One of my photos was published in Chicago magazine (and I got paid for it)
Back in February 18, I got an e-mail from the last place I expected.
Ratko Radojcic, the Assistant Art and Photo Editor for Chicago magazine, wrote that he wanted to use a photo he found on my Flickr stream for an upcoming article. It was a photo I took back in 2012, when I was exploring a less gentrified portion of the Near West Side community area, a neighborhood that used to be best known for the United Center hockey/basketball arena and the Henry Horner Homes and Rockwell Gardens public housing developments. Like most other public housing developments, both were torn down at the dawn of the 21st century and partially replaced with mixed-income developments. And, as eastern sections of Near West Side gentrified, people started wondering about possibilities further west.
During my original visit, I was researching an article for Chicago Journal where I was trying to address just that. And I took lots of photos - just for me. The one Radojcic was interested in wasn't any of my photos of the mixed-income developments, or the vacant lots where public housing once stood - he wanted a photo of a few older houses that survived urban renewal of 1950s and 1960s.
I was a bit surprised Radojcic wanted a 4-year-old photo - but not as surprised as I was that he reached to me at all. As you may recall, after I was fired from Pioneer Press, my former editor told me that whoever made the decision to get rid of me didn't want any editors using me as a freelancer - and not just in Pioneer Press, but in all publications which make up the Chicago Tribune Media Group. Which, yes, includes Chicago magazine.
But when I thought about it, I realized that it could very easily be that he didn't know. I didn't put my real name anywhere on Flickr. So I decided to see where this would go. I replied - using my real name - and said that I would be happy to. Especially since he offered to pay.
(It was a decent rate - I've been offered more, but usually, I'm offered a lot less).
After a bit of back and forth, Radojcic sent me some tax forms, and a form to get me registered as a vendor (a necessarily step if you want to get paid while freelancing for a Tribune publication). I submitted all the paperwork, found out I submitted it to the wrong address, resent it and then... nothing.
Meanwhile, as you may recall, a few things happened over at the Tribune Tower. Michael Ferro became a majority shareholder, effectively took control of the company and fired a whole bunch of people. Including Chicago publisher and EIC. I wouldn't have been shocked if the assignment got lost in the shuffle.
But on March 25, when I went to catch a bus to Cleveland to attend Grandpa Slava's funeral, I stopped by a Chicago Union Station newsstand on a whim and saw a new issue of Chicago. An issue that happened to have a cover story about the "next best thing" in Chicago real estate. I flipped through it and, sure enough, my photo was on Page 74.
I wasn't credited, but then, neither was any other photographer whose work was used in the article (I was credited in the online version, though). As far as I knew, I didn't get paid - but, at the time, I had far more pressing things to worry about, so I just bought the magazine and went to wait for the bus.
Once I got back, I e-mailed Radojcic, and he said that they got my paperwork, but it was still being processed.
I waited some more. Tribune has usually been pretty good about paying people, but payments have been known to take time.
On April 5, I got an official notification that the payment was going to be transferred to my account in the next few days. Usually, when I get that, it pretty much guarantees that I will be paid soon - but I still kept my fingers crossed until the money actually showed up (pretty much when the notice said it would).
None of this necessarily means that blacklisting is necessarily rescinded. I told Radojcic who I was, but I didn't tell him that I was blacklisted. Like I said, I wanted to see how far I would actually be able to get, and coming out and saying that there might be an issue could have easily kiboshed it. And since he had no reason to check if there was some reason why he wasn't supposed to use me as a freelancer...I think it's safe to say he never did. There was always a chance something would come up when they were setting me up as a vendor... but it was just as likely that nothing would come up even if they wanted to redflag me. I don't know how Tribune's billing system works.
But, as I previously wrote, Ferro's house-cleaning removed a lot of people in executives throughout Tribune Publishing in general and Chicago Tribune Media Group in particular. I still don't know who had me blacklisted - just that it was somewhere high on the corporate food chain. For all I know, by the time Chicago staff set me up as a vendor, whoever blacklisted me was gone, and nobody else was particularly inclined to care one way or another.
And there is always a possibility that, over the past few months, so many things have happened that people simply forgot about it.
All I know for sure is that, for the first time since June 2015, something I created showed up in a Tribune periodical - and I got paid for it. That alone makes me happy.
I didn't want to write about this until I was actually sure I got paid - and then, work and tax stuff kept getting in the way. I'm not sure if the issue is even on the newsstands anymore. But if you live in Chicago area and you happened to see a copy... Like I said, my photo is on page 74.
Ratko Radojcic, the Assistant Art and Photo Editor for Chicago magazine, wrote that he wanted to use a photo he found on my Flickr stream for an upcoming article. It was a photo I took back in 2012, when I was exploring a less gentrified portion of the Near West Side community area, a neighborhood that used to be best known for the United Center hockey/basketball arena and the Henry Horner Homes and Rockwell Gardens public housing developments. Like most other public housing developments, both were torn down at the dawn of the 21st century and partially replaced with mixed-income developments. And, as eastern sections of Near West Side gentrified, people started wondering about possibilities further west.
During my original visit, I was researching an article for Chicago Journal where I was trying to address just that. And I took lots of photos - just for me. The one Radojcic was interested in wasn't any of my photos of the mixed-income developments, or the vacant lots where public housing once stood - he wanted a photo of a few older houses that survived urban renewal of 1950s and 1960s.
I was a bit surprised Radojcic wanted a 4-year-old photo - but not as surprised as I was that he reached to me at all. As you may recall, after I was fired from Pioneer Press, my former editor told me that whoever made the decision to get rid of me didn't want any editors using me as a freelancer - and not just in Pioneer Press, but in all publications which make up the Chicago Tribune Media Group. Which, yes, includes Chicago magazine.
But when I thought about it, I realized that it could very easily be that he didn't know. I didn't put my real name anywhere on Flickr. So I decided to see where this would go. I replied - using my real name - and said that I would be happy to. Especially since he offered to pay.
(It was a decent rate - I've been offered more, but usually, I'm offered a lot less).
After a bit of back and forth, Radojcic sent me some tax forms, and a form to get me registered as a vendor (a necessarily step if you want to get paid while freelancing for a Tribune publication). I submitted all the paperwork, found out I submitted it to the wrong address, resent it and then... nothing.
Meanwhile, as you may recall, a few things happened over at the Tribune Tower. Michael Ferro became a majority shareholder, effectively took control of the company and fired a whole bunch of people. Including Chicago publisher and EIC. I wouldn't have been shocked if the assignment got lost in the shuffle.
But on March 25, when I went to catch a bus to Cleveland to attend Grandpa Slava's funeral, I stopped by a Chicago Union Station newsstand on a whim and saw a new issue of Chicago. An issue that happened to have a cover story about the "next best thing" in Chicago real estate. I flipped through it and, sure enough, my photo was on Page 74.
I wasn't credited, but then, neither was any other photographer whose work was used in the article (I was credited in the online version, though). As far as I knew, I didn't get paid - but, at the time, I had far more pressing things to worry about, so I just bought the magazine and went to wait for the bus.
Once I got back, I e-mailed Radojcic, and he said that they got my paperwork, but it was still being processed.
I waited some more. Tribune has usually been pretty good about paying people, but payments have been known to take time.
On April 5, I got an official notification that the payment was going to be transferred to my account in the next few days. Usually, when I get that, it pretty much guarantees that I will be paid soon - but I still kept my fingers crossed until the money actually showed up (pretty much when the notice said it would).
None of this necessarily means that blacklisting is necessarily rescinded. I told Radojcic who I was, but I didn't tell him that I was blacklisted. Like I said, I wanted to see how far I would actually be able to get, and coming out and saying that there might be an issue could have easily kiboshed it. And since he had no reason to check if there was some reason why he wasn't supposed to use me as a freelancer...I think it's safe to say he never did. There was always a chance something would come up when they were setting me up as a vendor... but it was just as likely that nothing would come up even if they wanted to redflag me. I don't know how Tribune's billing system works.
But, as I previously wrote, Ferro's house-cleaning removed a lot of people in executives throughout Tribune Publishing in general and Chicago Tribune Media Group in particular. I still don't know who had me blacklisted - just that it was somewhere high on the corporate food chain. For all I know, by the time Chicago staff set me up as a vendor, whoever blacklisted me was gone, and nobody else was particularly inclined to care one way or another.
And there is always a possibility that, over the past few months, so many things have happened that people simply forgot about it.
All I know for sure is that, for the first time since June 2015, something I created showed up in a Tribune periodical - and I got paid for it. That alone makes me happy.
I didn't want to write about this until I was actually sure I got paid - and then, work and tax stuff kept getting in the way. I'm not sure if the issue is even on the newsstands anymore. But if you live in Chicago area and you happened to see a copy... Like I said, my photo is on page 74.