The following is an open letter addressed to The Globe and Mail‘s editor-in-chief, John Stackhouse, and its publisher, Phillip Crawley, regarding the serious financial crisis the newspaper is apparently currently weathering.
22 March 2011
John Stackhouse, Editor-in-Chief
Phillip Crawley, Publisher
The Globe and MailDear Sirs:
I am writing to express my deep concern at the troubling and increasingly inescapable evidences that Canada’s august and historic national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, has fallen on hard times, and, further, to offer my apologies if I myself have been in any way responsible for the newspaper’s present difficulties.
Allow me to explain.
Last September I was commissioned to write a travel article for the special relaunch edition of The Globe and Mail that appeared on newsstands on October 2nd, 2010. (Let me just add as a sidenote: Love the gloss!) To my delight, I was able to negotiate a fee for the article that was well in excess of the frugal freelance rates The Globe is normally obliged to pay in the digital age, and indeed was nearly at the level of the premium rates that used to be in effect when I first started freelancing twenty years ago. At The Globe’s insistence I was also allowed to put all my expenses on my own credit card rather than on The Globe’s, thus accumulating points toward eventual free travel. Since my expenses included international flights, the points I was able to rack up were considerable, enough, say, for round-trip business class travel between Toronto’s island airport—were it not that political considerations make using that facility awkward—and the airport at Buttonville (had it not closed).
I had cause to regret exacting such onerous conditions from your newspaper, however, when, nearly two months after I submitted an invoice, I had yet to receive any payment or reimbursement. Enquiries to The Globe soon made clear where the problem lay: Due to cutbacks, I was told, the accounting office that dealt with payments to freelancers had suffered numerous layoffs, by that point reduced to a single secondary school student logging the community service hours she needed in order to graduate. I became concerned, on learning this, that it had been unduly selfish of me to have negotiated a fee increase or indeed to have insisted on reimbursement of my expenses, given the travel points I had accumulated. This concern grew to alarm when, after four months had passed and still no payment was forthcoming, The Globe was unable to provide any new explanation for the delay, which suggested that not only had its accounts office been gutted, but its public relations office as well. Now nearly six months have elapsed and my enquiries have ceased to receive a response of any sort, leading me to fear that despite the hope expressed in The Globe’s October relaunch, of which I was proud to be a part, whole wings of the newspaper’s offices now stand abandoned, victims of the unreasonable demands of greedy freelancers like myself.
My intention in writing to you, then, is not to lament my own fate but to express my fear and regret for yours. As a writer, I am accustomed to living frugally, and have come to believe I am a better person for it. We all know writers who through one fluke or another have come into sums of money approximating a living wage only to descend at once into profligacy, indulging in Mexican all-inclusives or brand-name clothing or, worse, allowing a distasteful optimism and joy of life to creep into their work. I have no desire to be among that class. Nor, indeed, is the carrying of debt of any great concern to me, since for the past number of years I and my wife, also a writer, have lived almost exclusively on the line of credit afforded to us by the unreasonable rise in real estate values in our city over the past decade. Unlike our unhappy neighbours to the south, whose economy was laid low by credit line excesses, we Canadians seem to have managed to limit our use of credit to the sort of bridge financing that recessions or the non-payment of fees sometimes make necessary. For writers, the arrangement is especially propitious, and indeed may represent the solution to every problem of arts funding that has ever plagued this country. Here is how it works: Every month my wife and I borrow as much money as we need to maintain the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to, our only obligation being that we make a monthly interest payment that can itself, wonder of wonders, be borrowed from our credit line. The added bonus is that should we ever reach our credit limit—which at current rates is not likely to happen before the fall, or even later, should we decide to suspend the university educations of our two eldest children—we need only turn over our home to our bank, and our entire debt is expunged.
So my concern here, as I say, is not for myself, but for your venerable newspaper, and, more particularly, for your own situations, given that people on fixed incomes like yourselves often have much less leeway in organizing their finances than those of us who are self-employed. Should it be then, that my unreasonable demands for payment have in any way compromised your newspaper’s finances or interfered with the speedy processing of your own paycheques, please let me know and I will at once cease and desist in those demands.
Yours sincerely,
Nino Ricci
What did you learn in school today? Sharing.
Hi Nino,
You are the real inspiration and your words will definitely show some limelight in the dark. Actually, the globe is becoming electronic but technological innovation has assisted newspapers as much as the Online. Creating those technical changes perform for them, in spite of of against them, will choose whether publications remain essential or road kill in turn.
Pitched a science story to two different editors at the Globe (one of which I went to school with, the other of which was a collegue from my CTV Globemedia days) this summer/fall.
After a response to my “are you the right person to pitch this to?”…”yes, you can pitch to me”, I received no reply from a detailed, exclusive inside-insight story idea that was dripping with timeliness. It’s not like I didn’t know the people I was pitching to or haven’t done any significant writing (CTV, The Star, Canadian Geographic, including this month’s Can Geo cover story, etc…)
After no-reply, I found – almost unedited, but not so similar I will complain I suppose – a bullet-point summary from my pitch actually in a story on the subject I pitched in a paragraph specifically about the inside scoop (which is now common info, albeit) that I was pitching on.
And after all this, even if I would have gotten an assignment, you’re telling me they’ve run out of the money I would have been promised as payment? Sounds like this was a bullet dodged – My decision to just re-work the pitch (which was eventually picked up several times) and move on. Best of luck to you good sir.
please write a reply to the Globes endorsement of Stephan Harper . I am ready to cancel
my forty year subscription.
What a great letter, Nino! I was thoroughly amazed by your passion and determination. The depth of your vocabulary is utterly astonishing. I write as well, but not for a living. I’m an accountant by trade. The only thing I’ve ever gotten paid for writing was a letter of complaint I sent to the Bank of Montreal for their terrible customer service. They sent me a cheque for $100.00 to keep me quiet. LOL
Nino,
Thank you so much for starting my morning off with a laugh. A bitter laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.
Having freelanced since 1985, I feel your pain. I share your views. I adore your humour and poignancy.
Sadly, I’ve found the writing of non-fiction trade books even less lucrative than the noble profession of freelance writing for periodicals. What’s a writer to do?
Blogs? …tried that, too. At least I get to create my own artwork (sans pay, of course). *sigh*
Thank goodness it’s all such fun and I’m gloriously famous!
Cheers,
Zoë Kessler
Blogger, ADHD from A to Zoë
I really sympathize with you Nino, but I guess I’m just one of those lucky writers who get SO much joy from the actual process of writing that the money’s just a wonderful bonus, a trifle, an afterthought. “Oh look! A cheque! What a funny old thing,” I say, tossing it on the dresser next to the stack of bills that also seems to adorably pile up.
Welp, I’m being summoned to a staff meeting about making the most of on-line marketing and social media at my day job — thankfully I LOVE meetings, too…keep fighting the good fight.
xo
Freelancers are among the most abused class of workers in North America. I know: I was a magazine editor for 15 years. Since publishers hold that all writers (and most editors) work for “fun,” why hurry to pay them? What I marvel at most is this: if the Globe can treat a writer of your acclaim so dismissively, for whom do they reserve timely payment?
Imagine wanting to be paid the terms of a contract? Imagine expecting Canada’s National Newspaper to live up to their words.
Nino, you are a delightful writer, but you are as naive as some of your characters!
Good luck getting paid. (And join the club. American publications have a habit of never paying. “Come and get us: we are BIG you are small.”)
McQuaid.
Thanks for this Nino. You are not alone. I wrote a 2300 word feature that appeared at the end of November. I submitted an invoice but didn’t get paid. The editor I was dealing with, Gabe Gonda, also gave me the story about the accounting office in turmoil. Then he simply stopped responding to my e-mails, and I still haven’t been paid. If you are planning to march on the King St. fortress, count me in.
They were too busy updating their Royal Wedding story of the day to make payments
Well said, Nino. You really should keep at this writing stuff and what not. Put as many people out of business as possible.
Nino, forget the naysayers. You have freelancers all over the continent raising a glass of discount wine to you! Brilliant- and so true!
As a longtime and still active freelancer, this was a joy to read. As a somewhat longtime owner/publisher who is sometimes late to pay other freelancers, this caused pangs of guilt… despite the obvious differences between the Glob and Flail and my monthly blat.
As I now reach for the company chequebook, my wretched freelance fist clenches and my arm rises in salute. Wonderful writing, Mr. Ricci.
Nino, Nino, Nino . . . What an absolutely asinine letter!
So you got results but at what cost? You portrayed your personal life woefully and gratuitously.
Your letter reminds me of a girl I met in the late sixties. A sweetheart. She could not say no to any guy wanting sex, because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings! She didn’t bake Alice B. Toklas brownies.
You had not yet sprouted into your entrepreneurial life, described with unabashed realism on the CBC’s Stranger than Fiction.
I would like to share with equal candor what the world has been dying to hear: “You and I dance in the Bolshoi on weekends for tip money! Air fare included”.
I am almost certain that your letter is satirical; but it so well disguised that I’d have to live inside your head to know for sure!
One reason it doesn’t work as memorable satire (like Swift’s Modest Proposal) is that it uses your art strictly for self-serving purposes. Like a lawyer arguing his own case.
Receiving payments on time is a common problem in business and less frequently in salaried employment. It is resolved (or not) with much less effort, more economy of words and certainly less deplorable public unveiling on your part.
Having read about your life, I’d love to read more of you books. I think I’ll buy 10 copies of each; after all, you used to sell drugs and your whole life is going down the tube, and you might have to sell your house! (Did you pick up my satire?)
If I am to believe your letter, I quote Don Corleone: “Waz a matter with you! Meeeh, meeeh, meeeh! Be a man!” The drug business is still good. You are enterprising remember?
If I am not to believe it, I say, why are you lying about yourself? You want to be known as a fraud?
You might have resolved the whole issue quietly and privately, with words such as:
“. . .under the terms of our agreement you have 30 days to comply with . . . .
Govern yourself accordingly.
Signed
(Your lawyer friend)”
In the final analysis you took on a windmill, which could have thrown you back into the air financially. What would you have done if G&M had accepted your offer to “cease and desist” in your demands, or better yet countered with 5 cents to the dollar that they owed you? Happens all the time.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it! I was writing satire!” would that have been your answer?
Since they paid, are you now going to explain why you are not giving the money back? Many admirers in their comments took you seriously, and were crying for you.
Remember the little girl that sent Revenue Canada her little bit of money she had saved? She actually made the tax forms change and inspired the view that government can benefit directly like a charity. I actually know an elderly gentleman who has decided to leave his lifelong savings of a million dollars to the government. Canada has been good to him — his children haven’t.
I would like to see how you handle this one.
Your long time fan.
Fix your teeth.
Get a real job you commies. Anyone that gets paid to write stories has no right to complain. There’s real peril in this world that isn’t lost in passive aggressive rhetoric.
“Anyone that gets paid to write stories has no right to complain.”
Unless, of course, they don’t get paid.
Sorry, sir, you’re a moron.
But he did eventually get his. Sometimes those that don’t understand the intricacies of a large corporate entity don’t understand how to work within its operational infrastructure to get what they are after. It appears that the problem isn’t the ‘system’ per se but rather one’s inability to work within this system’s requirements to achieve their desired resolution. So your statement of him not getting paid is redundant. Now if the issue at hand was getting paid on time, perhaps a greater sense of urgency in the request for payment may have resolved this desirably.