The Niles Bugle non-payment saga - It's over
I did promise to update everyone, didn't I?
For those of you who haven't seen my posts on Facebook and/or Twitter, on Friday, March 30, I got a check for the first two weeks of March. Not the month of February, or the two weeks of March I invoiced for a day before I wrote the last post on the matter. Which was... random, but that did bring the amount Niles Bugle owed me down to $765, so I was't going to complain - though I was going to wonder if I was going to get the remaining three checks.
Then, on Tuesday, April 3, exactly seven days after I wrote my last post, I got a text from the Bugle editor, wondering if I was still interested in writing for Bugle.
Thing is, the deadline for that week's issue was Monday morning. So my editor didn't bother to ask until completing an entire issue without hearing anything from me. This was her wondering about the next issue, the one that's going to come out this week.
I explained via text, as politely as I could manage, that I had bills to pay, and with the Bugle not being terribly reliable, it made more sense for me to focus on writing for papers that (as I've written before on this LJ) may have occasionally had delay issues, but at least they addressed them ASAP.
The editor responded by saying that the chain's General Manager (basically, its de facto publisher) took an unexpected sick leave back in early January due to...for the sake of his privacy, I won't elaborate on the exact nature of his health issues and just say that they were fairly serious. And then, on the advice of his doctor, quit the job entirely. The editor said that, since all of the checks had to go past him, this meant no checks could go out. And that they then had to restructure Voyager Media/Enterprise Newspapers' editorial structure to give their head accounting person authority to sign checks.
My former editor closed her text message by saying that letting me know all of that wouldn't have gotten me paid any faster, so she didn't.
This does line up with some references she made back in January about a whole bunch of people in the office being sick, and vague references to the General Manager being out of office... But there is just, well, more then one problem. First, remember how I said that it wasn't until I tried going over my editor's head by calling the office directly that I got some traction, even if it was her covering my December invoices out of her own pocket? Well, the person I spoke to at the office said that the chain's VP of Advertising and Marketing just finished handing out checks to employees. So clearly somebody isn't telling the whole truth. And, of course, there is the not-so-small matter of the fact that this isn't the first time Bugle payment delays stretched into weeks and months. Or even the second. So clearly, there are some other factors at play.
The editor that she was more confident about the chain's financial state then she had been in January-March. And that she understood if I didn't want to write anything for the Bugle while it still owed me money, but that she hoped I would reconsider once the remaining checks arrived.
On Wednesday, she said that the remaining three checks were on the way. And, to give credit where credit is due, they did arrive on Saturday.
Funny how that works out.
Now, part of me is still crossing my fingers, because the last time Bugle sent me more then two checks at the same time to pay off what it owed, the checks bounced. I guess we'll find out tomorrow (on Tuesday).
At stupid and as sad as it sounds, part of me did consider whether I wanted to go back. I have been writing about Niles for one paper or another since January 2013. I had connections and resources. I knew the terrain and a lot of the history to provide context. But I keep coming back to the fact that I already overlooked the delays and hoped that things would get better, and it only got much worse. I can't really trust the Bugle not to screw me over again.
Niles Journal already got a good report who knows that beat better than me. If Pioneer Press asked me to cover Niles again, I wouldn't object because, whatever you may say about the way I was blacklisted, they paid their bills on time and without any delays. But the editor who is in charger of the group of papers Niles Herald-Spectator is part of wasn't too receptive the last two times I asked, and between what I see in the Pioneer Press newspapers, what's going on in Tribune Publishing/Tronc as a whole and what I hear from people who work there, I don't think they're that terribly interested in freelancers.
As it stands, my current arrangement with Wednesday Journal Inc is that I would continue writing at least two articles a week for Austin Weekly News, cover the park board meetings in the villages of Oak Park and River Forest for Wednesday Journal and cover government meetings for Village Free Press (a blog turned newspaper that's affiliated with, but not owned by, the company), writing at least four articles a week. If I continue writing at least three articles a month for Palatine Journal and write one article a week for Cook County Chronicle, that should be more then enough to cover the essential expenses and have some money left over.
I finally heard back from the editor of Streetsblog Chicago and he was interested in having me do more stuff. I still need to work out the exact deadlines, but if this becomes a regular thing.... Well, the first priority would be restoring my reserves. And then, it would be a nice bonus source of income, if nothing else.
There has been no real movement on that other freelance opportunity I alluded to in the last post, but I'm kind of hopeful that it would work out. Because what they pay per article, while still not reaching the record set by that one piece I did for UIC Alumni magazine, would come pretty damn close.
Anyway... here's hoping those Bugle checks don't bounce.
For those of you who haven't seen my posts on Facebook and/or Twitter, on Friday, March 30, I got a check for the first two weeks of March. Not the month of February, or the two weeks of March I invoiced for a day before I wrote the last post on the matter. Which was... random, but that did bring the amount Niles Bugle owed me down to $765, so I was't going to complain - though I was going to wonder if I was going to get the remaining three checks.
Then, on Tuesday, April 3, exactly seven days after I wrote my last post, I got a text from the Bugle editor, wondering if I was still interested in writing for Bugle.
Thing is, the deadline for that week's issue was Monday morning. So my editor didn't bother to ask until completing an entire issue without hearing anything from me. This was her wondering about the next issue, the one that's going to come out this week.
I explained via text, as politely as I could manage, that I had bills to pay, and with the Bugle not being terribly reliable, it made more sense for me to focus on writing for papers that (as I've written before on this LJ) may have occasionally had delay issues, but at least they addressed them ASAP.
The editor responded by saying that the chain's General Manager (basically, its de facto publisher) took an unexpected sick leave back in early January due to...for the sake of his privacy, I won't elaborate on the exact nature of his health issues and just say that they were fairly serious. And then, on the advice of his doctor, quit the job entirely. The editor said that, since all of the checks had to go past him, this meant no checks could go out. And that they then had to restructure Voyager Media/Enterprise Newspapers' editorial structure to give their head accounting person authority to sign checks.
My former editor closed her text message by saying that letting me know all of that wouldn't have gotten me paid any faster, so she didn't.
This does line up with some references she made back in January about a whole bunch of people in the office being sick, and vague references to the General Manager being out of office... But there is just, well, more then one problem. First, remember how I said that it wasn't until I tried going over my editor's head by calling the office directly that I got some traction, even if it was her covering my December invoices out of her own pocket? Well, the person I spoke to at the office said that the chain's VP of Advertising and Marketing just finished handing out checks to employees. So clearly somebody isn't telling the whole truth. And, of course, there is the not-so-small matter of the fact that this isn't the first time Bugle payment delays stretched into weeks and months. Or even the second. So clearly, there are some other factors at play.
The editor that she was more confident about the chain's financial state then she had been in January-March. And that she understood if I didn't want to write anything for the Bugle while it still owed me money, but that she hoped I would reconsider once the remaining checks arrived.
On Wednesday, she said that the remaining three checks were on the way. And, to give credit where credit is due, they did arrive on Saturday.
Funny how that works out.
Now, part of me is still crossing my fingers, because the last time Bugle sent me more then two checks at the same time to pay off what it owed, the checks bounced. I guess we'll find out tomorrow (on Tuesday).
At stupid and as sad as it sounds, part of me did consider whether I wanted to go back. I have been writing about Niles for one paper or another since January 2013. I had connections and resources. I knew the terrain and a lot of the history to provide context. But I keep coming back to the fact that I already overlooked the delays and hoped that things would get better, and it only got much worse. I can't really trust the Bugle not to screw me over again.
Niles Journal already got a good report who knows that beat better than me. If Pioneer Press asked me to cover Niles again, I wouldn't object because, whatever you may say about the way I was blacklisted, they paid their bills on time and without any delays. But the editor who is in charger of the group of papers Niles Herald-Spectator is part of wasn't too receptive the last two times I asked, and between what I see in the Pioneer Press newspapers, what's going on in Tribune Publishing/Tronc as a whole and what I hear from people who work there, I don't think they're that terribly interested in freelancers.
As it stands, my current arrangement with Wednesday Journal Inc is that I would continue writing at least two articles a week for Austin Weekly News, cover the park board meetings in the villages of Oak Park and River Forest for Wednesday Journal and cover government meetings for Village Free Press (a blog turned newspaper that's affiliated with, but not owned by, the company), writing at least four articles a week. If I continue writing at least three articles a month for Palatine Journal and write one article a week for Cook County Chronicle, that should be more then enough to cover the essential expenses and have some money left over.
I finally heard back from the editor of Streetsblog Chicago and he was interested in having me do more stuff. I still need to work out the exact deadlines, but if this becomes a regular thing.... Well, the first priority would be restoring my reserves. And then, it would be a nice bonus source of income, if nothing else.
There has been no real movement on that other freelance opportunity I alluded to in the last post, but I'm kind of hopeful that it would work out. Because what they pay per article, while still not reaching the record set by that one piece I did for UIC Alumni magazine, would come pretty damn close.
Anyway... here's hoping those Bugle checks don't bounce.