Updates on California’s Freelancer Law
Posted on Thursday, February 27, 2020 at 3:02 PM
In the news: Under fire, California is looking to revise its new
independent contractor law to accommodate freelance journalists.
Last
month’s changes to California’s freelancing law reverberated throughout
the publishing industry. Freelancers who created more than 35
“submissions” per year faced unemployment and/or diminished gig
prospects as the media companies they worked for scrambled to comply.
Several freelancer organizations sued the state of California in an
attempt to overturn parts of the law particularly damaging to the gig
workers they represent.
Earlier this month, Kerry Flynn of CNN
Business reported that California assembly member Lorena Gonzalez
announced plans to lift the 35-submission cap to alleviate the burden on
journalists and photographers. Read more here.
Also
Notable
Female Reporters and Editors Band Together to
Change Leave Policy
Recently, Mel Grau of Poynter.org told
the story of six reporters and editors at the Boston Globe who
banded together in 2017 to change the company’s family leave policy.
“The women weren’t work wives or best friends,” writes Grau. “They were
just colleagues who felt strongly that for newsrooms to survive and
thrive, they needed to create an environment where women could advance
in leadership.” Two years later, in 2019, their efforts finally paid off
and the company overhauled its family leave policy. Read the full story here.
Paywalls:
Evolving Strategies
These days, readers are running into new
magazine and newspaper paywalls all the time. This week, Beth Braverman
of Foliomag.com rounds up some of the more recent examples. This month, Women’s
Wear Daily, the New Republic, and Fortune have started
paywalling their online content. While Fortune will continue to
offer some free content, the magazine will offer a lot of its content at
three different subscription levels, Braverman reports. She also notes
that the New Republic’s paywall is metered and that Women’s
Wear Daily will take the “dynamic paywall” approach. Read more here.
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