Is NFLMocks.com taking advantage of my son? He's just 15 years old, but he's been writing for them since February. They've told him that they can't pay him; that they don't pay any of their writers; that only the editors get paid.
We have no proof. We just have their word, and we've never met them.
It's possible. Lots of people write on the Internet for free, just to get exposure. But Chris and I have wondered if we should make more of a fuss about this and push them to pay.
When Kenzie turned 13, his passion for NFL and NCAA football videogames morphed into a passion for football player stats which morphed into a passion for evaluating the talents of college football players. He turned into an amateur college football scout. Each year, he'd Tivo dozens of college games on whatever obscure Warner Cable channel was carrying the game and take copious notes on 160+ players he'd decided to scout that year. He'd put together a "Big Board" ranking the players, create a Mock Draft and mail his predictions to ESPN prior to the actual draft, hoping to get a response. Kenzie started a blog, "Player-rater.blogspot.com" that eventually drew 5,000 hits per month. Then the chief editor at NFLMocks.com, who had read Kenzie's blog for over a year, invited him to start writing for them.
NFLMocks.com has advertisements. They must get some income. Should we push for pay?
Maybe not. According to Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
, by Daniel Pink, money can demotivate. People who do things out of passion may lose creativity and pleasure when the same activity becomes a job. Instead of doing the task because of how it makes them feel, they do it because they want to get paid and the activitiy becomes a drudgery.The most relevant study that Pink cites involved students at the Chicago Art Institute. While they were in school, some of these students had found ways to get paid for their artwork. Others simply practiced their art because they loved it. The study followed up on these students for over a decade after they graduated. Guess who turned out to be the most successful professional artists, both critically and financially? You guessed it. The artists who, as students, were never paid.
So maybe it's a good thing that Kenzie works his butt off for this website and they don't pay him one red cent. Let him work for free now. We'll argue about his pay a few years from now. But we won't be arguing with the website. We'll be arguing with ESPN.
I see your point, but my friends who try to make a living as writers are being edged out by all the people who are willing to write for free on the Internet. They do feel the free writers are being exploited and the field of professional writing is being downgraded as a result. However, it may also be that the professional writers are trying to push back the waves of the sea. New tech always brings changes to professions. (Darcie)
ReplyDeleteNot an easy situation. On the one hand, fewer writers can support themselves. On the other hand, more people are getting a chance to express themselves creatively and publicly in writing. I, for one, always wanted to write a book but was intimidated by the long odds against ever finding a publisher and getting more than a few people to buy. When I decided to write this blog, it was liberating. Finally, there was nothing stopping me from expressing myself.
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