editor about Provision 7, just to see what might have spawned it. He told me the provision isn’t standard for his specific organization, but a media partner has found it helpful to include in other projects they’ve done.

“I guess it helps prevent people from checking out,” he told me.

I sent back a kind of awkward reply: “*Acknowledging (nothing further to add.)”

Corey Hutchins is a journalist in Colorado and the curator of AltLedes at Medium. Follow him on Twitter @coreyhutchins or Email him at coreyhutchins@gmail.com. He’ll try to respond within 48 hours.