I love my job I really do but there are one or two drawbacks to being freelance. While I don’t work in any specific newsroom I’m apparently answerable to all of them. Even though they don’t decide what I cover and I have a boss I still get phonecalls at all hours from subs and editors yelling that my copy’s too long, or too short or that a typo crept in when I was filing a verdict in a hurry.

I mean, for god’s sake! That’s why newspapers employ subs. So there’s a filter between the sometimes garbled ramblings of the journos and the public. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it should be.

When you’re crouching in a hail storm trying to balance an umbrella over your laptop because the jury were late returning a verdict and everywhere’s locked up (can and does happen on occassion) the odd spelling mistake is going to creep in.

An elegant turn of phrase is all very well but when the newsdesks are screaming at you to get the copy to them before anybody else (despite the fact I file to every newsroom simultaneously) accuracy becomes far more important.

Since they tend to tear my copy to pieces anyway to fit to their individual house style I tend to focus on getting the information out in as clear a way as possible even if it’s not going to be the way it finally reads.

All I can try and do is write clean accurate copy that will provide a wide range of newsrooms with the material they need. But trying telling them that!

There is one particular client, who shall remain nameless, who treat me as some kind of sub moronic work experience. If a comma is out of place or a word misspelled they have been known to ring me and demand a correction…even though the amount of time it spends to phone me and talk to me the way you would an average dog takes considerable more time than it would take them to do the change themselves.

Journalism is not a particularly polite business. I don’t mind that – it’s probably one of the reasons I feel I belong here – but there is a culture of bullying that is completely unnecessary.

There are a lot of businesses that require documents to be produced accurately and at speed. But I think a lot of corporate environments are beginning to work out that ringing someone up and giving them a bollocking is maybe not the best way to get them to work faster.

OK so maybe some of you reading this are thinking “what a wimp! Why does she stick at something she’s obviously not suited for?” But the thing is I am suited for this job. Generally speaking I do produce accurate copy with a very quick turnaround but I’m still only human and if it makes me a wimp to object to someone who isn’t even my boss tearing strips off me for a relatively minor reason then wimp I am.

I’ve worked in a corporate environment. If anyone talked to me the way some news editors have done so in the past I would have walked out. The problem with journalism is you don’t really have that option. It’s one of those jobs where management skills tend to be slight to non existent. There’s no reason why this should be so. Not really. I know how tight my deadline is and I push myself to get to it. Most journalists do. It’s part of our nature. So someone in charge screaming because things aren’t quite the way they are is pointless and counter productive.

Putting more pressure on those out in the field just leads to more mistakes. OK I think I’ve ranted enough. It was a long day and I’m looking forward to a relaxing evening – as long as my phone doesn’t ring again!

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