Personal/Programming Notes
I just liked this photo, though if you see deeper psychological meaning in it, please speculate!
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic, around 50,000 journalists were working in the U.S. in 2024. I can find no accurate information about how those professions are divided among radio, television, and print, but let’s make a conservative estimate and say 35,000 are primarily writers. About a third of journalists are freelancers, which means perhaps 12,000 Americans are lucky enough to say they are full-time freelancer writers. (A freelance writer isn’t drawing a paycheck as a staff writer for a newspaper or magazine, and gets paid by the article or book.)
Twelve thousand people in a population of a 135 million full-time workers is fantastically small, and I realize how fortunate I am to be able to scratch out a living this way.* In fact, when I mention what I do, most people ask, “What’s your real job?”—and are startled to learn that I can actually make a living as a freelancer. I do not take my luck for granted and am thankful for my good fortune most days of the week.**
The one downside is that it’s hard to take time off. Last year I launched Celebrate Oregon Beer, and that made it even harder to step away from the computer. In fact, the last sustained vacation I had was January 2023. It’s not so much that I don’t have PTO, but that the calendar keeps filling up. As a freelancer, you’re constantly trying to pursue projects/stories, and it’s hard to step away from the possibility of the next opportunity. I mention all of this as a way of alerting you that I am taking a semi-vacation over the next month.
I’ll still be blogging when the mood strikes or otherwise posting stuff from the archives, and I’ll be checking emails. What I’ll try not to do is schedule any meetings, and no promises on the weekly newsletter (subscribers may note I already missed this week). It’s good for my brain—and ultimately my writing—to step away from the treadmill.
As I step away, though, I wanted to make one other profession-related comment. Things are, you might have noticed, a little weird in the United States right now. Twelve days ago, a relatively minor figure in American politics, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed. He was allied with President Trump and the conservative Republican Party (I mention this for foreign readers). In a disturbing development, a whole raft of people were fired in the aftermath of the murder for things they said about Kirk, his killer, or the murder itself. The Trump administration was out in front encouraging media companies, employers, and universities to crack down—and the US government has a lot of power to hurt all those institutions, so it wasn’t mere hand-waving.
“We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech. And employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things.”
In the next 3+ years, it’s going to be increasingly dangerous for people to speak in ways that might offend the ruling party. The government doesn’t have to go after individuals, either; employers will not defend their workers if their firm is at risk. (ABC fired Jimmy Kimmel, to use one example, after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened its licensing.) In related efforts, the Pentagon sent out a note threatening service members, Trump sued The New York Times for coverage he didn’t like, and he threatened to revoke the licenses of television affiliates who covered his administration unfavorably.
Journalists cover a broad range of topics, and reporting about the actions of their elected leaders and government officials is an important load-bearing wall in any democracy. It’s why, during democratic backsliding, one of the first things the aspiring autocrat does is taking control of the media. I write about beer, and to a small, niche audience, so there’s little worry the government would come after me. (Trump, famously, is not a drinker, so my hot takes about icy beer is unlikely to draw his ire.) Yet as a citizen and as a freelancer, all of this feels very personal. Written speech is not just my livelihood, but it has been a central part of my life. I wasn’t surprised to see these developments, but they did cut me deeply.
As I take the next month to think and reflect, I will be considering these new threats and what I can do as a citizen, reader, and writer. To all my colleagues, those thirty-odd thousand of you scribbling away, be brave. We need to hear your voices.
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* The average income for a freelance writer, according to Indeed and Zip Recruiter, is about $48,000 a year. The median income in my home state of Oregon is $73,000. It’s a profession one pursues for love, not money.
**Luck plays a huge part of any freelancer’s success, and certainly did in my career. It’s good if you can write well and understand how to report a story, but there are tons and tons of great writers and reporters who didn’t have the luck to get that story/book/column to launch a career. And needless to say, more than a few who can’t write or report well do manage to find a job in journalism—thought a lot fewer than most people imagine. Luck goes both ways.