Mad Monbiot

George Monbiot

Geroge Monbiot, hosted on The Guardian

Guardian ecology columnist George Monbiot has listed his earnings and savings and said all journalists should do the same. I am not sure if he is just showing off about how much he earns – more than £60,000 from the Guardian – but he cannot be serious.

Journalists should feel no more compunction to reveal their earnings and savings than anyone else. And it would be a mountain of work for the many of us who are freelance and such scrambled data would prove meaningless. I’ll have a go at explaining why. Continue reading

Late pay gripes

This week, instead of being a journalist and trainer, I spent at least a day dealing with late paying clients. It was mainly AOL, which, until today, had not paid a single freelance contributor, despite us working since December.

My company has now been paid more than £10,000 by some clients and we have remittance advices in from others so will be paid by Tuesday. But as of today we have more than £21,000 of invoices outstanding, of which nearly £2,400 is already overdue. That is me lending companies money. Continue reading

Tweeting twits

Tweets from #governmentnews are so wrong the person tweeting should be taken out and shot. Journalists should avoid this site because of its inaccurate and misleading information.

Yesterday, 17 January, it tweeted that new donation and funding figures for political parties had been published. This was just baloney. Continue reading

Blog or bog off

In the past few days I have worked from my Macbook using mobile internet connections from:

  • The top and bottom decks of double decker buses
  • standing up on a London commuter train
  • Seated on a Virgin train
  • On the overground section on a London tube
  • In a Starbucks and a Pret
  • Standing on Oxenholme and Lewisham stations

I have used a mix of my Vodafone dongle and my BT Openworld account. And that is in addition to several other people’s home wireless broadband networks. Continue reading

All of a twitter

Here’s two lists of journalists on Twitter:

Some of these may technically be the journalist’s twitter details but several rarely if ever post.

And I am not on either list – do I want to be?

You’ve got to admire my source

Thanks to a Journalism.co.uk tweet for this.

Journalism.co.uk story (link opens new window)

Coping strategy

I had a bath this morning. I doubt I am any cleaner than the extensive soap and flannel body wash I had standing on one leg each day since I left hospital after my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee operation on Monday. But I feel completely different.

And how you feel is vital. When you have an injury, illness or something else that knocks you back – especially as a freelance, potentially alone for long periods – you need a strategy to cope. Continue reading