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Centering Teams in Practice
Best Practices
for Working
With Freelancers
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CONTENTS
Extending organizational values to your freelance relationships
The criminal legal system operates primarily at the local and state levels, so The Appeal takes a multi-local approach to our journalism, covering issues that impact local communities and elevating experts and impacted individuals on the ground. But we are a small team, so we rely on the expertise of freelancers to ensure we are covering important stories across the country.
In fact, we intentionally track the demographics of our freelance writers to ensure we work with freelancers who represent the communities we are reporting on. In 2022, 32% of our freelance writers were BIPOC and this grew in 2023 to 43%.
When we relaunched, we knew we wanted to extend our values of equity, transparency, and care to how we worked with freelancers. Specifically, we didn’t want to continue historical patterns of leaving freelancers underpaid, unprotected, and their financial stability left to the whims of an editorial calendar.
So we set out, as we have done with most things, to intentionally engage freelancers in the most equitable way possible. This meant looking at both our contracts and our editorial process to make sure we were centering our freelancers in both. Here’s how you can do the same.
Best Practices for Working With Freelancers
Draft equitable
freelance contracts
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We were fortunate to connect with Georgetown Law School’s Intellectual Property and Information Policy Clinic early on, who helped us draft industry-leading standards to avoid financially burdening freelancers and ensure that they maintain rights to their work product.
We looked at three main things:
1. Make Contracts Legible and Accessible
We have all signed contracts too dense and legalistic to actually read, and most of us have had at least one experience where that backfired. Opaque contracts are often used as a way to take advantage of people, and freelance contracts are no exception.
By drafting contracts that are clear, concise, and written in plain language, you communicate to freelancers that their understanding of the agreement you are entering into is important to you. A few tips:
Reconsider if Certain Clauses Are Necessary
Are there any clauses that can be taken out, incorporated into a broader clause, or incorporated into your copyright policies?
Help Freelancers Understand Their Contract
Provide one-pager with the contract that equips freelancers with the information needed to protect and use their work as a copyright owner.
Remove as Much Legalese as Possible
Almost all jargon can be effectively swapped out for everyday language that you don’t need a law degree to decipher.
⟶ Read more from our Contract and Freelancer Resource Guide
2. Give Ownership of Intellectual Property Rights
The majority of freelance contracts we’ve seen allow outlets to own freelancer’s work. When we dug into how we felt about this, we realized it is neither fair nor necessary. When you produce journalism in your capacity as an employee, with a salary and benefits and all the protections that entails, it’s one thing for your employer to own the rights to your work. But when you are a freelancer with none of those things, your work is your currency.
At The Appeal, our contract specifies we have exclusive worldwide rights for the first 90 days from publication. Our freelancers keep their copyrights, and we’re able to keep their work available for republication via a Creative Commons license.
By allowing freelancers to retain the rights to their work and granting your outlet the necessary licenses you need to publish and control the use of their work, you allow freelancers to be involved in and gain from any opportunities for derivative uses of the work (podcasts, movies, books, etc.) that arise. Here’s our Profit-Sharing Provision as an example, along with some additional tips to consider:
THE APPEAL Profit-Sharing Provision
Profit-Sharing
In the event that The Appeal or the Author receives a fee for use of the Work(s) (i.e., use in an audio or audiovisual work, republication, etc.), the party contracting with a third-party entity will pay the non-contracting party 50% of the total net amount actually received, meaning all gross receipts less any (i) commissions or fees to third-party agents or distributors; (ii) industry-standard allowances; (ili) bad debt (loans or outstanding balances owed that are no longer deemed recoverable); and (iv) excise, sales, use, or other similar taxes.
The Appeal may grant permission to third parties to republish the Author’s Work(s) without payment of any fee, in which case The Appeal does not owe the Author any additional payment. In the event of an option agreement (where the contracting party and/or third party has the right but not the obligation to exercise the agreement) or option clauses) as part of a larger agreement, 25% of the net amount will go to The Appeal and 75% to the Author.
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Think About Your Copyright Policy More Broadly and Consider Its Implications
How does your agreement with freelancers interact with your republication and co-publication processes, particularly in terms of rights and responsibilities that affect both parties involved?
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Ask an Intellectual
Property Lawyer for Help— and Get a Second Opinion!
Some lawyers are more risk-averse and conservative than others, but the right lawyers will help you make sure you are protecting your outlet and your freelancers at the same time.
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Consider
Your Options on
What Aligns Best
Do you want a standard contract that will work for all people? Do you want a flexible contract that allows freelancers to negotiate on a case-by-case basis? How important is it for your outlet to be involved in or control derivatives?
3. Pay Sooner
Waiting for a publisher’s paycheck is hard enough without the certainty of when it will actually arrive. Unfortunately, this is a common experience for freelancers. An article gets caught up in fact-checking, publication schedules change, new developments arise in the story, and all of a sudden a freelancer is waiting months to get paid. Meanwhile, rent and bills wait for nothing.
By developing incremental pay schedules you can allow your freelancers to get paid for their work more promptly while still protecting your newsroom from paying in full for articles before they get published. Here’s our Compensation Provision as an example, along with some additional tips to consider:
THE APPEAL Compensation Provision
Compensation
i. The Appeal will pay one dollar ($1) per commissioned word for reported and first-person pieces up to 2,000 words. Payment for longer pieces is negotiable. The Author must submit an invoice to receive any payment, and reimbursements will be issued only to authorized expenses. The author may invoice incrementally based on the kill fee schedule below.
ii. The Appeal reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet The Appeal’s standards for content and quality. If The Appeal chooses not to publish a submission, the Author will receive a kill fee based on the number of drafts submitted:
• 20% of the assigned word count after the first draft is submitted revisions
• 30% of the assigned word count during editing
• 50% of the assigned word count during fact-checking and/or copy editing
iii. If the Author fails to meet agreed-upon deadlines, The Appeal may withhold payment.
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Think About What Is Feasible for
Your Finance/HR Staff
While paying freelancers on time is super important, more opportunities to submit invoices means more invoices that need to be paid on time. What systems could work for both your operations staff and freelancers?
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Think About
Your Kill Fees
Does your pay schedule commit you to more than you would pay if you decide not to publish your story? How might you need to adapt kill fees as a result?
Best Practices for Working With Freelancers
Prioritize Freelancers’
Needs in Your
Editorial Process
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Given how vital freelancers are to our multi-local approach, we don’t just want to offer great policies on paper. It is important to us that The Appeal continues to be a publication freelancers are excited to pitch and publish with. This is why we didn’t just draft new freelance contracts when we relaunched, but also overhauled our commissioning process.
By designing an editorial process that accommodates freelance needs and making sure writers feel valued and involved in the publication of their stories, you can maximize your newsroom’s attractiveness to freelancers.
Some tips:
Be
Upfront
What information can you put on your site about your pitching process that will answer freelancers’ questions and remove potential headaches later?
The Appeal’s pitching guide not only tells freelancers which email to pitch, but tells them which verticals and geographic regions we’re prioritizing, our pay rate, and our payment processing.
Communicate Clearly
Making expectations, deadlines, and processes clear helps cut down on back-and-forth, publishing delays, and other hiccups that come up when folks aren’t on the same page.
When we commission a story, we don’t just share the word count and deadline, but also make clear our fact-checking process and standards so nobody is blindsided later.
Listen to
Feedback
By consistently building and nurturing good relationships with freelancers, we created an environment that allows our writers to feel comfortable letting us know when things aren’t working for them, or when improvements can be made.
Some of the best changes to our process came from freelancers openly communicating their challenges and suggestions.
Create Simple Systems
Too often clunky systems lead to unsigned contracts, uncollected W9s, and missing invoices. Think about what would be the simplest process for your freelancers. When commissioning, we direct freelancers to a webpage that lays out this process and use HelloSign to capture contracts seamlessly.
Limit Asking for Free Work
While it is important to make sure articles fit your outlet’s specific voice and tone, avoid asking writers to submit pieces on spec. If you’re uncertain about publishing this particular writer, it may better serve both parties if you simply say no upfront.
Recognize Time is Money
Be aware of how much time it can truly take to go back and forth when trying to decide on the framing of a pitch.
Will jumping on a quick phone call potentially save you from sending multiple emails back and forth just to refine pitch details.
ADVICE
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GUIDES
Centering Teams in Practice
Best Practices for
Working With Freelancers
Centering Teams in Practice
Building Newsrooms That SPUR Impact
and Support Journalists
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RETURN TO Care & Collaboration Toolkit
The Appeal is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to exposing the harms of the criminal legal system, equipping readers with the information they need to make change, and elevating solutions that emerge from communities most impacted by policing, jails, and prisons.
In a country where nearly half of all American adults have had an immediate family member incarcerated, we are committed to sharing untold stories of incarcerated people, holding power to account, and examining alternatives to the criminal legal system.
As one of the first worker-led, nonprofit news organizations in the country, The Appeal is partnering with RJI to provide deeper insights on how to center care and collaboration in all types of organizations. This toolkit goes behind the scenes, offering practical tools and guidance for transforming newsrooms in both big and small ways.
Learn More About Us ⟶