Freelancing in Flemish News Media and Entrepreneurial Skills as Pivotal Elements in Job Satisfaction

Abstract

In this study, we focus on a segment of journalists that is often neglected or marginalized in the bulk of research on the profiles of journalists and their careers: freelancers or entrepreneurial journalists. The most recent large scale survey among professional journalists in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, shows that one in five journalists is a freelancer (Raeymaeckers et al. 2013, 10) but that only half of them is satisfied with their job against 93% of employed journalists. Seen from this perspective, Flanders does not appear as a very fertile ground for entrepreneurial journalism. In spring 2012, based on a randomly selected sample of freelancers from the database of the Flemish Union for Journalists (VVJ), we conducted a qualitative in-depth interview study among 22 freelancers. Interviews were built around three main research questions: 1) What are considered the advantages and disadvantages of working as a freelancer in Flanders? 2) How satisfied are freelancers in Flanders with their work and lives? What are the reasons for their (dis)satisfaction? And most importantly: 3) What are the preconditions to make entrepreneurial journalism 'work' in Flanders? Our results show that there is no such thing as a 'fixed' list of advantages and disadvantages as most features of freelance work (e.g. flexibility in working hours and assignments) can be considered in both ways. Free choice is the main precondition that discriminates between the perspective of the master and the servant and entrepreneurial skills serve as a pivotal element in job satisfaction.

Ready to Hire a Freelance Journalist: the Change in Estonian Newsrooms’ Willingness to Outsource Journalistic Content Production

“…Media researchers have repeatedly pointed out the changing profile of freelance journalists. Cock and Smaele (2016), for example suggest the reasons for any profile change differ in each country and are due to journalists' conscious decisions, promoted by technological, entrepreneurial, and societal change. More commonly, research acknowledges the journalism profession is increasingly becoming more precarious with decreasing resources and redundancies in the newsrooms driving the change (Briggs, 2012;Deuze, 2009;Örnebring, 2016.…”

“…The idealists may accept low income if they have opportunities to work with journalism they deem important; the entrepreneurs are driven by succeeding in their own business and refer to partnering news organizations as customers (Mathisen, 2019). Successful freelance journalists have broad social networks or partners who provide professional support regarding journalism, but they also use help in accounting and budgeting since "running a business" takes an integral part of their time and adds up to having a second job (Cock & Smaele, 2016;Hunter, 2015). Therefore, freelancers must possess skills and competencies beyond the journalistic field.…”

“…In Belgium, every fifth journalist is a freelancer (Raeymaeckers et al, 2013). This statistic refers to a significant part of the institution which cannot be called atypical (De Cock & de Smaele, 2016). In Estonia, the overall number of people engaged in the media industry is 4500 (Kõuts-Klemm et al, 2019); approximately 1000 are directly occupied as professional journalists in news organizations (Krusell & Pihl, 2019).…”

Emprendimiento y futuro profesional del alumnado de periodismo

“…Existen numerosos estudios sobre la puesta en marcha de nuevos proyectos periodísticos basados gestionados por emprendedores (Bruno & Nielsen, 2012;Palacios, 2013;Escandell-Montiel, 2015;Peinado Miguel & Mateos Abarca, 2016;Holton, 2016;Pardo-Baldeón, 2016;Wavgemans et. al., 2016;Porlezza, C., & Splendore) y las motivaciones, las ventajas y las desventajas (De Cock & de Smaele, 2016) que encuentran los profesionales que apuestan por esta opción, que puede aportar, como señalan Siapera & Papadopoulou (2016), en el caso del estudio de las cooperativas periodísticas griegas, un beneficio social por sus vínculos orgánicos con la sociedad a la que sirven, más que grandes ganancias económicas, formando una alternativa creíble al periodismo emprendedor con fines de lucro.…”

Hybrid Engagement: Discourses and Scenarios of Entrepreneurial Journalism

“…More loose and inclusive descriptions emphasise an orientation of change as defining entrepreneurial journalism (Compaine & Hoag, 2012). Some authors even count freelancers as entrepreneurial journalists (De Cock & de Smaele, 2016;Holton, 2016) because of their "entrepreneurial soul" (Mathisen, 2017, p. 919). Along these lines, Schultz and Jones (2017, p. 12) emphasise "discovery and exploitation of opportunities" as defining entrepreneurial journalism, accentuating that entrepreneurial journalism does not concern only nascent and small enterprises but businesses of all sizes.…”